I picked up a fascination with Milwaukee Road West and specifically the division yard at Avery, Idaho from a John Armstrong plan of the same location. It appears that most steam engines operating in northern Idaho were oil fired to help prevent forest fires like the one back in 1911. I’ve also seen some pictures and read some docs corroborating that the MILW used oil fired engines (like the N-2 2-6-6-2’s, 4-8-4’s and 2-8-2’s) in the Idaho Subdivision between Avery, ID and Othello, WA.
That said, I’ve seen several track plans that show yards in northern Idaho that have both Bunker-C fueling facilities and coaling towers, including one plan specifically for the MILW yard at Avery.
Was this a common practice (to have both coal and oil fuel) or did these planners just assume coal had to be there. If it was common practice, why?
Just a semi-educated guess, but possibly the oil was just for road engines going into fire-prone forested areas, while yard switchers that didn’t get near the fire hazard areas were OK as coal-burners??
Locomotives operating through National Forest land were required to burn oil, specifically to prevent fires (hot cinders being a prime cause.) A switcher which never got over the border into a national forest wasn’t under that rule, so, theoretically, it could burn just about anything.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - where only diesels burned oil)
The presence of both oil and coal facalities would define fuel divisions, coal fired power was common on the MILW lines east, oil fired power was restricted to lines west as per a Forest Service edict that was applicable to all western carriers. However, not all MILW power was exchanged, frequently, oil fired passenger power would run through. Why would such an inconvience be tolerated? MILW had extensive coal deposits along its eastern lines, thus coal made logical sense and avoided the logestics and expense of shipping oil eastbound.
Thank you all for your responses so far they make a lot of sense, but I’m not sure they’re applicable at the MILW division point at Avery Idaho. Here are some extra facts about Avery:
Avery itself is a remote little town high in the forests of the Bitterroot mountains and surrounded by forests, so running a coal switcher would still seem dangerous. This is specially true in light of the devastating fires that almost wiped out Avery in 1911.
Avery was one of the transition points on the MILW between electric catenary and steam or diesel. Electric locomotives such as the little Joes and boxcabs operated from Avery east to Harlowton, MT while steam operated west from Avery to Othello WA.
I know that the east yard at Avery was all under catenary and assume that switching was done by the electric locomotives. I don’t know if the west yard was electrified or not, so it could have been steam only.
Oil was required for the steamers heading to Othello WA.
There was/is a branchline from nearby St Maries ID (40 W of Avery) to Elk River. It is possible that the steam power for that branch might have used coal, but I don’t know. If they did perhaps Avery would have coal to support maintenance on the branchline steam.
There was a power substation for the catenary at Avery, and I assume that provided lights/electricity for the town.
I’m still not sure why the MILW would have electric, oil and coal at Avery. I’m hoping that some of the old MILW employees who are on these forums might have some insight as well.
Thanks again for the responses, I continue to learn new things about railroading every day I read these forums!
I’d like to look at the plan, what is the name of the plan?? Was it in one of Armstrong’s books?? He was ususally pretty accurate but then he was thousands of miles away so might have made an error. If it was a commissioned plan it could be that in the “givens and druthers” the modeller said he wanted to run both Milwaukee oil and electric engines along with some other favorite railroad’s steam engines who only used coal I guess(??)
The Avery, Idaho plan by Armstrong was in his book “Creative Layout Design”. IIRC, it was published in the late 70’s (at least that’s when I got my copy).
Apparently, copies (used and new) are available through Amazon
WJstix, the plan with the coaling tower was actually a MILW West track plan in an old N Scale magazine. I went back and looked at the Armstrong plan and can’t actually make out either oil storage or a coal bin. No ash pit either. There are several buildings in the engine area, but they aren’t labeled and none look like a coaling tower, or an oil storage tank for that matter.
As with many Armstrong plans,a bit more has been squeezed in than has any right to fit. The engine facilities are Spartan, to be sure, and very likely quite different from what was actually at Avery. So the Armstrong track plan really can’t be used to answer questions about the real-life locale and operations (if that’s important to you).
Of course, the plan lacks even passing sidings (except for the yard itself), so there have been a lot of sacrifices to allow a few key elements to fit.
What! You dare to take issue with John Armstrong “The Dean of Track Planning” as he is frequently labeled! A pox on your house!
