Small Layout Design Catalog

Chris - this is a great idea!

Under Parameter #1, were you thinking about 200 square feet being the maximum or minimum for a layout size?

Bob

Lenexa, KS

 

Ship IT on the Frisco!

I like the way you say that.

I have often thought what would I do for a railroad if I couldn't take the stairs to the basement, had to move into another house or went to prison. While I hardly consider myself a layout designer, I have thought about alternatives to my present layout. Here are few initial thoughts for railroads that could be done in a bedroom on three walls and could pack a lot of fun.

1. The Cental Division. Hey is this division any wider than 4 tracks anywhere? Lots of switching on the north (Springdale) and south ends (Ft. Smith) and plenty of scenery in the middle including Winslow('s mother) Tunnel and those neat bridges over the hollers and Frog Creek. This one would have lots of character.

2. Tulsa Sun Oil Refinery. What a monster! This would be a switching layout based on any elements of the refinery that you liked. I could also include part of the Cherokee Yard along with the refinery. You would have to like tank cars but box cars would also be needed for packaged oil products. Might even mix in a little transfer service to the Tulsa Sapulpa Union and the Sand Springs for added flavor.

3. Springfield North Yard. This small yard for local switching includes the TOFC ramps, reefer track (for Kraft), the foundry (in the background looking north) and the Frisco Transportation Co. The main Springfield yard could be staging to the west and locals could work the industries to the east. One could even create an eastern staging yard for road trains passing by North Yard on their way to and from SY. AND what about that FOOTBRIDGE !!!! Sounds like a busy and cool layout to me.

I just thought that if you liked two of the three, you could build both, one above the other in the same room ! Wowza ! They don't have to connect. Two small switching/branch type layouts in one room just might be the ticket.

Anyway, I guess I should draw something up, right? Let me play with some ideas and let you all critique them.

 

Re: Small Layout Design Catalog: "A Clinton Layout"

I never thought I'd be interested at all in a layout centered around Clinton (Or the Highline/Leaky Roof etc.), because of the lack of any meaningful passenger trains.
Freight yard and industry switching, by themselves don't really interest me. However, the postings, maps, photos etc. (In the past and) recently here have piqued my interest of railroading around Clinton.
I still probably wouldn't choose Clinton as a centerpiece for a layout, mainly because I've only been to Clinton a couple of times and I'm just not that familiar with railroading in that area, but if I were considering a Clinton layout, I'd incorporate the M-K-T into the mix so I could have another daily passeger train. Katy trains 5 and 6 were the St. Louis-Parsons connection of the Katy Flyer (A neat little "Pike-Size" train in its own right). That train and the SLSF's tr. 20 and 21 (Or 21 and 22) along with the Frisco mixed train would add some interest for passenger train modelers.

Tom

 

Re: Small Layout Design Catalog: "A Clinton Layout"

Tom, Fellow poster Bradley Scott and I rode in the same auto around S.E. Michigan Saturday to operate two different basement-filling layouts along with several others from the Ann Arbor Division 9 of NMRA NCR. Bradley showed me some fantastic drawings he's started on a Clinton track plan. It has it all for switching. He included the MKT and both Frisco lines.

I, on the other hand, showed him some preliminary thoughts for a track plan of the Ft. Wood branch - featuring a fantastic prototypical switching layout at Ft. Wood, a wye-to-wye plan through the hills and woods, a neat on-line town (Devils Elbow), and how it could fit my basement space. I guess Devils Elbow could have industries to switch on a model layout even if it didn't on the prototype.

After operating the two huge layouts, we decided we much preferred switching to mainline runs.

I'll post my LDE for Ft. Wood later in the month. First, I need to scan some old photos. Hopefully, Bradley will scan and post his LDE for Clinton too.

