A (Non-Prototypical) Ellsworth KS Themed Layout

Yes. Middle track is the main for the UP area. I need to sort turnouts a bit to make that more correct. Could add a run around, no problem.

-Bob T.

 

Robert; Sorry for the delay in responding. This site does not like my uploads. I guess I will piecemeal this to compensate.

This post contains a pdf of the north end of the line in Ellsworth from 11th street to 15th street. 15th street was also US highway 40 back in the 1960s and before. The 4 online businesses that had rail service are shown and the building placement and fuel tanks are correct.

The Chickasha Mobile Home factory was the satellite factory for the main company located in Chickasha Oklahoma. It was an interesting operation and the Frisco had a lot to do with it being built in Ellsworth at the end of the line. The factory in Oklahoma was on the Frisco line there and made a deal to have service on the Frisco between locations. The mobile home frames were built in Oklahoma and shipped by rail to Ellsworth. I do not know how they routed the cars but they always seemed to be in 3s. 3 cars of frames every few weeks and lumber arrived once or twice a week on center beam cars. There were at least 3 forklifts that unloaded the cars, maybe more. The track went in to the company property and all the way down the west side of the building. I know the building was 120 feet wide but do not know the length size but it was between 500 and 700 feet. They could build 6 mobile homes at a time inside that building and most were 14x70.

The Phillips 66 Fuel Depot consisted of a warehouse, a pump house, and 3 elevated large tanks. In earlier years they had a few tanks at ground level but by the 1970s only the 3 survived. Up through the 1960s 3 dome tank cars were still in service to Ellsworth for all of the companies here. A unique aspect of the Frisco and the line to Ellsworth is the refineries were down south in the Wichita area and most of fuel came by the Frisco. That is, until the pipeline was built that made shipping gasoline and diesel and Kerosene a thing of the past.

Each fuel company in Ellsworth got package goods by a boxcar. Cases of oil and barrels of oil were probably less than carload but with 7 fuel companies in Ellsworth alone I suppose they filled up a car for multiple stops.

Homolka Grain and Supply was a great online business that wasn't really on the line. In order to offload or onload box cars they had a 100 foot portable conveyor that they wheeled out when a car was spotted at their business and manual labor unloaded the car and the goods went down the conveyor to be manually unloaded on to pallets to be moved inside the building by a fork lift. I watched that happen on numerous occasions and it was a very neat aspect of the railroad to me.

I will put together some more info later on the operations of the railroad and some of the other businesses you can maybe include if you want more.

 

Awesome! Many thanks for all of this. Back to the planning on my part.

-Bob T.

 

I have been messing with photos that will not upload. Here is the one I like the operations of the best. Homolka Grain and Supply!

 

Thanks all for the inputs. I made a few tweaks to the plan based upon the discussions above. Some of the changes:

-- Large building flat for the Chickasha mobile home factory
-- Adjusted position of Hamolka Grain Supply to reflect prototype info
-- Move the TAMKO factory to be a smaller flat, narrowing the shelf on the right. Changed direction of turnout to allow area to be used when switching end-of-line industry.
-- Added run-around for UP area
-- Adjusted tracks for UP area such that main is on the straights of the turnouts
-- Lengthened the staging tracks.
-- Adjusted road position to be out of the way of most turnouts by Frisco (W&NW) depot
-- Oil distro area reflects two separate tank areas.
-- General clean up

 

Yes, errors were made. A few additional updates....

 

Only 2 more minor tweaks I can recommend

1. Your mainline curve in the upper right corner looks a little tight compared to the space that's available. I would consider smoothing that out if possible.

2. The set of turnouts right above the propane distributor are set up a bit odd to me. The mainline has to go through the diverging side of the turnout twice. I would consider re-configuring the turnouts to favor the mainline.

Looks like a great layout

 

Thanks Ethan. Great takes. V 43 coming soon.

 

Looks great, no further notes.