If anyone has viewed my Album or read my last post, I am starting to tear up the track on my lay-out tomorrow and reconfigure a new track plan for a more realistic FRISCO railway in HO Scale. So far I have 5 steam including 2 brass and a bizzillion Pieces of Rolling Stock. I am going to take all the buildings and everything off the lay out and store it away and then get to work configuring what I see in my head but am unable to draw on paper to save my hide. I plan on posting pictures of my progress as I go. Some things will change, some wont, but the track plan is going to be all new!|-|
Please do - and let us know about your track planning successes. I find it hard work. Do you use CAD or drawing board and pencil/paper?
UPDATE: I purchased some software to allow me to design my layout on my computer the other day. I tore up the track on the North side of the layout and started relaying it down adding an interlocker at the start of the high line I plan to have on it. I am ging to completely re-do the yard and I am going to put a back drop in to seperate Ft Scott from Noedasha. I have alot of building needing t be built but started to finish my truss Bridge this last weekend. I have to finish assembling the top part of it and adding it to the rest of the structure and then I will put a good weathering on it and then I will sit and ponder what to tackle next. I dont have any plans on getting in any real big hurry for now. I want the layout to look alot larger than it actually is. Can anyone tell me if there were any tunnels anywhere in the vicinity of Ft Scott (within 100 miles would do I reckon) My wife wants to add a tunnel to a mountain, or atleast a hill. just to sorta offset things and add to the granduer of the layout. I am finding it hard to accomplish what I want because I am strictly and ALL steam and the 4-8-4, 4-8-2's and the 2-10-2's need a wider birth to keep from hopping off the track. It has become frustrating to the point of almost putting everything I have up for sale and moving over to N-scale, but, it would be really hard to find a 4500 in N-scale. Plus I like the detailing opportunities HO has to offer. SO I will keep chugging along until I figure something out that suits my fancy for a first time layout.
Your railroad - tunnel wherever you wish. Almost 60 years ago, our family took a rare vacation and drove from the MO Ozarks town of Dixon to Colorado and back - the old car blew a timing belt/chain out in KS somewhere. While getting it repaired, we toured the Dalton brothers' (Dalton Gang - of that famous photo the day after the Coffeyville raid) farm. There was a tunnel from the house to the barn that was part of the tour. Thanks for yet another Frisco.org participant diving into layout construction/rebuilding. It's inspirational. I, too, am trying to learn some cad I bought eight years ago - 3rdPlanit. I've yet to get beyond chapter 2. I used AutoCad for years at work and know the learning curve. Once I get the trackplan on paper, It'll show a tunnel just west of Bundy Junction - go figure.
I put the track were I want to. But really i get ideas for a plan by using RTS 9.0, then putting down track in the configuration I like.
4503, the Winslow tunnel is more like 200 miles from Ft. Scott. Slightly closer would be Eureka Springs on the original M&NA or Branson on the current M&NA. Maybe somebody had one in central Missouri, but not the Frisco. If you were modeling Ft. Smith, you would have a tunnel in each direction, so maybe you apply an extra dose of "license" and borrow the Central Division's tunnels. W3, if you figure out how to get turnouts properly aligned in 3dPlanit, I would be interested. I could never get them to flip ends after inserting, so I gave up and used my Autocad LT. It would have been nice to have the proper templates for turnouts. I didn't go to as much trouble figuring out the divergence as Dale Rush has done for his planning.
The Rock Island had four tunnels on it's line from St. Louis to Kansas City. Tunnels 1 and 2 are located at Freeburg and Koeltztown Mo., about 200 miles from Fort Scott, and nos. 3 and 4 are located at Blairstown and Vale, in the Kansas City area, about 100 miles away. There are some good photos of each tunnel on bridgehunter.com. Not the kind that you would find in Colorado or Washington state, but they would fit right in on a midwest themed layout.
