So, I’m sitting here, looking over what I’ve drawn and thinking although the run from end to end looks as though it will be pretty short, what I have drawn looks as though it certainly would be doable. A bigger area to construct a layout such as I’m considering, would certainly be nice! I’m guessing this pretty nuch would be the case with all of us!
I’ve seen in the Richardson book that Ophir Loop had a siding on it at one time and it was on the high side, just before the Ophir Depot. While I’m studying this, I determined that something about how I’ve drawn the loop is wrong! Because we need to compress everything and my basement won’t allow me to build the land as it really is, I have inadvertently drawn the high and low sides of the loop, reversed from how they really are. I’m still thinking about this and wondering if I can re-draw this detail to get it correct.
This brings up an interesting problem with attempting to design a real railroad, to fit your basement. The only way to really do the Ophir Loop as it really would be, would be to have it on a peninsula. In this way, you could have the tracks leading one way, turn to the right and go out onto the peninsula and loop back and then turn to the right again and have the line pick-up the general heading it was going before the loop. If I was free lancing the design, (which I actually will be doing, as I have no other choice in the matter) you would just live with however everything came out and say: Good enough!
There is another problem with reality and attempting to model Vance Junction! Coming from Ridgeway and entering Vance Junction heading south, at the
Can’t speak for others, but I’d have an easier time with this if I saw some diagrams. Possibly one diagram showing your available space; another set showing your proposed modules; and a third showing how you’re thinking of putting it all together. Maybe several variants.
Agree that the Vance and Ophir modules might be hard to handle, depending on your space and how you have to put it all together. I’ve seen photos of model versions of these areas, in which the Ophir loop is reversed, or the grade goes the opposite way. I personally would favor a plan that matches the prototype as much as possible, and I think you would, too. So a lot of this will be determined by your own priorities. How much compromise can you accept? At what point will you decide “No, that’s too much compromise. I won’t go there.”
I’ve driven to Vance Junction from Illium before, but I think I didn’t really have this figured out until you wrote this. There is no wye at Vance Jct, but Illium is so close it doesn’t really matter. I can’t find pics or a map with documentation of it, so am a bit hazy working from written descriptions. There was a wye at Illium, but this must’ve required backing up the branch towards Vance from it in order for trains to be properly oriented to go south from Vance after they turned on the wye. Rather odd, but it’s the RGS.
Does anyone have visual proof of this?
EDIT: OK, here’s a link to the present day view. The Illium wye was just down the hill from Vance after the Telluride Branch took off from there. The tail of the wye was just 120’ long.
I’ve dealt with this issue myself. Both Animas Forks and Red Mountain are somewhat twisted from the originals. This can be disconcerting at first, but soe long as the visual cues of where you’re at are there, it grows on you as you use it so long as you can still perform the essential prototype switching movements for the location…but then again I’m a bi
Although I had asked about cheap CAD programs in another thread, I really don’t want to take the time to learn CAD and had decided to use my drafting skills to draw this layout on paper; so, I can’t reproduce any electronic copies of what I’ve drawn, at this time. What I have on paper is in it’s formative stages and I am not ready to darken the lines so they would show up is a photo. I’m also uncertain on how to post photos here and sort of like learning CAD, lack interest in learning how. I have posted photos before and forgot how and am unsure how I did it way back two years ago and am pretty certain it is no longer how it is done anymore!
ACY, I apologize for my lack of confuser skills. I’m retired now and quite frankly the constant change of computer technology leaves me both in the dark and in the cold! Since I no longer need to be computer savvy, I may never be any better at fooling with all this electr
Don’t apologize, Pardner! I’m in the same leaky boat when it comes to these Infernal Machines! I’m a guy who believes you correct your mistakes with Wite-Out, & have managed, with one keystroke, to obliterate an hour’s worth of carefully written text. More than once. I feel your pain.
