Hilton and Mears: Where the sun never sets…

Somehow the Millis branch in Masachussets has until now remained unmentioned here on my blog. Today infrequent service sees a Bay Colony GP8 fired up once a month (or so) to switch some cement cars for transload - but roll back twenty years to the turn of the century and things were much busier...

Mind in that time though some things haven't changed. The line is laid in light rail, through a mixture of New England countryside and small towns, quite heavily wooded in places yet still managing a lovely trestle over the Charles River. Interchange is with CSX at Needham Junction near Medfield and sadly when the GAF plant closed in 2007 the branch was mothballed, though happily in recent years it has been re-activated for occasional cement traffic as mentioned in the intro, and the yard in town still exists offering potential for car storage. That said, I suspect the days of a GP shuffling dozens of box cars and covered hoppers around in central Millis are probably gone for good.

Chris and I discovered the line separately around the same time, sharing the same video of the GP8 rolling along that signature light rail through a sea of grass with each other! While Chris’s interpretation explores the branch in its current form in the summer, I see the opportunity to model a 'real' branchline in a familiar space. The relatively sparse nature of the railroad means compression is quite easy yet makes for a great balance between being able to operate your layout or rail fan it, either could quite happily be the focus of any given solo operating session...

Instead of “the operating session” being an act of moves by a train I like the idea of the experience, the choreography of the overall movement. Not only acting realistically when switching cars around but modelling the cadence of this operation. I picture setting the throttle around 5mph and the operating session feels slowed down, almost too much. Sure we’re only dropping one car but it takes all day. By the time the crew take those carloads up the branch and then bring their engine home and shut it down it starts to feel like driving all this up here, as a business, is almost like a wasted trip. No sense driving all the way 'home' just to go all the way back up to lift empty cars next week.

Cars spotted at the GAF Materials plant in Millis, MA. View looks east, toward the former Clicquot station site. John Mentzer photo (http://photos.nerail.org/s/?p=33018)

It’s easy to look at a scene like this and only see regret, only feel the wish this was still there, and even though we’re able to model the past there’s this sense of a minimum aesthetic threshold needed before we can start getting excited about planning.

That feeling of 'the sunset' of a branchline, where tired ribbons of steel keep the dream of seeing a train alive as we walk the well worn path alongside the right of way. The ties are barely holding gauge, yet our hearts sing when we hear the distance 567 burble, straining our eyes down the nearly flat arrow straight for a first glance of our first love...

Heading east the 1701 is reflected in the Charles River on its way to Medfield junction and the CSX connection, February 2008. Gerald Miner photo (http://photos.nerail.org/s/?p=109184)

Nostalgia can be a powerful drug, it fuels much of the fantastic railway modelling we see today, as well as the greats of the past. At what point does a declining prototype evoke the same emotional response, to recreate, perhaps not the heyday but the dog days of decline and regret?

Imagine knowing this as your railroad, that railroad in your town that you visit, and what it feels like to see its overgrown tracks and how much passion to speak into your private prayer “for just one more train”. That is the kind of energy that should be enough. Modelling this is a kind of work that answers that wish. 

We like to ask if what we’re planning on building, in our basement, is going to be enough. Too often only the quantitative values are returned and the diagnosis of terminal boredom is cast onto a plan that doesn’t have enough “operational interest”. 

If we’re honest (and this won’t please those that love building track, or even the track suppliers, sorry) switching one spur is pretty much the same as switching a pair. If our one spur has multiple customers or car spots at the same facility the complexity is the same whether we include the second spur or not. Even a single customer spur can include swapping loads and empties with the added complexity of perhaps one car not emptied and needing to be replaced. This level of ‘basic’ operation is the perfect ‘30 minute’ session we can more readily find amongst the family, friends and life’s various competing requirements. Why do Chris and I feel the need to keep making the point? This simple truth is the reason that layouts like Millis can be all we dream of and more… that emotional connection to a lost reality, real or imagined.

I remember standing in the yard in Charlottetown, that summer after the last train had left, and how much anguish I felt as I asked for one more train. This kind of layout planning does look to traditional practice for its validation but that basic question of emotional need. “Is it enough?” Yes. Imagine what that air would sound like and how your heart, beating in your chest, would feel if you looked up to see your train. It’s not an exercise in design that asks a question but doing something to create a place where we say, instead, “thank you”. 

Hilton and Mears ‘blog casts’ are a series of discussions on various more emotional elements of our hobby:

1 - Feels like Driven not Pushed

2 - Complete or Finished

3 - Function instead of Form

4 - Capturing a moment

5 - The art of model railways

Chris has helped author a number of posts here, labelled 'hiltonandmears'

He has also contributed to a number of my rambles, labelled 'chris Mears'