Napoleon, Defiance and the shelf layout...
There are two things that draw me back time and again to North American modelling, first of all the 'correct' track gauge to scale ratio and second, even today wagonload traffic still thrives...
For the modeller who is a little 'constrained' in the space department single car customers are the perfect muse as they allow us to blend available space with suitable prototype. A few months ago, whilst digging about on YouTube for high hood GP9s in service I stumbled upon the Gettysburg 105, now resident at Pioneer Railcorp's Napoleon Defiance and Western (yes, the real name!). A video showed this veteran switching a facility with a couple of covered hoppers and the blend of industrial factory with green space and a church, street running and the bright red GP all screamed 'model me'.
The plant was the Johns Manville plant in Defiance, just outside of the yard limit of the ND&W. Often switched by the usual black liveried GPs on the line, 105 is only fired up when the plant needs service and the road power is out on the line. All inbound material is in covered coppers - soda ash from Wyoming, sand from Illinois and borates from California, and the unloading point has two tracks, with space for no more than 4 cars at a time.
To whet you're appetite for this particular prototype, if more is needed beyond the incredible name, take a look at the 105 in action in the video above, and in these photos shared here from the wonderful collections on Flickr (these images are embedded using the Flickr embed tool, and I do not take any credit for them or store copies on my own blogger server).
Translating this to our model I propose we include a bit of the yard for shunting empties and loads and ordering what the plant needs, and the plant itself. Include the church and street running too to place the layout, and put the industrial structures of the plant on the back scene leaving the brick build warehouse/office alongside the road and a covered shed over the unloading tracks. All locomotives and cars are readily available in H0, and you'd managed to cobble together suitable vehicles easily in N these days too... I shared the prototype and my thoughts with Chris…
This is neat.
Interesting how there’s two operating schemes in this: working the yard or working the customer spur. Neither needs to be so complex and they’re almost overlapping in their context.
If you consider the two elements (yard and plant) there are different ways these could be arranged. Space starved we don't have a run around loop so Option 1 would required either the hand of god or some sort of off stage cassette or traverser. This 'shelf' style layout could be as long or as short as you have space for and non-linear would work even better. I don't believe you need to add a second customer to add interest in this sort of small space - and Lance agrees with his 'single turnout' blog this week. Of course, it's a topic I've returned to plenty of times in the past too...
In a smaller space I'd suggest Option 2 would work well in N, corner location, perhaps even above a workbench built from one of the excellent IKEA Micke corner desks? In H0 a little more space would be needed, but you'd be surprised how tight a corner you can get a GP9 and 'shorter' covered cars around - so you might manage to get it on top of some IVAR 'garage' style shelving?
Small layouts are not only small, but they're achievable. They fit well in our modern homes, they allow us to finish a layout, try out some new skills, model a different prototype... the list goes on. Neither are they purely solitary beasts, I enjoy operating Beaverbrook with my son on occasion - one of us in Engineer, the other conductor (usually me!). Light your imagination and stoke up the fire with some YouTube searching and you'll find plenty of material for short line / end of line operations across North America. Until next time, more soon...
Donate
I love writing and creating material for the blog. If you enjoy what you read and engage with I would be appreciative of any donation, large or small, to help me keep it advert and restriction free.
What a great find. I also spotted a BKTY boxcar in that video just to give a little bit more interest. Like you, I'm very much a fan of US shortlines with their more interesting secondhand motive power and paint schemes.
ReplyDeleteYou’ve said it perfectly, a really great find! There are so many ideas out there… the old Kalmbach shortline guides are a good place to dig about too..,
DeleteHi James
ReplyDeleteYes I agree short-line railroads are really interesting and are one of the areas that set modelling north American modelling apart from that in at least the UK. It is also true in my opinion that the development of shortlines in the real world is a positive aspect of the railroad scene. It is a shame that we in this country have not embraced the concept, perhaps because we have, to me, an unhealthy emphasis of passenger traffic and have left freight to much to the lorry. I seem to remember that companies in the US often demand a rail access as a way of reducing cost, with a shortline being the flexible “last mile” in the chain and this is supported by the railroads and government. Here companies lost their rail connection at the behest of government as branchlines were shut without a rail alternative being considered.
To the modeller, as I think you are suggesting, shortlines provide an antidote to the 100-car freight and still indulge in car-load traffic and “industrial” switching. It is also true that shortlines own and operate an often eclectic variety of locos and equipment not seen on today’s class ones but still able to “do it” for their owners. I especially like the “captive railroad” where a major shipper owns the shortline even if they contract out the switching. This gives a more personal feel to the operation and is the type of shortline that is the basis of my model railroad.
Best regards
Alan
Another excellent appraisal Alan, indeed, and of course the three of us commenting are already ‘converted’ to the cause.
DeleteThe closest we can find in the UK is Speedlink followed by Transrail and later Burkhardt era EWS Enterprise, wagon load short freights down odd back waters to what remained of our industrial and business related ‘short lines’. Today’s containerised trains do little for me here in the UK.
ReplyDeleteHi James
I guess maybe the closest we got in the UK to shortlines were the Light Railways of the 1930’s. However they could not really compete and so Speedlink et al was BR’s attempt to generate that extra traffic. It is perhaps not surprising that the early success of EWS came with the Burkhardt management team who of course had a background in US shortline railroads. I remember back in the 1990’s I was on a train going to the Railway Museum York for a business meeting and Ed Burkhardt was sitting across the aisle. He spent a while looking out the windows at the trucks being overtaken on the adjoining A1 and taking notes. He then turned to, I guess, one of his marketing team and said something like “lets get some of that business paralleling our tracks and see where it comes and go to”. I just wish that mind set was carried on into the Deutsche Bahn era and we might have a more vibrant rail freight sector
Best regards
Alan
Wonderful anecdote Alan, and what a shame that we didn’t see the revival and growth in wagonload that perhaps we could have seen, alas it wasn’t to be… period modelling is of course a good way to relive this, but somehow our rather bland BR and post privatisation era means realism restricts us from creating shortlines or similar on UK national network, whereas we’re quite happy creating faux history for narrow gauge and industrial standard gauge models.
Delete