Try this for size: Forget Vance/Ilium/Telluride/Pandora. Too complicated, and the reverse loop between Ilium and Telluride would be almost impossible to do effectively in limited space. Build a peninsula parallel to the longest dimension of your space. Build a nice turning loop where the peninsula abuts the wall. Then build a hidden staging track from that loop toward the end of the peninsula. No tunnels on the RGS, so the line emerges from a disguised deep cut at the end of the peninsula, curving to the right onto Butterfly trestle. Follow the peninsula back upgrade to Ophir, by the wall where you started. Curve sharp right through Ophir (directly above your hidden staging loop). Run upgrade along the peninsula, over the various trestles, then curve left at the end of the peninsula, high above Butterfly trestle. Curve left and leave the Ophir scene. Trout Lake is on the other side of the peninsula. Continue to the first wall and leave the peninsula, coming into Lizard Head. Then continue as space allows, terminating in open staging at Rico. Rico can be anything from a plain staging area to a full-blown replica of the real place, depending on your space and preferences. This plan loses the yard at Ridgeway, but gains an equivalent yard, plus at least one mill, at Rico. It eliminates the scenic problems involved in connecting Vance /Ilium/Telluride with Ophir. Since Trout Lake would be at a fairly high elevation, there would be no problem providing access to your staging area under Trout Lake. Of course, that’s just one suggestion.
Mike, I was just looking at Ilium Colorado on Google Earth and I do see what appears to be traces of a wye and small yard there. The book I’m reading now on the Durango & Silverton has a chapter on the RGS and the author talks about there being 20 train loads of ore coming from Telluride per day. This was around the turn of the last century, I don’t know what amount of traffic came from Telluride in the 30s, when I want to set the clock. It would seem weird to me that there would be a yard at Ilium and one at Vance, too, less than a mile from each other!
Google Earth has been indispensable in my quest for information on the RGS! I think I’ve spent more time looking at Google Earth, then I have at the drawing board.
I’m not an RGS expert, but I seem to recall reading about Telluride being treated as a terminal and served primarily by trains from Ridgway, so trains coming from Telluride into Vance and then south to Durango may have been quite uncommon. This seems like an odd arrangement geographically, but from an operational standpoint, the RGS was primarily built to reach the mines around Telluride, so treating it as a terminus makes some sense in that light. I did just see a newspaper clipping in Dorman’s RGS book from the early 30s discussing rumors of the RGS abandoning the segment between Vance and Rico - the writer is unconcerned because Telluride is served by trains from Ridgway, while Rico and Dolores are served by trains from Durango, so little would have changed in his estimation.
On the other hand, I would think at least some of the ore from the mines and mills on the branch would have been processed at the smelter in Durango, but maybe it went elsewhere after transfering to the Rio Grande standard gauge in Montrose?
On another note, I’ve long thought that just the Telluride Branch itself could make a great layout, and could be done very faithfully. Operationally it would be more interesting in the early years, but that could be said of the whole line and can be mitigated somewhat by modeling fall or spring with the stock rushes. Ophir is certainly spectacular and distinctive, but it’s an enormous space-eater, has very little operational potential, and has been modeled to death.
You seem pretty set on the northern division, but another interesting area of the RGS that has been virtually ignored by modelers is the logging around Dolores - those little lines interchanging with the RGS in that area could make for a very interesting and unique layout.
Yeah, the RGS had some weird traffic patterns and relatively meagre facilities to deal with them.
Great question, wish I knew the answer. Durango is definitely the closest smelter by rail – but those were RGS rails and getting over them reliably could be a problem. Other than Leadville or Pueblo, I can’t think of anything else at all close.
As NP2626 noted, seems weird to have Vance and Illium so close, but Vance just didn’t have room for a wye. The sloping hill made that impossible, so they dropped down by the river on the way to Telluride to locate it with little room to spare. Makes you wonder how they operated it. I don’t recall a clear explanation about this situation in anything I’ve read, or how it operated, but I’m sure it became less of a bottlenexk than it seemed in later years with declining traffic.
Barriger was a RR executive who was an influential and well-connected traveler. Many of the pics are just taken off the platform of whatever business car he was traveling on – and he almost always traveled that way. He often served as a consultant and evaluator of RR lines and property for the government and undoubtedly for others such as financiers, lines looking to buy others, that sort of thing as far as I can tell from reading a little about him in Monon H&TS pubs, books, Trains, etc. He was president of the Monon after WWII and helped modernize the RR far beyond simply managing the new diesel motive power. He wasn’t there that long, but set in motion a lot of things that bore fruit later. If it all had, the Monon would’ve been independent longer, but that’s also what it is.
Anyway, he always took his camera and plenty of film. A lot of times he’d just shoot every so often as he traveled along, so that’s why there may just random shots every so often, mixed in with really valuable ones. It’s been awhile since I looked at them, so don’t really recall what’s there in either album.
And when you’ve digetsed all that, then there’s the Dorman collection, which has lots of RGS stuff in it, just page down to find it here.
