I just finished reading the book. “Building the Burlington Northern in N scale.” And I have decided that I really like that layout. However me being in HO If I build this I would have to enlarge it to HO. Then I am thinking I have commited to Dec. 1969 Great Northern. as my era. In Dec. 1969 this section of RR was still CB&Q. While I do not have a great deal of GN locomotives as of yet. I can still develop a believable mix of Run through GN and CB&Q roster. However I am wondering if as the layout modeled to portray then contemporary late 1980s BN. How much of the physical infristructure would I have to Modify to Portray late 1960s Q.
The layout design itself would be fine, although a tad generic. You’d just have to alter the on-line industries some, and probably the urban buildings. The orginal layout wasn’t signaled, so the correct CB&Q signals are another concideration, if that sort of thing floats your boat.
Just curious, but do you really plan to model the Upper Mississippi Valley in December, complete with snow on the ground and ice on the river? I don’t know if there actually was snow that particular December, but it would be a safe assumption. Winter modeling would certainly be a challenge, but if you’re up to it then more power to you!
I don’t know if I am modeling the Upper Mississippi or not. But my layout is definatly going to be a winter scape. I hate summer and all the heat and bugs it brings so I want a place where I can escape to a nice cold winter day and relax.
The CB&Q in 1969 was a good railroad to model. The PDC area is a little more complex than the MR layout suggested. Also you will be modeling at least 6 passenger trains/day, and an equal number of time freights.
The bad news is that there was not a lot of GN run-thru power by that date. There was a lot of E-L run-thru power however. Prior to that, the ‘Q’ had a power pool with the NYC(later PC). The quality of the PC power dropped off and the E-L agreement replaced it. There was also a local that worked out of North La Crosse and worked through PDC, spotting TOFC cars at the 3M plant. Good luck with your ‘winter’ scenery!
Thanks for your extra Info. Considering that I only have 4 F3s and 4 GPs painted for GN Right now, I think I can make the motive Power Blend Well eneugh. Also if I were so inclined I can just up the GN presence just because I want to. I am interested in the EL runtrhough power you mentioned. the EL happens to be my favorite Eastern Road, so the ability to have some of their locomotives on my layout is definatly a plus. Do you know which types of locomotives EL used on run through?On the passenger Trains. I havle been thinking about taking the GN, NP and Q trains that all ran combined and splitting them into their different consist and running them separtely behind Q E-Units. I now thats not how it was done. But It would incrace the traffic level a bit. This is only an option I am considering. I have also been considering GN in the area around Essex to White Fish. or if I have more space. Spokane east trough the mountains.
My layout is set in winter, been so since the eighties. That part of the CB&Q would be interesting because you would have Burlington E and F units pulling not only their own trains but also all the NP and GN passenger trains too. North Coast Limited, Empire Builder, Zephyr, all on one RR !!
The E-L run-thru power was mainly GP35 & SD45 engines. IIRC, there were some C424 or C425’s in the pool at first. The ‘Q’ later banned any of the Alco Centuries due to road failures that had happened with the PC engines.
The passenger trains did run in seperate sections in summer months. Usually the Morning Zephyr(#22) would be combined with the Empire Builder(#32) in the summer(usually just a pair of TCZ dome cars), and the NP NCL would run 5 minutes later as 2nd #32. In the winter months, all 3 trains would be combined in St Paul and 3-4 E units would be assigned. The same would be true of combined #25(the WB train). The GN Western Star and NP Mainstreeter were combined with the CB&Q Blackhawk(overnight Twin Cities-Chicago).
By this time, the ‘pre-merger’ green engines with the white ‘hockey stick’ were on the property(a single GP40, the U23C’s, and the SD45’s). The GN passenger trains had EB orange/green, Big Sky Blue, and pre-merger Cascade Green.
The ‘hot’ road freights were #97 & #82(Chicago-St Paul). #97 would come out of Chicago blocked into a GN section, then an NP section. There would be a caboose in the middle of the train seperating the 2 sections, and of course another caboose at the end. When the train arrived at Daytons Bluff yard in St Paul, it was split and a transfer crew took the first section up the GN transfer to GN’s Union yard. This left Union as GN #97(West Coaster). A set of 3 NW2’s then got on the rear section and it was pulled up the NP transfer track and would later leave as NP #601 for the west coast. EB #82 did not get this treatment and was built from transfers delivered to the ‘Q’. Most road freights had 3-4 engines, mainly high HP 4 axle engines, with some SD24 or SD45 power mixed in. In the 2 years I worked on the La Crosse sub, I saw only 1 CB&Q F unit, and a single run-thru GN F unit. By merger time in 1970, the Q only had a single F unit still on the roster. In 1969, there were something like 3-4 F7’s still running
The doing an HO version of the BN Project layout has been something I have been considering for a long time. However, Its that gorgous shade of blue of the GN that has my attention. However I do like the Chineese Red Scheme. And I have thought of back dating alot of my SD40-2s into Q SD40s.
But the jury is still out. I might end up modeling the Tulie Bush, Podunk, and Western RR before this is all through.
Well keep in mind the bluffs featured in that layout go all the way up to within a few hundred yards of St.Paul Union depot, so you could have that scenery and model both GN and CB&Q as that is where they (usually*) swapped engines on passenger trains. Plus they had yards and other facilities not far from each other.
(You also could model 1970, just after the merger, when NP CBQ and GN engines were all running together on the brand new BN.)
*CB&Q trains ran under CB&Q power to the GN depot in Minneapolis - but the NP and GN took over their trains in St.Paul.
Personally, the BN N scale layout series is by far my favorite project layout, if not the best set of articles in MR ever (in my humble opinion.) Of course, I love the BN and love N scale!
I am sure you could figure it out yourself, but a paragraph in Model Railroader’s Sept. 1996 issue on p. 30 explained how to convert the N scale plans to HO scale.
I battled for a long time on creating the exact layout in N scale myself, before finally deciding to make an N scale layout based on the Camas Prarie. I chose the 1970’s so that I could run GN equipment and CB&Q equipment at the interchanges and such.