Bob: Are you using code 70? If so, I'm using Shinohara's code 70 #6 curved switches in three locations. Two of them are already in place. Mechanically, they work excellent with no derails with either code 88 or code 110. Electrically they are a bit sensitive in that the points must be firmly closed for electrical continuity to the frog. Andre
Bob, really great scenery and you work fast. Scenery is my favorite thing to do and ballast is my least favorite but I found a small medicine dispenser that works great. Joe
Thanks @Joe Lovett , @modeltruckshop , @Coonskin , @gjslsffan for all of your comments and suggestions. I will see if I can grab a template for the Shinohara turnout mentioned, as well as FastTracks options (I know they have templates that I can try to fit from). I have a number of larger radius Shinohara turnouts, and occasionally find them at local train shows. This part of the layout is Code 83 track, so will try to find rail to match. Joe, I will try to find one of those, much better than my plastic spoon! Take Care All, -Bob T.
Bob, I have the jigs and tools for Fast Tracks #8 24/18" curves and #10 28/24" curves. If either will fit, I would be glad to build one for you.
It looks like the best fit from FastTracks templates would be the HO Scale, #10, 60"/46"R Curved Turnout, Left Hand . I would need to cut it relatively short and place an easement on the outer radius. As I noted, it turned out to be a rather strange arrangement! -Bob T.
Howdy All, Did not make an update before the day escaped me yesterday, but did manage to upload a few photos. Lunch break is a good time to post an update..... As mentioned in a recent Wednesday Workshop posting, I have spent the past few days focusing on the Weir City module and the addition of a wye track. Back about 100 years ago, Weir City included a wye near the depot on the branch from Cherokee. Ksrl.kc.sm_weir_1915_004 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 1, 2019 at 5:35 AM Note that left is north on this map. The goal is to add something that represents this feature to the Crawford and Cherokee. The most recent track plan showed the area as something like this: Modular-CnC-Cherokee-to-Weir-2019-03-15a-cropped by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 10:11 PM ....with the addition of a short section and a bump-out on the previously built Weir City Section. While I cannot create the town one-for-one in HO scale, this should add the operational feature of turning a steam locomotive for an out-and-back operation from Cherokee. I was able to start cutting components for the wye section on Friday night. By Sunday evening, the project is coming along. Sparing you all a repeat of module building, and pictures of thousands of spring clamps, there is now another 18-inch X 4-ft section for the layout. I used a piece of pink foam to mock up the placement of the bump-out that captures the portions near the depot. Measuring-for-Wye by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 9:16 PM (Sorry, could not get this image to rotate). This piece was used to measure out and frame up a connection to the new module: Weir-Module-Bump-Out by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 9:14 PM Which still needs the sides/fascia, but seems to connect up rather nicely. Weir-Wye-Module by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 9:15 PM The Fast-Tracks #6 wye on the new section is approximately where it will sit once track is down. It leaves a good 16-18 inches of lead beyond the turnout. This is with maintaining a minimum radius of about 24 inches. Plenty of room to turn a consolidation or ten-wheeler. Looking forward to the long 4th of July weekend and can hopefully finish the new turnouts and cut them in to the existing track. The package arrived today with the ties needed for the two unfinished turnouts......they take a long time to get from Canada apparently. Take Care All, -Bob T.
Man. All that carpentry. Woooohhhhh. (Sweat-sweat-“swear”-Sweat.) That and electrical are the two parts of model railroading that, politely put, fail to excite me. I had a skil saw buck back on me once and I came very very close to severe injury. I won’t touch power tools since. Other than a dremel. My current layout is carpentry- free. I didn’t cut one piece of wood to build it, it is all 8’ stock boards on prefab wire storage tables from Lowe’s. Well ...... alright.... I had the lumberyard cut a 1x6 in half for me but that was it. I have NCE Pro Cab. My wiring is (gasp) two wires to the track. That’s it. DCC is a boon for guys like me that always hated DC block control, cab control, whatever you called it, with all those SPDTs, DPDT’s , etc etc etc. blah blah blah. Now I can run trains instead of cutting wood and running wiring.. I got the basic layout running in 4 or 5 days. But 10 years later it ain’t finished.
