Modeling the Caruthersville Branch (River Division)

Discussion in 'Divisions' started by yardmaster, Dec 26, 2007.

  1. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Look for more details to come, but I've had a "light bulb" moment.

    For the last 10 years or so I've talked big. However, construction is already underway on on a mid 1940s "Caruthersville Branch" of the Leachville Subdivision, modeling the area between Bragg City, MO and Hayti, MO.

    Any other modelers out there looking at this area? I think it's durn near perfect for my resources (time, space and budget). And, my daughter has helped considerably with the scenery thus far. My son has shown merely a passing interest before being sucked back in by the new Christmas Wii. :)

    More to come in the way of construction details, maps, operations, etc

    Eager to hear from other River Division branchline modelers - online, offline or otherwise!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 23, 2008
  2. Hugh Teaford

    Hugh Teaford Member

    Chris
    I'm new to the group. I've been rolling the concept around of some modeling of the River Division starting about Luxora Ark southward to Memphis.
    When I was a kid (1950's- 1960's) we operated a farm business in Luxora with a Gin, Alphalfa Mill, and Grain Elevator; all gone now but I'm thinking about doing something in Nscale.
    We had a siding from the 1930's till the 1960's.
    A member of our Memphis Society of Model Railroaders worked for the Frisco and lived in the Hayti area at one time.

    What industries etc, are you considering?
    Hugh Teaford
    Hugh.Teaford@memphistn.gov
     
  3. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Welcome aboard, Hugh!

    The Univ. of Mo. Digital Library has a June 1919 Sanborn of Bragg City -it shows one lone Little River Farms Co. Corn Mill & Elevator on a siding. While it's not on the map, the Cotton Belt crossing just west of town with interlocking should make for a good "industry" in the form of interchange traffic.

    I took advantage of intersession break at Mizzou and spent lunch today at the main library. A kind student took the time to drag out about 15 original Sanborn maps for Hayti, as copyright hasn't allowed them to digitize the Hayti maps yet. I think the gargantuan Southeast Missouri Cotton Compress along the west side of the main, south of the Chaffee Sub/C'ville Branch crossing is a good candidate: typical Bootheel business, large, and lengthy siding for a lot of traffic.

    Thus far for Hayti, I think definites are the cotton compress, passenger/freight depot, stock pen, section crew car houses and the small engine facilities.

    I don't think I realized that Hayti had so many lineside industries, even as late as mid-1950s. It, by itself, would make an interesting modeling project. I'm going to have to figure out a way to model industries east of the Chaffee Sub crossing - the track between Hayti and Caruthersville was to be "hidden staging" in my mind, but we'll see.

    Next trip to the library, I'll try to find maps of Pascola. Thus far I only have a platbook map, which doesn't give me a vast amount of info.
    I'd love to see photos or read more about your family's business.

    Best Regards,
     
  4. Hugh Teaford

    Hugh Teaford Member

    Chris
    Over the weekend when I go home I'll find some old photographs of the Luxora Gin Co. Farm Operation. I remember that besides having a Railroad spur the Gin was powered by an old Corless Steam Engine.
    I remember one time when I was 6 or 7 we drove to Hayti. We visited someone my father knew in the Alfalfa business there;anyway he had a train layout in his house and that was all I needed to see!
    Hugh
     
  5. bootheel

    bootheel Member

    The Caruthersville branch that I have tried to model is based on 1960's to 1980's. Industries to model are cotton warehouses, cotton gins, grain elevators, farm chemical warehouses, scrapyards, box/lumber factories, Budweiser beer warehouse, plus several teamtracks and oil/gasoline plants. Caruthersville also had a interchange with the Cotton Belt.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 31, 2007
  6. bootheel

    bootheel Member

    The Hayti area would also be a great area to model. As mentioned there is a large cotton warehouse. Hayti also had a grain elevator, bulk oil plant, fertiziler warehouse, team tracks and a small yard. Hayti had a depot and was a junction for the branch lines for Kennett and Caruthersville.
     
  7. Hugh Teaford

    Hugh Teaford Member

    I found some of the old Luxora Gin Company pictures.
    These range from the thirties through the mid 50's.
    They were taken by my father.
    The warehouse photo shows a multi modal (1930's version ) facility.
    The photo of the Gin is looking northeast and the RR spur is just north of the Gin.
    Hugh Teaford
     

    Attached Files:

  8. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Incredible photos, Hugh. My profound thanks for sharing; I'm all the richer for you and your father's photographic efforts!

    I think I have a good stand-in for one of the many several gins in Hayti/siding business in Pascola until I can research more specific information.

    Many many thanks!

    Best Regards,
     
  9. Hugh Teaford

    Hugh Teaford Member

    Thanks!
    I have some more I'm digging up.
    Is this thread the proper place to post these pictures?
    Hugh
     
  10. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Some random and lengthy thoughts on a Caruthersville Branch layout as I take a break from a cool workbench in the garage.

