The Dadeville Branch In N Scale

Discussion in 'Divisions' started by myopiceagle, Aug 7, 2009.

  1. myopiceagle

    myopiceagle Member

    Life always has a way of taking the best of plans and turning them on its ear. Recently we suffered a death in my wife's side of the family. Her relative left a large bed for our son. This necessitates reconfiguring his room. Which means I now have to reconfigure my layout. The 3x6 table is just not compatible with the new addition to the room.

    After much negotiating, I have convinced all parties involved that an 'L' shaped shelf-style layout will work the best with the new arrangement. This has the advantage of not losing any available surface area, and allows me to use existing materials. The plan is to dismantle the layout in it's current form, and split the table in two. I'll have two 6x1.5 sections that can be placed against the walls. I'll also need to raise the height of the layout by 6 inches to 55" tall.

    Now comes the fun part. The original table I have in place was never intended to be permanent. Eventually I was going to expand off the table into something more functional as an operational layout. Now that the time frame has been accelerated, I can now focus on modeling the Dadeville Branch itself. I've sketched out several ideas. I've attached the latest design here. I'd like to get some feedback from you fellow modeler's as to what pitfalls I might be leading myself into with this track design. What might I do to improve it?

    Here are the basic things I wanted to accomplish:
    1. Functional staging yards at Everton and Dadeville that can handle train lengths of 8-10 cars.
    2. At least 5 serviced industries.
    3. Leaving segments of the layout 'open' for future expansion.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. wmrx

    wmrx MP Trainmaster

    Ethan, do you have an update on your layout? I have a farm near Dadeville and spend a lot of weekends down there. So, naturally, your choice of geographical area piqued my interest. Please, let us know your progress if you have an opportunity.
     
  3. myopiceagle

    myopiceagle Member

    Wow, what a difference a year can make. Well, the short of it is this, the Dadeville Branch has taken a hiatus. I hesitate to say that it won't ever be built, I put alot of thought and time into it's creation and backstory, it has an appeal that may someday lead to it's being built. As I get older, the appeal of HO scale get's stronger, that may be the catalyst that sparks it's final creation. We'll just have to wait and see.

    About a month and a half after I made my first post here I, and my family, moved to a new home in Joplin. The exciting part is that the new place has a basement. Around the same time we moved, my wife, son and I took a memorable trip on the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad out of Fort Smith up to Winslow and back. Upon arriving back home, I felt for a certainty that the A&M was my model railroading future. After a long winter of cleaning, painting and planning a new layout, I finally got some benchwork up in the spring. The original plan was to step-up to HO scale, but I quickly came to the conclusion that while I did have more space to work with, I didn't have enough for all I wanted to model in HO scale. So, I went back to the drawing board with an N scale version of the A&M from Ft. Smith to Monett.

    As the months passed and the benchwork came along, the thought occured to me that all this would be alot easier if I had just stuck with the Frisco RR (Atlas C420's in A&M colors are expensive, hard to find, and don't even get me started on Alco T6's). Then while surfing around the internet I stumbled upon the Atlas GP7 in Frisco B/Y announcement and the Intermountain FP7's in Frisco B/Y. I have a soft spot for both these engines. At that point, I ceased building the A&M in N scale, and the Frisco's Fort Smith Subdivision became my goal.

    As of right now, I have benchwork up and track laid for the Ft. Smith yard over to Van Buren. Another round of benchwork construction and tracklaying should extend the line as far as Fayette Junction by the end of December. Early next year I'll finish the benchwork and have the line to Monett laid down. For the FS to VB segment, I have DCC in place, two engines (a GP-7 and an FA1) with decoders, and all the rolling stock from the old D&E layout. Once I have the lighting in the room improved (supposed to have help with that by the end of this month), I'll snap some pictures and get them posted.

    I'm really excited about this layout. I finally the have the space, and I feel I have enough experience to create something to be really proud of and happy to operate. I'll try a little harder to keep you posted on the progress.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2010
  4. wmrx

    wmrx MP Trainmaster

    What an interesting change in direction. Keep us posted.|-|
     
  5. Coonskin

    Coonskin Member

    You have chosen an excellent subject for your modeling! The Frisco's Fort Smith Sub was a VERY fascinating piece of railroading! If you model Sept '65 or earlier, you get passenger trains, too!

    Good luck!

    Andre "Used To Model The FS Sub, Too" Ming
     
  6. myopiceagle

    myopiceagle Member

    I thought I might go ahead and post some pictures of the layout. This is the Fort Smith yard, so far. It's the cleanest part of the layout, the Arkansas River crossing and Van Buren are a mess right now.

    The yard works very well, though I have several switches that I will upgrade to Peco Code 55 in the future. I used Atlas code 80 in the yard because I had quite a bit salvaged from the Dadeville Branch layout. Once the train leaves the yard though, it changes over to Micro Engineering code 55. Once I have the MP crossing completed between the river and VB I'll post some pictures of the rest of the layout.

    New benchwork construction will start soon enough and I'll have some pictures of that too.

    Fort Smith will be expanded on. Right now it's just a glorified staging yard and the three tracks for the freight house. The plan is to expand the existing benchwork to allow for the engine terminal. The single track that appears closest to the wall is actually my DCC test track, but will be modeled to represent a section of the Missouri Pacific parallelling the Frisco tracks. More to come, stay tuned.
     

    Attached Files:

  7. SteveM

    SteveM Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Great to see things happening. In a slightly different time sector, the Central Divisions operated today. Keith Robinson(klrwhizkid) worked the Mopac with Ray Brown and Ron Williams did a distinguished job on the Frisco with Chuck Hitchcock. Professor Senese showed up for a tour at the end of the session.
    Most of the work got done, although the Fayetteville Turn never showed up and the KCS Dodger didn't make it to town. I'll have to attempt to handle those and then do some balancing. Looks like the Frisco needs more road power or must make better use of what is on hand (kinda hard when the loop to staging isn't in yet.)
    I forgot to take pictures of all the operation. It was pretty interesting when Ron was working North Fort Smith industries on Frisco and Ray decided to do the Mopac counterpart. Then Chuck decided to make a run from the FS yard to the VB Industrial Park. After a lot of "clearing up" it worked.
    Looking forward to more of the Frisco family operating here. Ethan, you may need to find a couple more operators to come with you.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 5, 2010
  8. trainsignguy

    trainsignguy Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Hi neighbor,

    Looks like you are off to a great start. The Fort Smith line looks like it would be fun to model. I purchased a couple of engines and sections of Mark Watson's N scale A&M project railroad that was published in Model Railroader magazine a few years back. Plan on incorporating them into my layout with only very slight modifications.

    I am modeling the Clinton Sub in N scale and I live in Carthage, MO. I need to get some layout photos posted too. Give me a call sometime and I'll show you around.

    Dale Rush
    Blair Line LLC
    417-359-8300
     

Share This Page