All the benchwork is in. I have 24 feet going along one wall, not including staging. On this lenght is the freighthouse under 12th St and up Santa Fe Street past Tower 2, the Crooks warehouses, Weber Paper and Rudy Patrick. Then there is a 13 foot section turning to the left in an L shape. There will be a small yard (Henning Street Yard) and the Armour Plant. I could eventually extend this and interchange with the CGW. I put it at 54 inches, which seems about right to me. Pretty happy with progress at this point. Looks like about a ten year project. I have purchased my power, sound equipted Proto 0-6-0's. These are Tulsa engines, but had to bend a little because of their fine running characteristics. Need some Frisco boxcars and Armour reefers. Looks like the Accurail outside boxcars are my best bet for early 1950's era. My next big hurdle is figuring out the best way to do street trackage including turnouts. John
John: Sounds like a very interesting layout project. Anxious to see some pictures of your progress. As many of you know, I too, have fallen in love with the West Bottoms area and its superb small layout operational potential. "Eventually" I will return working on my small S scale layout West Bottoms theme. FWIW: I may fudge and have a Frisco H10-44 working the Bottoms at times! Keep us posted John and even pics of your plywood w/tracks would be fun to see. Simply use captions to tell us what we'll eventually be seeing. Andre
Karl, This is good news! For my 1950 session, I have P2K SLSF 3803 in service because I have not been able to get the VOs in service. If you know the specific numbers of the 0-6-0s in KC, please let us know.
I have some H10-44s in service on the Northern Division as well . I know they were confined to Tulsa (unless someone knows different) but the P2Ks are just too nice to leave in the box or (even worse) leave in a hobby store. When more SWs are put in service, the H10s may go to SY.
Rick, The Fairbanks-Morse units were not strictly confined to Tulsa. Tulsa was the primary maintenance base for these units in an effort to consolidate parts stores, mechanical and operating department expertise. This helped reduce costs by having a minority make class of units consolidated at a centralized point verses spread throughout the system. That said, there is photographic evidence that the units regularly were assigned at points close to, but other than Tulsa. These locations include Enid, Muskogee and Oklahoma City. Photographs show several of the units were equipped with class lights. These came in handy so the units could operate regularly between these points and their regular maintenance base in Tulsa. Major repairs, rebuilding and most wheel turning would result in the units being transferred to the main system shops in Springfield. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to see them there also for short periods of time. Ultimately, one could say that they were largely "Oklahoma" units. To use an analogy for these units, they were born on one city far away, they "worked" in the "neighborhood", but they usually went "home" to Tulsa. And on occasion the units would make a longer trip to visit "relatives" at other locations or their "parents home" in Springfield. Hope this helps. Thanks! Mark
You're referring to the F-M's (Fairbanks-Morse) being confined to Tulsa--Rather than Baldwins right? The Baldwins were all over... Tom
Tom, Thank you for catching my error. Need more than 3 hours of sleep at night. Mark it up to a senior moment. I will go back and amend my post to correct Baldwin to the proper FM. You also raise an interesting point. The Baldwins were more wide spread as they were more numerous. However, even they tended to concentrate at a few locations at larger terminals for many of the same reasons noted for the FMs. Hope this helps. Thanks! Mark
"Alas, Northern Division, we hardly knew ye!" Well... With benchwork up and flextrack and materials on hand, I had fully expected to start laying track by now. However...after 8 days in Washington, Ben is determined to model the Washington DC "Metro." It's not as insane as I first thought: while sold out, Walthers did produce HO-scale models of the "Metro" cars, and the construction would be greatly simplified (a lot of identical-looking stations). Add to the equation that we are now very seriously looking at moving. It's buyer's market for sure, so now is not the time I want to be laying track in a hot garage just to move it all out. My wife (blessed be her name) is really wanting to find a basement with SOME semblance of unfinished, climate-controlled space for a "train room." I think part of my dissatisfaction with my current space is that it's WAY too hot or WAY too cold, and has to provide sufficient clearance above/below for "stuff storage." Therefore, I remain in the ranks of model builder and armchair modeler for now. My son's desire to model mass transit may wane by the time we move, or I may try to stack a small Frisco branch line on the "above ground" portion...time will tell. Thanks to all who have contributed to my requests for KC area and Northern Division research and questions; it's been a lot of fun diving into a new area of the Frisco and I'm sure that interest will only continue to grow. Best Regards,