    Why Not Model Chaffee?
    Good question. Most of my prototype research has centered around Chaffee. I've always assumed I would stick to the maxim of "model what you know."

    However, if ignorance = bliss, then increasing knowledge is inversely proportional to an ability to compromise a track plan.

    Based on my available real estate, I would only be able to model Chaffee with a significant portion of the trackage eliminated (as opposed to compression), and then an arrow-straight yard would still be modeled in an HO-Scale horseshoe!

    Considering what I've learned about Chaffee and the steam-era operations through that division point, I came to the conclusion that I could not accept such compromises.

    Why the Caruthersville Branch?
    Even as I tinkered with a Chaffee Subdivision plan in my garage, Hayti has always stood out as a great operational candidate: relatively small facilities with lots of action.

    Consider this: daily motor car traffic coming to and fro Hayti's Spanish-Americana stucco depot, along with originating and terminating freights due to the full-crew laws required by Arkansas a few miles south. Small branch-line traffic to Kennett and Caruthersville, not to mention the possibility of staging through passenger runs on the Chaffee Subdivision, and a small "roundhouse."

    Hayti also sported a decent share of online customers in the first half of the 20th century, many of which could be included or omitted as the modeler's space-time continuum allows. I'm realizing I've left a few gaps in my notes from MU's Ellis Library so a return trip is in order, but here are some of the main Hayti businesses served by rail:

    Branch east of mainline toward Caruthersville:
    • Hayti Ice & Cold Storage Co.
    • (unk) Cotton Oil Co. & Gin
    • Taylor Gin Co.
    • Parsons Corn Mill
    • Roberts Brothers Inc. Cotton Gin
    • National Refining Co.
    • National Gasoline
    • Unk. Elevator

    "Main Line" (Chaffee Sub)
    • Sanders Mill
    • Dalton Oil Co.
    • Southeast Missouri Compress Co.
    • Grocery Warehouse (unk name; just N of SE Mo. Compress)

    Additionally the SL-SF facilities at Hayti are sufficient to provide a nice little terminal without taking up the real estate of a division point. A frame LCL freight station sat just south of the passenger depot, with stock pens adjacent to the south. On the SW corner of the crossing sat several motor car buildings, tool houses, etc. and NE of the crossing sat the various RIP facilities, coal tower (apparently identical to the one in Chaffee, conveniently!), and the "roundhouse" which was actually a two-stall enginehouse.

    West of Hayti, Bragg City should be reasonably easy to model with an early 20th-century Sanborn map available in the MU Digital Library. Pascola represents a bit of a challenge currently: it's my initial "module" with a high degree of speculative freelancing. However, one of my goals is to just get started; I will go back and retrofit and revise as I accumulate more prototype information.

    To Follow...
    I plan on trying to piece together my map notes, tidy them up and upload here, with some track plans to follow; staging still concerns me very much and how to effectively incorporate the River Division beyond the layout.

    Beyond photos of the depots at Bragg City and Hayti I'm woefully short of prototype photos. I'd rather have operations come first, and as long as signature structures (read: depots) are in place and the remaining buildings do a good job of setting mood and era, I'll be satisfied. For instance, Hugh's photos of the Luxora Gin Co. are screaming to have their place on my layout!
     
  11. w3hodoug (Doug Hughes RIP 03/24/2021)

    w3hodoug (Doug Hughes RIP 03/24/2021) 2008 Engineer of the Year Frisco.org Supporter

    Chris, exciting research and planning update. Keep us informed. There's now a lot of neat smaller steam engines that will look great switching cars around all those elevators and cotton gins. Doug
     
  12. bootheel

    bootheel Member

    Just a sidenote on the Caruthersville branch it was abandoned by the BN in the early 80's:(. However new life has been put back in a portion of the line. A new rebuilt section is under construction from Hayti to the Pemiscot County Port. It may be a year or so before it is complete but a portion of the track is being used by the BNSF to store gravel trains for the current maintenance program from Blytheville to Sikeston :). I'll hope to post a few pictures in a couple of days of what is going on. It's great to see an old branch come back to life.
     
  13. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Bootheel, I recall seeing some rolling stock on the old branch as we popped over the I-55 overpass last August on our way back from a trip to the Gulf Coast. What do they say - give something long enough and it'll come back into style? :)

    I realized this morning that the 1925 "Official List of Officers, Stations, Etc." lists a 40-foot track scale for Hayti, but I don't recall finding one on the Sanborn maps I've reviewed. I will presume it was still around in the 1940s - for operational lagniappe for the Hayti yardmaster.

    Hope that C'ville is still on the road to recovery after the March '06 tornado.
     