 

I can generate some LDE's from my track plan. North Fort Smith with parallel MOP switching. Whirlpool and neighborhood (Andre told me they would sometimes haul sixty cars out of there as a switch job!)
Based on the old track charts, there are a couple of elements around downtown.
To see the overall plan, you can go to hograils.com for the Central Divisions page. I do need to get our webmaster some updates: photos with more mock-ups, the VB Industrial peninsula, plan adjustment to make the MP/KCS/SLSF junction south of downtown closer to prototype. I'm still trying to figure out whose track was whose in some areas, what businesses were where in 1980, so anybody with info please let me know.

Will there be a Files area set up for Frisco LDEs?

 

Doug somewhat overstates my abilities in his post above. I've sketched some ideas for the Clinton area which feature the MK&T and one or the other of the two Frisco lines, but I've never managed to fit both of them into a reasonable space. I'll see if I can find time to sketch some of those ideas in more detail and scan them sometime next week.

I look forward to seeing what ideas people come up with!

 

I am enjoying this discussion. I'll throw in another one, pretty simple but might get some armchair modeler, like me, going. Some of you might be familiar with Lance Mindheim whose layouts have appeared in MR publications. He had a pretty neat N scale Monon layout but has moved on and build a couple of industrial switching layouts based on CSX prototype operations in the Miami area. One was called East Rail, a 9.5 by 9.5 x 16 in L shaped layout. It had no run around and all but one spur was facing point. I've read somwhere where Lance called it the most enjoyable layout he has ever operated. So, what does this have to do with Frisco?

Go into the Frisco Library and in the Northern Division type in Olathe/Lenexa industries. You should find a series of track charts for an industrial park in Lenexa. Find the chart that runs along Santa Fe and bisects 99th Street, I think third one from the left. There are two spurs that run along 99th. I count five buildings along those spurs with over 30 car spots. One could have a local from KC drop cars off the main and an industrial park switcher work the spurs. In the early 1980's Rick McClellan and I worked for a company in that industrial park. I remember Frisco parked a switcher in the park. My memory is that it was an SW7 or Sw9, but it could have been an SW1500.

Buildings would be modern one story type. Trackwork would be simple. One might wonder if it would be fun to operate with all facing point turnouts. But with all those car spots there would be plenty of movement.

Kind of a long post, but I thought someone might find it useful.

John

 

Hey Boomer, good memory. The Frisco industrial track ran right through our parking lot at 110th and Lakeview. We never saw any movements on that track so that must have been a night job. I did see a SLSF GP15-1 in late 1981 or early 1982 derail right on 110th St. It blocked traffic for a few mins until the crew rerailed it on the spot. As I recall they used wooden wedges to guide the errant wheels back in place and off they went.

My memory and a few photos that I took 81/82 show a SLSF GP15-1 on station at Lenexa. It had a BN stencil on it though. YUK.

 

Another area that would make a good Frisco layout would be Joplin, Missouri or Pittsburg, Kansas. The Parsons Sub from Pittsburg to Parsons would also be another good layout.

John Chambers

 

This has been an enjoyable, and thought provoking post!

Personally, I've mentioned to several folks, in the K.C. area, that I'd like to model Clinton as an L.D.E. If I can squeeze one more, it would be Harrisonville, thus representing the Clinton Sub. I'd be glad to share any plans, once they're on paper.

Going back to the previous posts of Boomer John and Rick, yes - Lenexa would be a great L.D.E. As a highschool teenager, my first love was trains. We moved to Lenexa in 1976, so I was fortunate to see lots of O & W.

In this timeframe, Frisco had an SW1500 parked in Lenexa for switching duties. I recall there were at least two tricks - a daylight and night-time job, as Rick mentioned.

One huge customer in that industrial park area was Johnson Controls. They were (I think still) large shippers and receivers of raw plastics and materials in their finished goods. There is always a long string of covered hoppers sitting on the siding, adjacent to the mainline just north of the current Crossover C. This might be an L.D.E.

Another opportunity would be the lumber yard, of decent size, located exactly where the Bass Pro Shops is, between Olathe and Lenexa. I recall seeing lots of flatcars, empty and loaded with lumber - ah the wonderful smell of cedar!

