Re: Quinton Alabama I just read the article. Beautiful layout. First rate and up there with the best. Congrats on such a masterpiece.
Re: Quinton Alabama My friend Dick Schultz, who also painted the backdrop at Quinton, has almost finished detailing the little farm scene "in the hollow" beside the Little Warrior River. This farm also captures many such scenes from rural Southeastern Missouri, where my uncle still farmed with horses near the current site of "Trail of Tears" State Park in the 1950s. Enjoy. Ken McElreath
Re: Quinton Alabama This weekend I caught the Frisco's Citadel Cement Plant turn out of Birmingham to Palos (next door to Quinton) and also took some photos of the switching taking place. I have included a photo of the control panel so you can see the track arrangement at Quinton and Palos. Enjoy. Ken McElreath
I'm not sure which is prettier...the wooden caboose or the RS-1. Either way, they're all quite nice. I personally enjoy sequences of photos showing model operations as they take place. Very well done! Best Regards,
The weathering skills are the star of the show. I really like your caboose. Wait. That didn't sound right.
While I was waiting for the Frisco's Cement Plant Turn to arrive, the TCI&RR Company's River Turn appeared off the L&N interchange (see track diagram on the control panel.) It hauls semifinished steel from the US Steel plant at Ensley to the Warrior River Barge Terminal, using connecting trackage rights on the Frisco and L&N RR. The TCI&RR (Tennessee Coal Iron and Railway Company) is a USS property near Birmingham, using its own locomotive fleet for plant switching and running its outreaching lines. And this steel barge terminal transfer was actually operated by the Birmingham Southern Railroad over their own trackage to Port Birmingham. However, in my reconstructed historical setting, the TCI&RR has recently chosen to run its own trains via the alternate Frisco-L&N routing as a cost-saving measure. This little industrial side show makes for some very interesting operations at Quinton, especially when the Frisco's local comes into town while the TCI&RR is waiting to take the main. I just love the burly Baldwin AS-616 with its battleship-looking truck side frames, don't you? Ken McElreath
This is a sequence of shots of the daily mainline local switching at Quinton. On some days the Consolidation #1342 supplies the motive power; on others it's GP7 #568. My modified Athearn GP7 model is almost 40 years old, but I still enjoy it very much. It runs and looks great to me. I'm just an old model railroader, I guess, since the newer, narrow-hood geeps still look too skinny to me. I got used to the wide hood of the Athearn geeps. Ken McElreath
Ken - Very nice looking geep, and boiler-equipped, no less! Still, my heart lies with the Consolidation parked in front of the depot. Best Regards,
Manny, You absolutely may use any you wish. I'm thrilled that others can enjoy my work; its the best part of the hobby for me. Even though my photography is no where near professional publishing quality, you are encouraging me to take more photos and share them as well. Ken McElreath
Here is my final installment of Quinton photos. These show the daily-except-Sunday L&N RR local interchanging with the Frisco at Quinton. In the prototype, the L&N's Cane Creek Branch, which included several tunnels and served some coal mines and a power plant on the Warrior River, crossed over the Frisco just south of Quinton. In addition, it and the Frisco both served the Bessie Coal Mine from different directions and actually connected there, so my compressed model isn't very far fetched. One reason I want to show this sequence is to say that it's amazing how much operation one can achieve in a relatively modest module, using some hidden staging. For example, after the L&N drops cars on the interchange track, the Frisco local from Birmingham switches the L&N coal hoppers to the Enterprise Coal dock in Quinton itself, while taking the other cars with it back to Birmingham. The old wood boxcar is for LCL freight on the L&N train, so it stays with the train, switched to be in front of the caboose for the return trip. It's too bad I can't reverse the marker lamps on the caboose, but I can live with that. In addition to the L&N interchange and the Frisco local, the Frisco's cement plant turn and the TCI&RR Co's Warrior River run enter into the action at Quinton, plus an occasional MofW track-and-bridge maintenance train. If I had a more extensive mainline, then the through trains would mix it up as well. As it is, the operation will engage two crewmen for a couple of hours, using a card order system for car routing and switching. One final comment: The more authentic and detailed the scenery is, the more satisfying the operation will be as well. The crews tend to slow down and do things much more realistically than otherwise. Enjoy. Ken McElreath
Today I took a few shots of street scenes in Quinton, as if one were walking through town. I love these scenes, because they conjure up fond memories of playing around Whitewater Missouri while my dad conducted business. Really typical mid south America in 1950. Enjoy. Ken McElreath
At the east end of my Quinton scene there is a sharp corner in the allocated room space. So I decided to model a typical Alabama "hollow" and call it "Spring Hollow." The abandoned Alabama Central RR tunnel and remaining trackage used by the Frisco for company maintenance stores is in the hollow, and the Frisco mainline eastward toward Birmingham disappears beneath the highway overpass. This is the last significant area to be finished on the HO layout, except for finishing some structures in Camellia Park. As an aside, I have some 1921 topographical maps of the area around Cape Girardeau Missouri, and one of them shows a similar hollow across the river in the hills of Illinois, labeled as "You-Be- Hollow." My great aunt told me that my great uncle and his local baseball team would sometimes ride the train from Cape (Mopac or Frisco/C&EI?) across the Mississippi River bridge at Thebes to play the "boys from You-Be-Damned Hollow." How would you like to have that as your place of residence? Enjoy. Ken McElreath
LOTS of great railscene photos, but the farmhouse with the people on the porch is a classic!!!! Tom G.
Nice scenes, Ken. One of these days, I need to make a trip up that way again. Since I have retired, I no longer have the business trips to pay that way.
Ken, fabulous as always. I can remember when rails still ran through Whitewater and before the old bank building burned. The hollow is pretty spot-on and I thoroughly enjoy the story behind its Southern Illinois inspiration. I wonder how they fit the town name on the baseball uniforms - maybe a "YbD" logo, not unlike an "StL." Thanks as always for sharing your layout photos with us. Best Regards,