It's time for a new thread for those of you concentrating on this interesting section of western Missouri. At one time, there were two competing railroads between Kansas City and Springfield. After merging with the Frisco, redundant trackage was eliminated. There were several interesting locals worthy of layout LDE's including Grandview (I think Paul Dolkos had a feature on it in an old issue of MR), Harrisonville, East Lynn, Clinton with the Katy crossing, and Bolivar. Charlie Dischinger had a feature in an old FMIG newsletter about his working locals at Bolivar. Charlie was also engineer of the last train up the old high line - a railfan trip using cabooses. Some of the 1600's (2-10-0 Russians) called the High Line home. I'm meeting local modeler Brad Scott Sunday at a local NMRA meet and layout design clinic. More info at http://ncr-div9.aarailfan.com/news.php Doug
Modeling this line, at least after the abandonments, certainly got easier when Karl posted all the field drawings his father made along the line. I've recently started building Free-moN modules, and I was looking for an appropriate prototype for a modular environment. For those who don't know, Free-mo is a single track modular standard with an emphasis on operations. Free-moN is the N-scale specifications for Free-mo modules. Once I saw those drawings, Blairstown jumped out at me as a perfect spot along the line for an operation oriented module... i.e. it has a passing siding and a double ended house track with several different places cars can be spotted. I have this module under construction now. I'm getting ready to lay cork roadbed, and working on a couple of structures. Even though I model the 1970s, I'm building the scene as it might have existed in the 1950s, so I can include the station (using the nice kit from our friends at Blair Line). My working drawing for the Blairstown module is here: http://www.nscaleintermodal.com/miscfiles/Blairstown-Free-moN.pdf I'm actually building another module based on Harrisonville. This one is focusing on the diamonds with the MoPac because I wanted to model a diamond protected by a gate. Harrisonville had two of them, so it seemed like a natural choice. I had to think for a long time about how to make this transportable. I ended up leaving off the station and the old MKT line. My working drawing for the Harrisonville module is here: http://www.nscaleintermodal.com/miscfiles/HarrisonvilleDiamondsFree-moN.pdf Incidentally, does anyone happen to have any photographs of the gates protecting the diamonds in Harrisonville? Paul
Paul - Thanks for sharing the plans. I'm really intrigued by Harrisonville - looks like a lot of good switching potential. It looks like what I've been trying to imagine for an area of my garage (perhaps time for another thread!) Looking forward to see more as she progresses,
Harrisonville, MO Paul's article, "A prototype siding you can model," appears on pp 70-71 of the July 1979 MR. It includes six photos and a great drawing showing 8-9 industries and the SL-SF, MP, and abandoned MKT trackage @ Harrisonville. It includes a photo of the crossing gate over the siding to protect the MP mainline. Paul's upcoming MR article about urban scenery will feature some recent additions at the Severna Park, MD layout. Looking forward to meeting Brad Scott tomorrow. Doug
This from an e mail this morning. Things are looking up. BTW, Bradley Scott and I got to chat Sunday. Doug >>>>> The 2008 Model Railroad Planning (February) will have an article on the Frisco KC-Clinton branch. Paul Dolkos