Another interesting industry was an auto parts distribution warehouse (either Ford or Chrysler) that saw many large 86' high-cube boxcars spotted in the siding that curved off of the mainline to the east.

Also, there's the house track adjacent to the Lenexa Depot (modern one is still there - the former is in a nearby park - Rick made a nice Post on this). At one time, there was a freight house, as well as an old mill (still there too) that were served on this siding.

Finally, another nifty little L.D.E. is a little four-track yard that was north of the depot - just north of 87th Street. There were several different industries in that little industrial park.

One positive aspect, as you look at the diagrams that Boomer John mentioned, is that most of the sidings curve off of the mainline, at an angle, toward the west. This would mix things up a bit - avoiding the tendancy to design linear track and taking advantage of space.

Lots of opportunities for switching and a large diversity of industries. This is another good candidate for L.D.E.'s.

Bob McKeighan
Lenexa, KS

 

Courtsy of Bill Baron of MR, this has always been my dream of a small layout. I think that it has the possibility of a Frisco nature. It has lots of industry (six I believe), passenger terminal, small yard, engine service with coaling tower, water tank, etc. Two different towns and enough switching to keep one occupied. Lots of trestles - I love to see trains crossing bridges. I may still attempt to do it .. but age and bendability of the body is becomming a factor.

 

Phenix LDE

Phenix, MO LDE​

One of the locations, which I think would make a good Railroad Model, is the section of the Leaky Roof between Ash Grove and Phenix. The centerpiece of the layout would be the quarry operation at Phenix. Articles in the December 1927 FEM and an article in the Frisco Museum’s “All Aboard” provide much in the way of information via text and via pictures. There are also several historical web sites that contribute information. Central to the story of the establishment of the Phenix quarry is the oft-quoted fact that a limestone or a “marble” vein was discovered while blasting for the railroad. That’s a risible notion.

The geologist in me can’t let that notion pass without comment. Secondly since the geologic regime dictates the operation at Phenix, it is good to examine what exists at Phenix. Limestone is so common in Southwest Missouri that one can trip over limestone cobbles and gravel with each step. There’s not much to discover. To be sure, describing the limestone/marble as being in a vein is truly a misnomer.

Petrologically speaking, marble does not exist in Missouri. Marble is a metamorphic rock derived from limestone. However, builders, et al have come to use the term “marble” for any limestone that is capable of being polished or any limestone that might be used as dimensional stone. That nomenclature covers a lot of ground, and it’s not used by the geologic community.

The quarry at Phenix produced rock from the Osagean Series, Keokuk-Burlington Formation, and given the quarry’s location, the rock produced comes from the upper portion of the Keokuk Formation. As described in the Stratigraphic Succession in Missouri (1961), the Keokuk is a bluish-grey, medium to coarsely crystalline medium bedded limestone. Like the lower, Burlington Formation, parts of the Keokuk are extremely crinoidal (a fossil). Other fossils, brachiopods, horn corals, and bryozoans are common. Styolites, a diagenetic contact feature, are common at bed boundaries. Styolites provide an attractive textural feature for the polished limestone, and therefore they are desirable.

I think that it is noteworthy that the quarry lies within several hundred feet of the contact of the Warsaw Formation. The Warsaw Formation produces the famed “Carthage Marble”. In short, one could have quarried limestone nearly anywhere in the area and produced quality dimensional stone, lime, aggregate, and road metal.

At the time of the FEM article, the quarry produced 50 cars of dimensional stone a month, and it received cars of sand, which the quarry workers used to cut and polish the limestone. The article specifically mentions that the sand came from Pacific, Mo and Webb City, MO.

At Pacific, the St Champlainian Series, St Peter Formation is quarried for its nearly pure quartz sandstone. It is used as glass sand and as an abrasive. In the subsurface, the St Peter Formation is an excellent aquifer. Its friable nature makes it an ideal source of abrasives for the quarry at Phenix.

