Branch Line vs. Main Line

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

For a long time I fought the idea of modeling a branch line because it seemed to me that traffic levels wouldn’t be sufficient to maintain operating interest.

However, there are some branch lines that had sufficient traffic (depending on the period) to allow running multiple trains in an operating session.

I posted earlier about SP’s Monterey Branch in the 1940’s. According to sources I have, there were 3 freights into and out of the branch plus a named passenger train. During sardine canning season, my guess is that there were at least a couple of extra freights run. As for the diesel era, there’s no reason why one couldn’t fictionalize that the sardine industry figured out that they were overfishing and that catches were reduced to manageable limits thus maintaining good traffic levels. In any case, the “Del Monte” ran until Amtrak.

SP’s Santa Cruz branch also had 3 freights/day (run as turns out of Watsonville Junction as were the Monterey Branch trains). On Sunday, the SP ran a train from San Francisco to Santa Cruz for beach goers. The train was called “The Suntan Special”. It ran until 1959. Power for the train from Watsonville Jct to Santa Cruz usually consisted of a 4-6-0 doubleheaded with a 2-8-0 in steam years and a couple of GP-9’s (SF to Santa Cruz) in diesel years. I’ve also seen a picture where the train was hauled by a pair of RSD-5’s.

Maine Central’s Rockland Branch is also a good candidate.in the late 40’s/early 50’s. There were 3-4 freight trains as well as 3-4 passenger trains, one of which had a Pullman connection off the seasonal “Bar Harbor Express” in Portland. Power of the branch was 2-8-0’s for the freights and 4-6-2’s on the passenger trains. MEC’s largest Pacifics (which were still somewhat smaller than USRA light’s) could be seen on the passenger trains as well as the lighter ones. In diesel years, it wasn’t uncommon to see a single F-3 on a passenger train, although GP-7’s were more common. Passenger service ended in 1959. MEC also

2

André,
I’M SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING DIVERGING MY LAYOUT ROUTE! The Feather River canyon is a big scenery challenge, maybe too big for the space and time I have available. Our discussions last week about the Monterey traffic has almost convinced me to model a fictitious WP and SP line from Monterey to SanFrancisco. I would avoid bigger train consists and model my favourite RRs anyway, with some ATSF appearing from time to time. BTW I found very interesting infos on the web sites you suggested.
Christian

3

You might be interested then in reading the story of the Ocean Shore Railroad that was planned to connect San Francisco with Santa Cruz and down the coast. Unfortunately, it was never completed. However, it does provide an historical “excuse” for doing what you’re trying to do. The Ocean Shore (at least the part that got built) roughly paralleled what is now state route 1. The southern end of the OS is what is now UP’s branch to the cement plant at Davenport.

Links to Ocean Shore: http://www.ci.pacifica.ca.us/HISTORY/railroad.html

http://www.sandylydon.com/html/sec6.html

related info:http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/trans/railrd.shtml

http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/trans/railrd2.shtml

Andre

4

Even a mainline model railroad has much more traffic over time than a real railroad. Why would this be of concern just because it is a branch. Just because a prototype branch only maybe had one train a day, or even a tri-weekly (where it goes up one week and trys to get back the next), doesn’t mean the model couldn’t run three trains a day.

5

Andre: Another idea might be to model the now-abandoned line from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz, over the Coast Range and down the San Lorenzo river gorge–the old South Pacific Coast route that SP standard-gauged around the turn of the 20th century. A lot of traffic ran over that, including very briefly at one time, a section of the Sunset Limited, when it ran between SF and New Orleans. it was a branch and a main-line both, even though SP had to use mainly ten-wheelers and Consols because of the curveature. And also remember, guys, back during the steam era, there were also a lot of local freight turns on many mainlines–quite a few out here on the West Coast on both SP and WP–worked in between the big stuff. Which means that you can have mainline operation and ‘branch-line’ operation all at the same time. It’s what I do, and it’s a lot of fun. Gives me a chance to run all those gorgeous chunky little Ten-Wheelers and Consols.
Tom

6

According to my Southern Pacific Western Regional Timetable 3, the line from the Dolores Yard in Carson, CA. down to the Port of Los Angeles was called the San Pedro Branch. There is a branch with much traffic.

7

Wasn’t some of the WP within the city of San Francisco on old Ocean Shore right of way?

8

No, the WP ended at Oakland, coming up from the south via the Altamont Pass. The Sacramento Northern, owned by the WP, operated electric passenger trains into San Francisco for two years (after the opening of the Bay Bridge in 1939) but not WP.

There are other places to model on the WP that would be less scenically imposing: the Central Valley line through Oroville, Sacramento and Stockton is about as simple as scenery can be (totally, utterly flat) or, if you want some mountains but not quite as imposing as Keddie Wye, there’s always Altamont Pass between Stockton and Oakland/San Jose. That would be close enough to other SP and AT&SF traffic, as well as a variety of consists including the CZ and other WP passenger traffic.

9

Yeah, that would be a good line to model, either during the years it actually operated or a fictional version where it remained intact after the big storms of 1938. Here’s a guy who’s modeling the line as it was in 1932: http://home.earthlink.net/~bowdidge/vasona.html/ He’s modeling the San Jose end.

