The Geology of Model Railroads

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

My questions: Would anybody out there be interested in short articles about the relationship or link between railroads and geology? I am thinking of pitching some short bylines to MR Magz. regarding this topic. Short and simple as most folks find this stuff boring.

Has this been covered before? Things like: Just why is the Horseshoe curve where it is? Or for that matter any of the great Rocky Mountain passes? Or super detailing a scene, eg. Please remember that outcrops have joints and they usually are aligned#8212;picky picky.

Most good modelers observe and copy prototypical landscapes and get it right but there are rules. eg. don#8217;t model a steeply dipping strata in the Appalachian Plateau region. Coal mines in the Cascades just don#8217;t make sense. If you don#8217;t get you plaster right everything will look like volcanic rocks.

I am a petroleum geologist working the oilfields of North Africa and soon to be returning to North America (and yes, you can blame me for high gasoline prices). I grew up in a town on the main line of the PRR, when it was still four tracks. As a boy I took short cuts to school along the right-of-way hillside cuts with one eye on the rocks and the other on the rails. My sister got the train set under the Xmas tree, it was really Dad#8217;s Lionel and I got the Porter Mineralogy set one Christmas. When the PRR or maybe it was Conrail chopped the top off some of their tunnels I was up on the fresh outcrops above the rails (trespassing) and collecting rocks. Railroads and rocks have always been linked in my mind.

Cheers
Fred

2

Geotech Engineer here.

Also grew up in a town on the PRR Broadway mainline.

Also always into railroading and railroads, rocks, formations, etc

And, I would gladly take a break from Civil Engineering Magazine to read your aticles.

Jim

3

You’d DEFINITELY have a reader in me! For instance, I’m modeling the northern California Sierra Nevada from about 3,000 to 6,000 feet in elevation (condensed, of course), and it isn’t all just granite peaks. Any informed articles on the differences in geological strata in this country would be a boon to many model railroaders who want to model certain areas with a sense of authenticity.
MR had a short article sometime back about MR geology that was fascinating–further articles on this somewhat overlooked facet of MR scenery could only help us all.
GO FOR IT!!
Tom [^][^]

4

I find that reading about paleontology is quite fascinating, which is related to geology, so I think I would articles such as yours interesting.

5

Without question!

Geology and railroading, one of the strongest symbiotic relationships that could ever exist. Railroads rose and fell due to market demands when it came to mine productivity.

Look at the geology of Nova Scotia; we have just about every type of geologic formation known to mankind. Coal, Oil, Gas, sandstone, granite, lime, salt, gold, shale, slate, dolomite, gypsum, it goes on and on.

Geology would also determine the terrain and the obstacles that go hand and hand.

So yes I think an article, which you speak, would be very topical.

Fergie

Fergie

6

Absolutely! Sounds like something that might interest a lot of us. I would definately take time to read articles on railroads and geology!

7

You could be most helpful to a lot of people with some geological expertise, maybe you can advise modelers about the use of the “rockwall” that appears in far too many layouts, it seems every inch of the layout is against the ubiquitous “rockwall” and above it is usually a train, also against another “rockwall”. If anything gives away the scene as a “model” railroad, this proliferation of far too many “rockwalls” certainly do. I have often wondered why people utilize this geological wall in almost every scene, and they all seem to depict the geology of the Grand Canyon, villages also are set up against the “rockwalls” Even prairie scenes appear to have the walls sticking up in the middle of the layout. Hopefully you could spread the geological word to the forum.

8

Yes, I’d also be interested. I think it would help a great deal in our layouts.

9

Amen , Brother !
I have a degree in geology (never used it yet) and would look forward to reading these articles. I am planing on showing the geologic cross section as the fascia board on my layout.
I am a tunnel worker (construction) in Boston and one of the coolest things was being 250ft below Boston harbor in a 35ft diameter tunnel bored into the rock…and best of all…TRAINS! We had small diesel engines pulling concrete cars and a few flatbed with supplies, and also “man cars” to bring the crews in and out (up to 5 miles from the nearest shaft!). I am trying to figure out a way to include this in my layout. I could easily model the top of the shaft as a construction site, and maybe along the aisle i could have a cut-out with a small shelf - like section on track? If i ever get it all done, ill be sure to post pics !

10

There’s so much you could tell us! PLEASE DO!

One area of importance that might not be obvious is “soft” geology… as in mud, sand and other “non (hard) rock” stuff. How are cuts and banks decided on? What decides the angle of the slopes? At just what (sort of) point do retaining walls get put in? Land slips are fascinating (I believe that most slip out as lumps because water provides a lubricant between upper porous material and a lower impervious bed/layer. I’ve seen a whole half (North Bound) side of a bank scoot out from under the track and leave the South bound side good enough to run on… pretty spectacular.

There is so much you could help us with!

