After having my MRR in crates for 3 years I’ve got a place for it now and hope to start unloading and reassembling it in the near future. Lots of other stuff to tire out an old guy.
Anyway, I would like your help.
I don’t know a lot about RR history or operations. I’m just one of those many folks who have always been fascinated by the “iron horse”.
Below is a brief description of the fictitious theme and history of the SJSRR and I would like your comments on its plausibility, if that’s the word I’m looking for.
I’m obviously not a “rivet counter” or even a stickler for historic facts, relative to a fictional MRR , but I don’t want the theme and limited operations to be absurd or unbelievable.
Please let me know what you think and any suggestions (Other than scraping the whole project…well maybe.) will be welcome. I’m not easily offended after being on the planet for well over half a century.
quote:
San Juan Southern Railroad
Theme and History
Time period: 1949
Steam
RGS, DRG, DSNGRR
Industries: Mining
Sawmill
Ore processing
Box factory
Supporting merchants, businesses and community
The SJSRR serves a mine, sawmill, and box factory and ore processing plant. It also supplies the town (Name?) and lumber camps.
Interchanges with DRGW in 1949. Uses RGS and DRGW equipment.
Mixed trains, tourist excursions and local freights.
This is a common model railroad scenario, so you’ll face little disagreement. Neverthelss, presuming you want negative/constructive comments and not just hurrahs.:
Unless a very large layout, having lots of “paired” industries (sawmill/log landing) mine/ore plant) strains the sense of distance/plausibility.
Reefers and general freight would go to the communities and company towns where miners and lumbermen reside, not to the mines or the log landings.
Box factories were usually placed nearer to the consumer rather than the source of raw materials. There were specialized mountain sawmills that built box components to be assembled elsewhere.
Here’s a gift: photo of ore-loading facility near Mina, NV, on SP’s Mina Branch. Trucks brought the ore from the mountain (in the background) east of there.
Many (most?) railroad customers were not located directly on the railroad right-of-way. Freight houses, team tracks, and transloading facilities as exampled ab
I know that this probably isn’t the kind of feedback you’re looking for, but it is your layout, after all. If you don’t care whether something is absurd or unrealistic, why does it matter what the rest of us think.
I’m sure my concept for my layout rubs some people the wrong way, simply because it’s ahistorical, but it allows me to do what I wanted to do on my layout.
That said, Mark’s comments are very good. You really need to decide how you’re going to operate your layout. If you want to do primarily switching or point-to-point, you will need a staging area for trains to “disappear”. Then you don’t need to worry so much about pairing industries.
The other thing you can consider is using a view block or divider to separate your layout into two or more distinct areas, representing locations which are widely separated in space. You can then keep your industry pairings split between the two locations, making the suspension of disbelief easier.
I appreciate the comments and advice…I don’t mind advice; I can take it or leave it.[;)]
But it’s good advice and very helpful.
I do have some hidden track with sidings (staging) at the back of the layout against the wall, behind some “hills”. You can barely see the early version in the photo on the left in this link:
Maybe I can work out a “view block” or something when I build the new “corner” module. I’ve also discovered a pretty good sized attic space at the back of the room, even though it currently has no easy access. [:D]
Use off layout movements (stagging) to stimulate incoming traffic for the above and the same procedure to simulate outgoing traffic to the D&RGW interchange.
Include at least one team track per town location, this will eliminate the need to model the actual industries, which can be implied. It could be a duel purpose siding or as simple as a road crossing, even a stub off an existing industry can be pressed into service
Reefers did function in a less-then-car-load-lot capacity -adding the operating demension of simulating pick ups/ drops offs at stations and remote outposts, mail too was common, so yes you could include lumber/mining camps as destinations. The same procedure can be used with open loads involving gondolas and flatcars in addtion to box cars.
Don’t forget stagging, even at the expense of finished layout area, concertrate on a plausible interchange theme with the outside world, and keep your engine facality and yard trackage modest in design and space, perhaps it is jointly used, justifing its reason for being.
Your’s is a very common theme, since many of us like both appearance of both logging and mining equipment, sawmills, and mines. Now assuming you are focused on Colorado, I’d suggest dropping the sawmill and let lumber be an inbound load. While there is/was some lumbering in Colorado, it was not the scale seen in the northwest. You could have mine to mill traffic on a single line in Colorado, but by the time you’ve mentioned, 1949, most of the mines and mining towns were on borrowed time. Move 50 years earlier and you get basically the same RR, but the mining towns are booming. Now if you’re looking for the transition era, you might consider coal rather than ore mines.
You might also consider adding livestock. There were large seasonal livestock movements of all kinds in Colorado.
More good stuff. I think the sawmill was going to be a pain (not really room for a pond) .
I’ve got a Suydam box factory and ore processing plant that I’m planning to use.
Team tracks and staging. I’m planning to add some more staging at the back of the layout (hidden) since that’s where the interchange is supposed to be.
I’m gonna go a different route. My money, a sawmill is going to build as close to the action as they can, so they can eliminate as much of the transfer costs as possible. In general, industry pairs are a bit unbeliveable, but that’s one that is more true than we think.And you don’t have to have a log pond, ypu can unload them from a flatcar into piles if you wanted to. Or, you model the mill’s pond edge on the edge of the layoutm and the pond itself you’re standing in.
Ore processing could be similiar, I’m not familiar with that kind of ooperation.
i can also see a town having a lumber based industry as well, again being as close to the sawmill as possible to elimiante costs. However, boxes, unless tyou’re thinking of wooden crates, require one more step in there I think, requiring trains to take pulpwood to staging and then bring back the cardboard sheets. A pallet/crate company wouldn’t though, so that’s a possibilitty.
Thanks for the good ideas. This has all been very helpful and I really appreciate the time and effort of the forum members.[:)]
I’m keeping all of these posts as notes in my “layout log” and looking forward to the actual work of building again. Too much domestic stuff to do right now but I can keep planning.[C]
Your box factory can serve a multi=purpose function, i’ll compromise and assume yours incorprates some rough cut capability, raw logs would arrive, no pond needed, off loaded and stacked pending milling. Or as was done in the days before cardboard packaging, lumber, often of questionable quality would arrive in bulk and be finished milled for shook-trade term for citrus crates, Sunkist is one example of a company that had duel purpose plants and even some large packing concerns could produce crates in house, my main packer utilized both methods and lumber found too far beyond use was offered up the locals as fire wood!
Lots of other stuff to tire out an old guy.
, but I don’t want the theme and limited operations to be absurd or unbelievable.