Andre

10

I think one of the premer branch lines to model would be the Abingdon Branch of the Norfolk and Western. It has many branches but the Abingdon is one of the longest.

11

Andre:

In effect, modeling a branch line is what I have done in modeling the SP Siskiyou Line. Although officially a branch of the SP, it ran from 4-6 trains a day, half each direction, all freight trains. Many of the freight trains were huge, approaching 100 cars, but that was the SP for you.

By modeling the Coos Bay Branch out of Roseburg, I immediately add another 2 trains to my line up per day for the Coos Bay branch, one each way.

At the peak of operation, the Roseburg Forest Products facility in Dillard would do an extra local during the weekdays, so there’s another train.

Then there’s the Riddle Turn, another local south of Roseburg. And in the heyday of wood chip traffic, they’d run two “sweeper” trains each up and down the Siskiyou Line just to pick up loaded wood chip cars and drop off empties.

So there’s a good 12 trains a day centered around Roseburg for this so-called branch line of the SP. Then there’s the Yoncalla turn out of Eugene, the Myrtle Point turn out of Coos Bay, and the Camas Valley switcher job (similar to the Mapleton switcher job on the actual branch), for a total of 15 trains a day on my layout.

And of course if I want to, I can call an inspection special, or a railfan excursion with 4449 now and then, just to bolix up the works.

Finally, when the Cascade Line gets blocked because of a slide or washout, the SP will run as much bigtime freight traffic down the Siskiyou Line as will fit, since it was the original mainline into California.

Or I can declare it to be a Sunday and just run a couple of through freights and that’s it.

So the nice thing about the Siskiyou Line, especially with my proto-freelance change of having the Coos Bay branch connect in at Roseburg is that you can pick the traffic level you like and go with it!

12

The Abingdon branch would be interesting to build, but there wouldn’t be all that much operation to it since there was only one train a day (well 2 if you count the return trip). 'Course, you could run a weeks worth of trains during an operating session, but there’d only be one train on the branch at any given time.

Still, for a one man operation, you could spend a lot of time switching.

Andre

13

Just to make sure there is no confusion, the real Coos Bay Branch joins the rest of the railroad world in Eugene. If I remember correctly from the January or February issue of Model Railroader you decided to have it join the Siskiyou Line at Roseburg in addition to or instead of Eugene (I don’t remember which one).

That article is what made me decide to model a SP TEBU.

14

I really like your railroad, Joe. From what sc

15

Actually the line was originally built out of Coos Bay to Myrtle Point in the 1890s and it was called the Coos Bay, Roseburg & Eastern, and the intention was to push it all the way to Roseburg eventually. But the funding never materialized so by the time the SP got around to joining up with the rails in Coos Bay, the Natron cutoff through Oakridge and on to Klamath Falls was underway. So it became a no-brainer to build the branch out of Eugene instead of Roseburg.

I’m simply assuming the funding for the original plan materialized and the line made it to Roseburg as planned originally. No branch out of Eugene was ever built on my version of the Siskiyou Line.

This lets the freelancer in me have some fun (but still staying well grounded in the prototype SP), and makes the focal point of my railroad, Roseburg, all that much more interesting!

16

Well yes, if you model it in 1960. I was thinking more like 1900-1924 when the lumber, salt, and coal industries where going gangbusters. I believe there were about 8 trains a day. But like I said before, even if you model the prototypical amount of trains on a busy mainline there isn’t going to be all that much operation. Relatively speaking all model railroads run much more traffic than a prototypical situation. There is no reason on a model one could not run three or four trains a day.

17

Andre:

Actually, there are a couple guys on my regular operating crew that are building up a collection of SP in Oregon steam (decks, early ACs, etc) and they have threatened to descend upon an operating session sometime with all steam and insist we run a “throwback” op session of sorts!

Sounds like fun.[:D]

18

You are mistaken. The WP had a car float, later car ferry operation (the famous Las Plumas) from Oakland (the “Boat Yards”) to 25th Street Yard in San Francisco. There were two WP lines serving industries in the City. One ran west along Army Street the turned southerly along the east side of the Bayshore Freeway (Hwy 101). >There were approximently 40 business/industries served in 1959 according toa WP training manual<

The other line ran west parallel to 25th Street to Iowa Street then in a northwesterly direction. After pasing through Tunnel A it ran diagionally across the blocks from near the corner of Carolina and 18th Street to the vicinity of Bucannan Street. There was a team yard at Bucannan and 9th. The WP freight houses were at Buchannan and 8th. I took photos of much of this area in the mid '70’s. The line was still in use (but just barely) The tunnel had caved in some years before and the Las Plumas had been out of service, and stored at the SF ferry slip for a number of years. At this time, the cars for the WP were brought to the City on the Santa Fe ferry. > This line served more than 90 customers in 1959<

Some of my photos are posted in a file on the Yahoo WPlist

19

Okey doke…learn something new every day! My WP knowledge is mostly limited to the SN and stuff in the Sacramento Valley itself…

20

Come to Britain and model our branchlines! There’s plenty of scope for sufficient traffic to be generated by even the smallest of lines. Industrial and Rural settings both qualify. Some of our cities even have branch lines feeding a single industry, and/or connecting to the mainline (off layout in the fiddle yard?)

Hope this helps
Ian