11

Any railroad looked for the best route to get through any terrain and how they could best build the railroad to suit, and remember they werent afraid to tunnel through mountains. Things like the Horseshoe Curve and the Tehachapi loop were done because it was the best thing to do, and because of the terrain.
A lot of trackage would follow riverbeds, for one, river traffic happened before it, but then the railroad came along and built to compete with river traffic.
And of course any railroad modified the ground so the railroad had a solid base to run on.

12

More attention should be paid to the scenic aspect of geology. Not all rocks are red, or gray, or whatever. Cuts & fills need to be carefully constructed to prevent washouts & other disasters. Mainlines may have been rebuilt many times over the years. Any info would help the layout look better. I’m sure different materials should be tried, especially when it comes to plants.

13

Thank you all for the positive and rapid responses to my questions. Once I return from North Africa, finish my travels over the holidays and get myself installed in my new geology job in Jan 06 I’ll pitch an article to MR Magz. of general interest relating Model RR and geology.

In the mean time I could answer a couple of good geology questions related to model R/Rs. Please understand that this is subject to my limited internet access here and because occasionally I need to put pen to paper and spot a drilling location to earn a crub, I will try to answer any good general questions you might have in this forum.

Be aware that the hobby sounds like it needs several regional geologists to cover the continental USA and several more for Canada. So any volunteer geological experts please pitch in. In France the various wine growing regions, appellations, each have an honorary geologist to advise and document the characteristics of their terroir. These are usually prestigious positions for retired rock jocks. Maybe model RR could use a small scale version of this–liquid rewards would be less compensatory than in france. Excuse me for digressing but this is an alcohol free country a point driven home to me at sunset when the call to prayers are heard. Cocktail hour it ain’t.

I would like to stay away from civil engineering questions especially like the one above regarding the determination of a slope angle. Which it is determined by the angle of repose, related to the nature of the granular sediments, presence of any natural cementation between grains, whether it wet or dry, level of saturation and on and on but it is a can of worms.

Regards,
Fred

14

Yes I would read them, I’m always trying to figure out how to creat realistic rock formations on my layout.

15

Linn Westcott’s chapter in Bill McClanahan’s “Scenery for Model Railroads” has an excellent discussion of just this kind of thing - there was also a great piece on “Railroads in the Mountains” that MR ran in 1974 (can’t remember the exact date, but I think I have the title right). Both are worth a look - you can probably pick up the McClanahan book at a good price on Alibris.com or Ebay.

For those who are relatively new to the hobby, I’d add that I’ve never come across a Linn Westcott piece that was devoid of interest or insight. He spent an incredible amount of time on the method of model railroading, and he advanced a lot of great ideas.

16

First things first:

[#welcome] to the forum!

What an outstanding first post! There are those in this group who can barely spell rock (not me, of course [:-^] [:o)] ) I look forward to further information. Maybe even a few pictures (hint, hint) to illustrate would be appreciated.

Tom

17

Hello,

Mining Geologist here…yes, I’d love to see a few geology articles related to model railroading. I’m soon to start the scenery for a new N-Scale layout. Considering my profession, I’m always looking for new modeling techniques that will help me make things more realistic.

Thanks.

Brad

18

I think there was an article in Mr, it was only an over view of general US geology areas. An indepth treatment of areas that are the most popular would be GREAT. Don’t forget Canada, Ontario has some of the oldest rocks in the world,known as the Canadian Shield. I am modeling it and its tough but I’m happy with most of my results. Its starts less than 1hr north of me so research is relatively easy…

19

I’m modelling the Silverton Railroad, in the San Juan Range of southwestern Colorado, and (to me anyway), the geology is fascinating. Most of this is from memory, which gets faultier every year, so anyone with corrections, feel free to chime in.

The general area was flat until 30 to 35 million years ago, when the Laramide Orogeny seems to have caused a magma dome to push up the surface, but not to erupt at the surface. It must have been a significant quantity of magma, because this area would have been higher than Mt. Everest, above 30,000 feet, but not rugged, just a high dome.

During the following period, the magma subsided and caused cracking in the surface layers throughout the region. These fissures play an important part of later development of the area.

Erosion brought the area back to nearly flat over the next few million years, and then two seperate periods of intense volcanic activity around 26 million years ago set the stage for the final evolution to what we see today. Some accounts place these volcanic eruptions as the most widespread and intense in all of earth’s history, venting some thirty thousand cubic kilometers of ash and lava over a huge area. By comparison, Matamora in Oregon, which resulted in Crater Lake and which dwarfed the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1980, ejected an estimated one thousand cubic kilometers of material in an explosion violent enough to kill all life in a three state area. This series of eruptions was more than thirty times as large. This is why the San Juans are a widespread continuous area of rugged mountains, unlike the Front Range, which is essentially one long main ridge with subsidiary foothills along either side.

The La Garita Caldera is huge. To give you an idea, one of the sub-calderas, active during different periods, is the Silverton-Lake City caldera, over 45 miles long. An even smaller sub-caldera, the Silverton Caldera, measures more than 15 miles rim to rim.

Since a large part of these eruptio