  14. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

  15. bootheel

    bootheel Member

    That is a very good drawing of Hayti. The branch that runs from to the Pascola/Kennett area was recently pulled up. All that remained was a half mile of track and the BNSF had used it for storing flat cars for the Steel industry at Blytheville. The track at Hayti has changed alot the only tracks that remain is a small yard and of the course the rebuilt branch that runs to the Pemiscot County Port Authority which is still under construction.

    And thank you for thinking of Caruthersville. It's been almost 2 years and most of the homes are rebuilt. We still have more rebuilding to do but we are well on our way.:)
     
  16. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    A few minor updates - mainly thinking out loud, so to speak.

    Still working on a sketch of the Hayti "roundhouse." I'm already thinking it will be a tough task to fit it into my available space. It might have to be located "over there" in deference to the crossing and small yard.

    I was tickled to no end to find evidence of an 0-6-0 used for switching Hayti, albeit 1929. The FEM Locomotive Fuel Performance columns document how 3686 was used in May, 1929 and burned an average of 2 tons of coal for each 8-hour trick.

    Otherwise motive power still remains to be determined. I think I can do enough plastic surgery on an IHC 2-8-0 to make it into a high-1200 series consolidation. Might have to relegate it to yard work - I think it's bridge class is likely too much for the actual branch. My Spectrum 4-8-2 will go on the market sometime and hopefully pave the way for smaller power.

    And...I stumbled across a fellow employee in my same company who knew I grew up in SE Mo. and shared that he grew up in...Pascola! Hoping that he or his kin have some old photos or information that might help that cause.
     
  17. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    Last edited: Oct 30, 2015
  18. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    I thought I had posted the link for the Bragg City Sanborn Map but apparently overlooked it.

    Here it is - MP 222.0 from the University of Missouri Library Systems Digital Library.

    http://digital.library.umsystem.edu...3.jpg;viewid=SANBORN2783.JPG;start=1;resnum=8

    Interestingly, it is located by searching on "Kennett" and is listed as a "Kennett" map.

    Hopefully I can find some down time over lunch during Spring Break next week and see if the Mizzou library can dig up a map of Pascola.

    If anyone had asked me some 15 years ago if I would have wanted to spend spring break looking at Sanborn maps, I would have considered it highly dubious.

    Best Regards,
     
  19. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    A bit of timetable and operational rambling.

    Here are links to the 1940 ETT history for the Caruthersville Branch (1940 is as close as I can get to my preferred modeling era of mid-WWII):

    http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3784&d=1149083178

    From the looks of things, the daily x-Sunday 830/831 was a turn between Kennett and Hayti and should only necessitate one locomotive - maybe a lower-series 4-6-0.

    830 and 831 are also on the card between Kennett and Poplar Jct. MO on the Piggott Branch but 830 is a M/W/F, whereas 831 is a Tu/Th/F.

    The first class trains were all motor car service:
    882 Hayti-Kennett
    895 Kennett-Hayti
    896 Hayti-Kennett
    881 Kennett-Hayti
    Note that 881/882 continued on to/from Brooks Jct. on the Leachville Sub, and 895/896 provided service onto Poplar Jct.; so, two motor cars should suffice. Down the road, a steam locomotive to protect the motor cars would be nice.

    Then, the timetable for the Chaffee Subdivision, i.e mainline through Hayti:

    Northbound:
    http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=2727&d=1141588497

    Southbound:
    http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=2728&d=1141588497

    At least as of the 1926 ETT, Yard Limits were in effect at Hayti from MP211 + 25 telegraph poles to MP213 + 25 telegraph poles (see Rule 93 - "Within Yard Limits the main track may be used protecting against first class trains. Second and third class and extra trains must move within Yard Limits prpared to stop unless the main track is seen or known to be clear"). This should make operating during the arrival times of 805-806-807-808 rather interesting from a modeling standpoint.

    A ridiculously crude first draft of a layout plan is nearly complete. I hope to have it posted sooner so that I can obtain brutally honest feedback and prevent any ignorant mistakes!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 18, 2008
  20. yardmaster

    yardmaster Administrator Staff Member Administrator Frisco.org Supporter

    C'ville Branch - Layout Rough Draft

    Folks:
    A very rough draft of how I envision the layout taking place. My apologies that some of this did not come out very clear.

    Some notes:

    (1) Bragg City is at the upper left hand side. A staging traverser will not only serve as Kennett Staging, but also a live interchange with the SSW.

    (2) Pascola is on the center-right.

    (3) Hayti is at the bottom. At the very least there will be the yard and Chaffee Sub main. I'm toying with the idea of whether I can put the Caruthersville Branch industries on the other side of a backdrop? If not, I might build a "Phase II" plan to extend it to the other side of the garage, with a removable bridge connecting the two.

    Thoughts, comments or suggestions are welcome. I'll replace this with a to-scale and more exact rendering in the near future, I hope.
     

    Attached Files:

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