I am stumped with regard to the article’s reference to the sand produced at Webb City. There are several locations in Newton Country, Missouri that produce Tripoli from weathered locations in the Keokuk Limestone. Tripoli is used in scouring cleansers, and could have been used as a cutting and polishing agent. The fact that there are several outcrops of fluvial, Pennsylvanian-aged sandstone within several hundred yards of the quarry leads me to believe that the quarry received Tripolitic chert from Webb City. These channel sands unconformably overlie both the Burlington-Keokuk Formation and the Warsaw Formation.

The quarry had an internal railroad to move the large blocks of limestone from the working face to stone saw mill. A “Dinky” locomotive and flatcars handled this job.
The “Dinky”, a 1922-built, 22 ton Heisler was built specifically for the Phenix quarry.

Construction Number: 1468
Driver Diameter: 30”
Tractive Effort: 6600lbs
Boiler Pressure: 170psi
Cylinders: 10”x10”

Date: Activity
UNKN Sold to Carthage Marble #1, Monett, MO
UNKN Sold Fred Cox, Skyline RR #96, Jenks, OK
1964 Ozark Mountain Scenic RR, Springfield
4/1966 Became Ozark Mountain RR
2/85 Sold to Marvin Kendell, St Johnsbury, VT
4/1985 Moved to Fitchburg, MA
12/85 Moved to West Barnet, VT

The Heisler is still under steam in Barnet, Vermont. A few videos of the former Phenix denizen may be viewed at Youtube. Thanks to Bradley Scott for finding this Frisco adjunct.

The quarry complex had 7 main structures, which were a Power House, a Black Smith Shop, a Carpenter Shop, A Stone Saw Mill, a Tile Shed, a Compressor “Room”, and a one-stall engine house. The power plant, which is built of cut limestone and contained two “engines”, is still extant.

The All Aboard article has photos of the Dinky, the KCCS Depot, and many of the quarry buildings. The KCCS stone depot is a gem and would make a nice model. (Dale Rush, hint… hint…)

The FEM article points out that the quarry provided a real win-win for Frisco, since incoming materials, and outgoing production all go via the Frisco. I get a sense from the article that outgoing loads are routed to the mainline connection at Ash Grove. Although, I have seen a photograph in a Polk County history that depicts a train near Aldrich, MO. The train contains several flat cars with what appear to be loads of dimensional stone. The image is fuzzy, so it’s only a guess. Perhaps the Leaky Roof delivered the stone to the Katy at Clinton or even the MOP at Harrisonville.

The article states that a daily turn from Ash Grove worked the quarry, but with only 50 cars of stone a month being produced plus 4-5 cars per day of crushed waste rock, it doesn’t seem that a turn from Ash Grove would be necessary. Perhaps in-bound loads of sand were sufficient to keep a turn from Ash Grove busy. Although the FEM article doesn’t specifically state that the quarry received coal, one might argue that coal was also delivered to fuel the locomotive and power plant. It’s also likely that the railroad delivered other materials such as lumber, lubricants, rock bits, etc to the quarry.

Unanswered is a question about the specific quarry’s customer base. Did quarry provide dimensional stone for specific building projects, i.e., contract work, which no doubt it did? But did it also produce a generic line of dimensional stone that could be used for general construction projects? The FEM cites the Bank of America in New York City anf the capitol building in Jeff City as locations where the Napolean Grey Marble from Phenix was used, and states that carloads of marble are consigned to points all over the US.

Even though the Frisco abandoned the Leaky Roof during the middle 30’s, it retained the Ash Grove-Phenix segment until the quarry ceased operations circa 1941-42.

The sources that I have read have been unable to determine the reason why the quarry ceased operation. It did manage to survive through the Great Depression, and the piece of the KCCS that served the quarry was abandoned during 1940-41. Some opine that the quarry ran out of “stone” to extract.