Please! don’t hit the “report abuse” button on me; I’m just joking.
Actually I remember once trying to correlate a photograph of Avery, Idaho with a track plan–it may well have been this very track plan. The Milwaukee Road trackage at Avery, Idaho was, I believe, over three miles long so that old bugaboo selective compression definitely comes into play here. Remember, John Armstrong was the “Dean of Track Planning” and not always what we might label “The Dean of Urban Planning”; he frequently admits to having to rearrange things to get them to fit. As an example the town of Smith River, Wisconsin may well have a feed mill which would be the center of switching activity but on a John Armstrong layout design it may have had to be sited at the North side of town as opposed to the South side of town in order to get other features to fit.
The Milwaukee Road facilities at Avery, Idaho sat smackdab in the middle of a national forest and, since
As others have mentioned, Armstrong used modelers license on this plan if he had a coaling tower, Avery did not have a coal tower that I have ever seen or read (I am a self confessed Milw Road fan myself) Matter of fact I don’t recall even seeing oil facilities in the Avery yard. Check your PM please for additional information.
GS
Edit: Correction! Avery did have coal fired steamers pre-forest fire, and a coaling tower.
The wood water tank is pretty easy to make out. Then there’s a track coming from the turntable that goes through what’s labeled Wooden “motor barn”, then goes under a round structure that I’m guessing might be a steel fuel oil tower of some type. It’s unlabeled so it’s just a guess, but it’s apparently a fairly tall structure. If you look closely, the buildings have shadows so you can kinda tell which ones are one-story ones like the various yard shacks, and which ones are tall like the water tower.
Thanks Stix, I hadn’t noticed the shadows before but leave it to John Armstrong to include them! I’ve discovered through another forum that Avery was originally coal-fired steam until the electrification went in a decade or so later. So there was a coal tower there and it was probably left when the system went electric/oil. I also understand that the snowplows were coal-fired so they used the coaling tower and ashpit.
Hadn’t thought about the snowplows…guess there wasn’t much chance of a grass fire during a blizzard!!
They probably would have had to have someplace to keep/store coal, since everything ran on coal - the roundhouse was heated by coal, the little yard buildings probably all had a little Franklin stove etc. It might not have needed a locomotive coaling tower but I imagine it would have something. Of course coal often came in sacks back then, so it could be shipped in by boxcar and kept in some kinda warehouse-like building.
I believe John Armstrong generally provided the MR artists with black and white line drawings that they reworked into color images. So someone other than Armstrong may have made the decision about what shadows to include. I’ve been fortunate enough to see several of Armstorng’s original drawings and they are beautifully hand-drafted (a lost art). But they can be pretty vague in spots, leaving details up to the builder. And the designs are often so compressed as to become a little unrealistic.
No oil tower I’ve ever seen was centered over the tracks in real life. Maybe it was meant to be a coaling tower – hard to say. In any case, it’s pretty odd because it shows it being in the middle of an electrified area … so maybe the oil or coal dropped through the catenary (not!).
My point is not to criticize Armstrong, who is justifiably a legend. I am saying that one should not draw any conclusions about the real place (or a good engine general service area design) from either Armstrong’s design or the artist’s rendering of the design (who may have misinterpreted the line-drawn blueprints).
Clearly, it’s not realistic to have either an oil tank or a coal tower dropping flammable liquids or solids through the electrical overhead, as is shown in the book. Nor to have an oil tank suspended above a service track (although there may be an exception somewhere, I’ve never seen it). There are usually oil cranes (spouts) in a large engine facility like this, fed from a central tank that could be located away from the tracks.
It’s also not realistic to have the oil- or coal- fired locos pass through the electic motor house to be serviced, as is suggested by the drawing (if that round thing is a coal or oil facility). Ar
Yeah, well said Byron. Modeling a model (or someone’s artistic representation of the real world) can easily get one into “trouble” if the intent is to model the prototype.
Thanks Geared Steam, I’ve just taken a look and am in hog heaven. What a treasure trove!
Thanks all on this thread, it’s given me a huge amount of information and now I have a diagram of Avery, something I’ve been dreaming of and looking for for almost a year!
If you want to know more about Avery, ID, you may want to get a copy of the 3rd Quarter 2000 issue of The Milwaukee Railroader. It is still available from the Milwaukee Road Historical Association.