The Roanoke & Southern

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I just read the article this saturday. I must say, he has the perfect sense of not where, nor what, but who his little railroad is. The layout itself is small enough to have this down home feel. Its the kind of place where everybody knows everybody. The railroad has such a personal feel to it from what I read. The trackplan is perfect too. Rather than merely twisting around the front of the peninsula, it turns around, and then curves back to turn around again and end at Roda.

Overall, I only have 3 criticisms on the trackplan. No. 1 is no yard lead, but there might not need to be one assuming that the line to Kingsport is used little. No. 2 is I believe there should be a method for turning trains at Roda, but maybe that adds operational potential.

The last, and more of a half criticism, half question, is that the mainline to Roanoke seems to be a yard track, for if it was or is staging, then where are the other tracks, because it seems very ineffective to have only a one track staging yard for a mainline. The thing Im wondering would be is it a yard track, or a mainline; if it is a yard track, then why the extension, and if its the main, why such little staging for such a seemingly dense traffic area?

From what I read, it seems that the industries are sufficient if switched properly, everything works out perfectly. The two mines can be easily switched, and the coke ovens promote much more on-railroad traffic movement.

The Paint factory (I believe) hides an interchange track to get even more freight traffic (If Im wrong, the mainline can do the same job). Freight houses or team tracks at every town allow the operator work nearly every kind of car along the entire line.

The point Im trying to make is that this railroad isnt great in it’s own sense, but its great because Jeff Kraker makes it great. When he said he keeps no more than 10 locomotives on the railroad at any given time, he was giving it the down home feel, and making sure the railroad didnt seem like a mega-corporation

2

Well,It was a good little railroad…The R&S always reminded me of the Buffalo Creek & Gauley.

All to sadly the R&S will be no more…It will give way to the Manns Creek narrow gauge railroad.

3

The R&S is still alive, I have not torn it down yet. I would like to find a home for it besides the dumpster. I first want to try and sell it either whole or in pieces, if that does not work I will pull everything off of it and sell all the pieces to fund the new layout.

The track plan in MR had a couple errors. First, there is not double track mainline infront of the Appalachia Depot, only the track right infront of the depot is the mainline, the other track IS the yard lead, the lead track is not long but the track to Kingsport is only used a few times a day and the yard crew has no trouble blocking it every now and then. Second error is that one of the yard tracks was labled as “Main line to Roanoke”, that is not true, it is just another yard track. Trains must go from Appalachia to Kingsport, from there they either go east to Roanoke or west to Knoxville. The reason the yard track goes behind the furnace is because when I first built the yard there were only three tracks, after a year of operation I decided to add a fourth and the only place for it was behind the furnace, which makes for a very nice long yard track which most operators use for building trains going into staging (the track is the same lenght as the staging tracks, so if it fits on that track it will fit in staging).

Jeff Kraker

4

That explains a lot for the trackplan, and makes me like your railroad even more. Yay! Its still alive! If this layout was this good, then I cant wait to see you double your efforts (get it, HO is Half of O, and since your moving to O, your ‘doubling your efforts’). So whats the story? Do you have a trackplan? Is the benchwork up, or is the R&S still leaving?

5

In the real world of Appalachian railroading, very few mines had any provisions for turning engines due to the tight constraints of the topography. Areas that did have wide spots or creek branches would have required bridges for the wyes, a cost not many lines wanted to invest when these rails were laid down. At least in later years, the prototype Roda did not feature a wye track with trains turning at either Mudlick Wye or Arno.

Most wyes were located at mine run yards and mine runs either shoved mtys up to the mines or pulled them back to the yards running tender first. Some branches were so steep that steam locomotives HAD to run in reverse either up or down or risk uncovering their boiler crowns which would usually end with a nice explosion.

One mine on the L&N Clover Fork Branch in Harlan Co actually had a turntable at one point but it was removed when steam died and the mine was modernized. This was at Glenbrook, KY.

6

Jeff - Sad to hear that you are taking it down! Hopefully someone will be able to fit the track plan into thier space and keep it intact. The little railroad was an inspiration to those of us with little space! It came along at a good time for me, and I have studied it closely to get tips for incorporation into my own layout design… Thanks for sharing it with us! And if you do end up tearing it apart and selling the structures off, I may be interested in a mine and some other stuff for my layout…

Good info on the train turning - I was wondering about that myself - if in the “real world” did they ever return tender first…

7

when I first built roda there was a turn table located where the truck to rail loader is located. I cut the hole in the roadbed and scratch built the turn table but felt that it added too much conveniences that most of the time would have not been there. It is true that a lot of coal branch lines were built in tight areas and there was not space. Also it is true that some times it was required to run the steam locomotive boiler up hill to and from the mine. A lot of mine branch lines were also short and speeds were low so it was no big deal to run out and back with the locomotive heading the same direction. The picture below shows the Truck to rail loader in the lower left edge of the layout where the turntable once was.

On my layout we use the “wide” spot at Derby to turn locomotives. The theory goes as follows, the grade from Derby to Roda is so steep that the RR requires boilers up hill to and from Roda. However, from Derby to Appalachia there are many “blind” areas that for safety the railroad requires steam locomotives to operate forward on the train so the bell is leading. What this does is create some added “fun” the the operating session, crews do not just blow through Derby on the way back to Appalachia, they are required to stop and turn the locomotive, which buys some time for the yard operators at Appalachia.

To help show that there is a difference in the mileage between Appalachia and Derby, and Derby and Roda, I numbered the mile post to show that the distance from Appalachia is much greater than it is from Derby to Roda, when in fact they are about same on the layout.

For a while we were having the mixed train run the combine back to Derby from Roda to turn the combine for the return trip from Roda. The crew would arrive at Roda with the combine trailing