The portals for the tunnels on the former Rock Island StL-KC line are kind of neat - they come to a point at the top, "gothic" tunnel portals, so to speak. The Frisco had a tunnel here in the St Louis area on the Eastern Division at Meramec Highlands. It, however, was removed from service and bypassed via a cut to the south in 1928. For a pic, see Collias' Frisco Power, page 291. Ken
That depot at Freeburg was also nice. I have photos somewhere of it and the tunnel portal. Three nice photos may be seen at: http://www.missouridepots.com/freeburg.htm
A couple of good articles were done on the Rock Island's St Louis - Kansas City line. See below. This RI line was an important railroad to me as a child. It ran within about three blocks of my home in St Louis County, and also ran right down the middle of my grandfather's farm just west of Gerald, Mo. I used to wave at the crews in their three RI GP7 consists when we were up at the farm for a fishing and hiking visit. The Rock's GP7's were about as cool looking of a GP as there was back then. See: o Trains, July, 1987 o Remember the Rock, Vol 1, No 1, 2004 and Vol 1, No 2, 2004. Ken
Since I moved to Union a couple of year's ago, the Rock has become my 2nd favorite railroad. I work for UPD, and took a property damage report for the Central Midland crew last summer (someone broke the windows out of SW1500 no. 1523). Those guys were great. They invited me to bring my four-year old son, who is obsessed with trains, along for a ride while they switched cars at Rexam and Esselte Pendeflex. I know that's generally frowned upon by the RR's nowdays, so I hope I'm not telling on them. That 45 minute cab ride fulfilled a 25 year old dream. I grew up in Wesco on the Frisco's Salem branch, and my grandpa had worked for the Frisco on the track gang for about 20 years or so. He had retired well before I was born, but the train crew told him that they would stop and take me for a ride from Wesco to Cook Station some day. Then BN bought out Frisco, they tore the tracks up in '85, and I never got my ride. Pat Moreland
William, Blairstown, MO is was on the Frisco's Clinton Subdivision. The Rock Island did not run through Blairstown. Three of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway's (CRIP) tunnels on the Kansas City to St. Louis line are east of the mid division point at Eldon, MO, MP 159.9 (from St. Louis). The Rock Island's Tunnel Number 3, MP 149.0, is located 1/2 mile east of Eugene, MO, MP 149.5. It is located under Missouri Highway 17, with the west portal south and east of Tunnel Street and the east portal is through the woods east of Southwest Lane. Tunnel Number 2, MP 128.6, is located between Koeltztown, MP 129.3 and Argyle, MP 125.1. It is located under the first bend in the road of County Route 541, approximately 1,500 feet south of State Highway P. Tunnel Number 1, MP 118.4, is just west and within sight of the former depot site at Freeburg, MP 118.2. It is located under US Highway 63 (a/k/a Locust Street), south of East Harrison Avenue and north of East Gilbert Avenue. Tunnel Number 4, MP 277.8, is just north (railroad west) of Vale, MO, MP 277.5. It is located within the southeast city limits of Kansas City, MO under the 12580 block of East Banister Road. From Bannister Road, go south 3 blocks on Norfleet Road to where it turns west as East 98th Street (a/k/a Vale Road), go 2 blocks up to the track and look north (right) for the south portal. Hope this helps. Thanks! Mark
Thanks Mark! You're absolutely right. I've bought a few products from Blair Line (located in Blairstown), and know that they've made a couple of depot kits based on Rock Island prototypes along the St. Louis subdivision (Gerald and Leeton), so I guess that's where I made that association. Pat Moreland
I think Blair Line is actually located at Carthage, MO. They do have a model of the Blairstown, MO depot. There's a feature article about Blair Line Models in the latest issue of N Scale Railroading. Dale Rush, the owner posts here once in a while. Tom
Re: WORK Starts tomorrow! UPDATE! Ok Guys, I will hope to be posting some pics in the next few days but, I have ripped up the entire inside main and some of the outside main. I have added some real estate to the inside of the layout and finally have MOST of my track plan worked out. If you look in my album, the big hill in the corner that my wife did is GONE, and she has started a new mountain about 3 feet South of that location and is putting in a mountain with 2 tunnels. I made her 4 tunnel portals that are the timber type and they are made from real wood, any one interested in some of these let me know they are $5.00 a piece, which is $4.00 for the tunnel portal and $1.00 for shipping. I also started a riser on the outside main where it will actually go over a series of Bridges and elevated ground about 1/3 of the way around the layout, and will be entering its tunnel shortly after it stars the incline. We tore out most of the town and are making it on both sides of the river and the elevation. It is finally starting to come together with the look and feel of a real railroad. I also started re-doing the yard and so far so good. Just like in Neodesha, the main line runs straight through the middle of the yard, or atleast it did back when I was there. I will give more updates soon. I just purchased more flex track on Ebay, you can never have enough flex track, and I am awaiting its arrival. If anyone has a surplus of #6 LH and RH turnouts they would like to part with for a good price, I would definitely be interested. |-||-||-|
Walthers has Peco #6 code 100 switches on sale for $21 and if you know someone who has a dealer account with Walthers you could possibly get them cheaper I'm using this sale price as an excuse to cut in a crossover between my inside and outside mains (track one and two)