Update Addendum: Also been working on industries on the Weir Module(s). Found a couple of great photos of Main Street in Weir: Weir-City-Downtown by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 10:12 PM Weirphoto.jpg by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 10:15 PM These both feature a view either looking east or west down main street and the first looks like it was taken standing at the Frisco tracks. They also include not the Frisco, but instead what looks like the interurban railway that ran through town, and is not featured on my Sanborn map of 1915. The Joplin and Pittsburg Railway Interurban existed around 1910-1930 but may not have come into Weir when the maps were made. (Edit: Thesis below says 1906...hmm). The second photo above was posted by Bath-Naylor funeral home, making me think that one of the cars was used to transport those "Gone to Glory". Here is a close-up of the map: Ksrl.kc.sm_weir_1915_004-Cropped by rjthomas909 posted Jul 1, 2019 at 5:37 AM There is a Master's Thesis online at Pittsburg State (Go Gorillas!), by Robert Eastman Hickman (1948), summarizing its history: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/etd/148/ Great stuff in there: "In April (1912) the bad luck continued, this time in the form of murder. On the evening of April 17, motorman Perry of the Scammon-Mineral run had been forced to eject several intoxicated passengers from his car. In the struggle, threats were uttered, and when Perry arrived in Scammon he requested Vern Adams, a deputy sheriff of Cherokee County, to accompany him on his return trip for his own protection as well as that of the passengers. When the car stopped at Roseland, about two miles west of Scammon, several persons boarded it. A shotgun blast ripped through the car and Adams was fatally injured by a shot meant for Perry. The assassin was identified as one of three Copeland brothers of Roseland, but when officials moved to take these three into custody, they were not (to) be found." Maybe gone by 1915 map date. Looks like a rapid decline in those years due to floods and competition. A couple of nifty photos: Joplin-pittsburg-railway by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 10:12 PM and on this site a preserved switcher with a Frisco fan: http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?media/joplin-and-pittsburg-railroad-switcher.875/ Back to industries: I am looking at the close up of the Main Street map above, and am seeing a couple of clearly labeled "brand name" industries, including a "Long-Bell" lumber yard. These seemed to be scattered about the region, including this example that appears in a nice image from Altus, OK: Long-Bell-Lumber-Altus-OK by rjthomas909 posted Jun 30, 2019 at 10:11 PM The diagram from Weir indicates a similar arrangement. I am thinking this will be one of the industries near the tracks, with an opportunity to unload a car or two. A few other ideas can be picked from the image above including a restaurant and theatre. Inputs are welcomed. -Bob T.
Happy Friday Friends, Managed some progress on the Crawford and Cherokee over the past week. Thanks to the long weekend around the 4th, I was able to get the Weir City Wye module pretty much up to good working order. Track is all down and painted. Added a number of feeders where turnouts were inserted into the existing Weir City module. Used a dual Frog Juicer board (salvaged from the old layout) configured as an auto-reverser for the wye leg on the peninsula. Plus wired up eight or nine switch machines..... Weir-City-Wye-working-1 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 12, 2019 at 5:29 PM Here we see initial testing with our sacrificial unit, provided by the SP. This old Stuart F-unit is a good tester of frog polarity from the Tortoises. The old Sanborn maps show a small creek and Vogel Street crossing the wye. Although a significant compression of the scene, I am trying to put in a shallow ditch and a small concrete culvert (which is still there in Weir, used as a road bridge). You can see in the view below, the road and ditch are being roughed in. Vogel street will get a few lonely wood buildings, including the "Union Ice and Cold Storage" found nearby on the maps. Weir-City-Wye-working-2 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 12, 2019 at 5:28 PM The most important test....turning a steam locomotive. Here we see 1632 make the first demonstration, heading into the wye: Weir-City-Wye-testing-decapod by rjthomas909 posted Jul 12, 2019 at 5:28 PM and (nothing up my sleeve), the loco returns facing the opposite direction! Weir-City-Wye-testing-decapod-2 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 12, 2019 at 6:06 PM Really, not fake news. Just a magical polarity reverser! Take care all....off to start some scenery.... -Bob T.