Was rereading your post and thought of something that is still vaguely at the back of my mind but is probably documented in the usual references. I think the arrangement at Illium with the wye may have had something to do with snowfighting, i.e., needing to turn a plow or flanger and return to Telluride or back to Ridgway.
I think you’re correct from what I recall – it’s been 30 years or so since I read most of this – about the traffic mainly going north, which caused the need to keep things open in the winter, so there’s something NP2626 may want to explore
Thanks guys! There is a lot to ponder in your two conversations. Yes, Ophir maybe has been done a lot, that’s because it is unique and has a lot of trestles and steep cliffs, just the sort of stuff I love to see model train worm its’ way around. Also, I might be attracted to these well modeled areas, simply because they are so well modeled! Thinking about Vance Junction’s and Ilium’s close proximity to each other: wyes need flat locations, which would make sense doing it at Ilium. Was the small three track yard at Vance Junction necessary for coaling tenders? Was a coal deposit located at Vance? I should think, given the light traffic on the RGS a single siding would have sufficed. However, if there where twenty trains a day from Telluride, maybe at some point traffic was heavy enough to justify the small yard.
I also think your right, most, maybe even all of the traffic to and from Telluride headed North to Ridgeway; or, South from Ridgeway.
Who knows anything about the Sanborn Insurance Fire Maps? Do they cost money? Is there a website?
I just reread this whole thing. I had been thinking you had said you wanted a pre-WWII era, but now I see that was my imagination. Era could make a big difference. I personally think the period from the mid-1930’s to WWII is the most interesting because of the use of Geese, K-27’s, ex-C&S freight cars, etc. Vanadium traffic was increasing as ore from the mills at Telluriude, Pandora, etc. was decreasing, making them less important as traffic sources. The fall stock rush was always there.
However, if you go for an earlier time period, the Telluride branch becomes more important. You might not want K-27’s in an earlier time period, so you might be able to get away with sharper curves.
My one source of info on RGS is my ancient 41-year-old 1st edition of Silver San Juan, by Mallory Hope Ferrell. I’m sure others can give more thorough info on RGS operations.
I think that’s a pretty good summary of the major era one can divide RGS history into. There’s Expansion (to 1893), then Survival (to roughly 1930 or whenever the receiver was appointed), then Decline. There would be a few continuities, but these periods really were different in terms of equipment and operations.
Personally, I think if I were to model the RGS I would choose sometime around 1910-1917. You get a very interesting mix of motive power that way - the new C-19s and T-19s are arriving, but the old C-16s are still around, some still wearing their diamond stacks and others newly modernized. No Geese or Mikados to be found, though, and I know a lot of people like those. I’m more a turn-of-the-century guy myself.
Even if I never build an RGS layout, looking into this is a very interesting proposition! I’m not only designing a model railroad using specific locations to model, it’s a history lesson on not only the railroad of interest; but, the areas it served. For me, I must admit, modeling the period when the Geese where being used; but, still allowing freight and passenger equipment to operate is a big attraction to the RGS!
I’m also not such a stickler about historical accuracy that I wouldn’t use Ten Wheelers and Consolidation on the layout and more mineral trains than would have actually taken place for the time period being modeled.
I’m still working on my HO layout and enjoying that immensely! The reality is, maybe the Sn3 will never happen. I’m still enjoying this discussion and the studying I’m doing on the RGS and its’ history, where the physical plant was located and seeing what information on it I can find!
I’m unable to re-trace my steps to where I found the maps of Telluride, Vance Junction, Ophir Loop, Trout Lake and Lizard Head Pass. The maps where done by someone who had done the research, posted it to the web, then decided they would attempt to make some money from all that hard work, by making the information available on a CD. He wanted $99.00 for the CD(s), which put the CD out of my price range. Besides, I have determined some glaring errors on the work that he did leave available on the website, so I really wouldn’t want to pay for information that I now feel may not be all that accurate.
Like I said earlier, Google Earth has been a most enjoy
I’ve got one of their original CDs circa 1997. They’re been around for awhile. In it’s defense, the CD contains a compilation of all their Rio Grande material. It’s a good general reference, but I typically go to my library after finding something in it of interest in order to get more detailed info. On the other hand, that $100 would buy a couple of good books on the RGS.
Glad to hear you’re coming out of that model RR slump and getting fired up. Doesn’t mean you end up going there, but it sounds like a good way to get the juices flowing again.