I believe that the demise of the quarry can be tied a change in construction methods. The era of large stone edifices had passed, and less expensive building techniques and less expensive materials came into common usage. This is especially true with regard to public buildings, such as libraries, schools, city halls, county courthouses, etc. The onset of WWII, further reduced the supply of skilled stone masons. I believe that the use of cheaper construction methods and materials ultimately doomed the quarry.

Even if the demand for dimensional stone had vanished, I wonder why the quarry didn’t shift its operation back to lime and aggregate production. Perhaps, the operation at Phenix couldn’t compete with the larger Ash Grove Limestone Company quarry at Ash Grove.

During the early seventies, I explored the quarry, and took slides of the structures and the spars which were used to load the raw stone onto the quarry flatcars.

Recently the quarry has resumed operations, and from what I can ascertain, it produces artsy “marble” home products, such as bathroom basins, counter tops, tables, etc.

The Model Layout​

I don’t have all of my source materials with me, so consider these a general overview

Overall the track plan is simple. The KCCS had a single siding at Phenix, and a spur into the quarry. The quarry railroad was simple as well. Based on some of the erasures on the drawing, its apparent that the railroad alignment changed as the working faces of the quarry changed. A tax valuation map from the Frisco Museum shows the layout, and as I recall the line from the Rock Saw Mill split to provide access to two working faces.

The KCCS had the aforementioned depot, a coal house, and an out houses to serve its needs at Phenix.

The Frisco maintained a large depot, a water tank, a three-stall engine house, plus ancillary structures at Ash Gove. A wye off the Ash Grove Sub connected the main line to the Leaky Roof. The track configuration was simple with a passing track plus a couple of other sidings.

Modeling Eras​

The 1920’s, the Heyday of Operations.

A daily passenger train, steam or Bullmoose
The Clinton-Ash Grove freight local
The Ash Grove turn
Power Psgr: 4-4-0’s, e.g., 148 and 4-6-0’s (500’s and 600’s)
Power Frt: 4-6-0’s (500’s and 600’s)
Quarry: Heisler


The 1930’s to Osceola Sub Abandonment

Passenger service ends
The Clinton-Ash Grove freight local provides service to quarry.
The Ash-Grove-Phenix turn is discontinued
Quarry: Heisler
Engine house at Ash Grove and Phenix depot are razed

Mid-30’s to Cessation of Quarry Operation
The Ft Scott-Springfield local provides service
Frt power 4-6-0’s smaller 2-8-0’s
Quarry: Heisler


1940’s and 50’s, a twist of history…modeler’s license

The quarry ekes out its existence during the war, and survives to partake in the post-war construction boom. The kiln is enlarged and lime and ag-lime are produced. A crusher is installed, and aggregate is produce for concrete.

The Frisco upgrades the line

Service is provided by the Springfield-Ft Scott local.

Power: 1306 class 2-8-0’s, the Bolsheviks, 4000-class 2-8-2’s, and later GP-7’s
Quarry: The Heisler survives the end of steam on the Frisco, and becomes the favorite of local railfans.

Rolling Stock:

Vary to accomodate time frame

Inbound Loads:
Gons and hoppers for sand and coal
Boxcars for equipment and materials

Outbound Loads:
Flats for dimensional stone(wooden frames/cradles were built on the flats to prevent movement of the limestone blocks during shipment)
Gons and hoppers for limestone aggregate
Boxcars for bagged lime

 

Geology, Mining, Railroading, and History .... Where was this course when I went to school?

I might have stayed longer.

Karl, simply phenomenal.

 

Sir,

Staying at skool? I only stayed because I was in trouble. "Silence is Golden" it etched in my mind. If we would have had text messaging I wouldn't have had to endure that.

Wiz,

You talk real purty too like that Yardmaster. Not sure what you said but if raisins are included, I'm with you. Those little devils are tasty and good for you.

All I know is I like Karl Brand and I hope he comes to KC to operate. If you do, Karl, I'll get Schoettlin to come and it will be a Karlfest. He thinks very highly of you and your family AND he lives pretty close to me.