I know I'm a couple weeks behind here, but I'm intrigued as to why the J&P line was left off the map. I know the line came and went pretty quick, but I would think it would have still been there in 1915, being that it was built in 1908. See the map I attached below. Nice work on the wye, definitely a need for a steam era layout.
Thanks Ethan, That is a great map. If you have an expanded area around Weir, I would like to see it along with any background on timeframe of various track's existence. In particular, I am looking for history of the brickyard just south of this area. This map also goes to show that you could model any area in Cherokee county and claim that there was once track there! I have not seen a map of the Joplin and Pittsburg other than general connections among Weir, Scammon, Pittsburg, etc. This is the first time that I have seen a drawing of the spur into Weir described in the masters thesis I linked to above. Take Care, -Bob T. P.S. You can still see the roadbed from the wye going from Turtle and Pine up to the corner of 103 and Dreher. The building at the corner of 103 and Dreher is the old Jackson's grocery and has a notch out of one corner where the tracks passed close by. I think that building is a hundred years old. My mother's house is just north of there in your picture.
If I haven't sent this to you yet, try google earth. It and historicaerials.com are my go to. http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/google-earth-overlays.11483/ Get it set up and you'll start spending hours on it everyday doing research like I do.
Howdy All, Well, a scorcher all around Frisco Land today, but the new A/C in the garage is doing its job and making for some progress on the Crawford and Cherokee (and watching the Redbirds). I hope all are keeping cool! Spent some time focusing on the end of the Weir City wye module. The maps of the time show a small creek, and visiting the area today shows a small concrete culvert at that location. I was not sure if that would be appropriate for 1920 +/- 10, so I decided to build it as a small wood culvert. Wood-Culvert-2 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:55 PM I filled in an area with scrub trees that I left as a muddy ground cover. The trees are supertree branches left from the collection of the old layout. I build this with the wood ties materials that come from FastTracks, and added some bolt details to the bumpers on the top. Maybe not the best, most accurate civil engineering. Hey, I think it might just do. Wood-Culvert-1 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:56 PM . The final fit of the track for this leg of the wye ended up being a bit longer that I expected. As you can see below, the trusty spectrum decapod, plus one of @Jim James 's wood cabooses fits just fine to be turned before the run back to Cherokee. Wood-Culvert-3 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:54 PM You can see in the background that I set up the modules back to the Lighting Creek bridge in order to test things out: Weir-Ops-Test-1 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:59 PM Weir-Ops-Test-4 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:57 PM These are mainly old structures from the prior layout. I think I can do a bit better today. They do provide a good way to judge spacing. They show that there is space for the water tower, depot, freight house and a small coal bunker between the mainline and the house track. I set up a few other buildings and industries to look at car spots and final placement. I think that I will move my planned lumber yard across the tracks and to the other side of main street in the interest of space. The parallel tracks allow for a small car storage area of 3-4 cars: Weir-Ops-Test-3 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:57 PM just nort of main street. With this and spots at the depot, the grain elevator, a small warehouse (a mill in old maps), the cattle pen, and the spots on the Youngs Mine #2, this makes for a nice switching layout. We can start off with a train at the MoPac interchange, go into town and return (including turing the locomotive). Getting real close to replicating the old photo of the area: Weir_city_kansas-600x381 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 2:16 PM Weir-Ops-Test-2 by rjthomas909 posted Jul 21, 2019 at 1:58 PM . Need a horse and wagon for sure. Take care all... -Bob T.
Looks great Bob!!! I'm impressed with how fast you work, you make a lot of progress in a short time. Wish I could find the time to work on my layout more, life keeps getting in the way. Honey do's have priority though. Joe
