This is a first shot draft plan of a proposed model railroad. It’s a work in progress.
The Lake Superior & Northern Railroad is set in 1948 in northeast Minnesota. It runs from Duluth, MN to Fort Frances, Canada. In Duluth it interchanges with the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line and Chicago and Northwestern. At Fort Frances it interchanges with the Canadian National.
The concept for the layout is based on a “what if” three real northeast Minnesota railroads histories had been a little different. The three real railroads are the Duluth and Iron Range, the Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific and the Duluth and Northern Minnesota.
My “what ifs” are:
The Duluth and Iron Range remained independent and didn’t get sucked up into the USS empire through questionable business deals like the real D&IR did.
In reality the Duluth and Northern Minnesota was a large common carrier logging railroad from about 1900 – 1920. They had wanted to build a connection to reach Canada but didn’t because the Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific was built before they really seriously pursued the extension of their line.
My layout is a combined independent D&IR and D&NM that did build to Canada but built to Fort Frances, (where the real DW&P connects with the Canadian National). Because in my world the D&NM did build their Canada extension and they did it before the DW&P was built by the CN the DW&P was never built.
On my layout the D&IR, D&NM and DW&P don’t exist. My Lake Superior & Northern combines the three with the ore carrying function of the D&IR, the bridge line function of the DW&P and also has a logging line like the D&NM. On my
Well Phil, that is a lot of planning. The concept is interesting. One end of my pike has the same idea on a much small scale. I am a long time fan of the area, and would love to follow your progress. I have pics of the Yellowstone at Two Harbors from 1962 that I hoped would be a scratch build , but now I know it won;t ever happen. I like the fantasy aspect of what you are doing.
That is a lot of planning. Good job. Two things you might want to think about.
One - Depending on how large the opening is where the yard lead (extended) passes through the wall, it might be difficult for the yard switcher to see how much track is left without going to the the other end of that wall. Perhaps some mirrors placed behind the car shop just right might do the trick without compromising what you have.
Two - Assuming ore jimmies will be pulled into the Ore Dock, you might want to consider giving your loco’s an escape route after they pull in.
Great plan and wonderful work on making the RR very plausible by modifing history to fit.
Anybody have an idea why I can see the small drawing but only get a red X when I click to enlarge the drawing? I’d like to see the track plan but the small drawing is way too small to make out any detail.
I really like it. I think I would run the trains around the loop a couple times from Ironton to Rocky Bay. That seems a very short run after all the work of assembling a train. Overall it seems there is a lot of different things worked into the space. I didn’t realize the mines were underground! I always envisioned they were open pit…
[#ditto] Seems “over yarded” for a layout this size. I don’t think shrinking the yards by a track or two would reduce the visual effect of seas of ore cars, and would enhance the visual effect by giving it a little breathing room.
The ore dock has no run-around so I presume it is the type that the cars unload through the bottom across the entire area of the dock and don’t have to be “feed” into an unloading area.
Why do two of the Ironton Yard tracks feed into the front staging track, or are those really just “workbench” tracks?
I’ll try to answer a few of the questions and maybe generate some discussion.
Don Z: Sorry you can’t see the plan. I sent you an email and I can send the plan jpeg file via email if you send me an email reply.
The ore dock is a “pocket dock” type similar to the original Lake Superior docks in Duluth, Superior etc. The one in the plan is a Walthers ore dock (actually 6 of them combined into one).
The prototype ore carriers broke operations into three basic areas.
There was the switcher that worked the mines and brought the ore cars to and from a somewhat centrally located assembly yard where the unit ore trains were made up.
The next area was the road haul that took the unit train about 60 to 70 miles from the mines to Duluth/Superior. Once there the cars were weighed and then in the days of natural iron ore (it’s all taconite now) the cars were sorted to produce “blends” of ore for the various different steel companies. Different mines produced different ore and different steel companies wanted different blends.
After weighing and sorting the ore the strings of cars were pushed up onto the dock by a switcher. That’s why there is no run around, it’s always a pu***ype operation.
The cars are emptied via bottom doors to fill the pockets in the dock. I think each pocket holds a couple of cars of ore. After the pockets are filled the chutes are lowered and the ore is dumped into an ore boat.
The ore dock takes up a huge amount of space. Based on a cost/benefit for space the best approach to this would be to not model the ore dock. Model the approach to it and have that approach lead into the mine on the other side of a wall creating a loads in empties out situation. I just want a big ore dock in the worst way and it is one of the main driving forces behind this layout design so the ore dock has to stay.
well it seems you have considered it , and very carefully too ! thanks for all the historical info behind your decisions , one thing the model railroad press doesn’t do is give a lot of back story in most articles , or the reasons that design decisions are made (i know , there’s only so much space , and there are some exceptions)
Works for me! Excellent job and I like the historical aspect; much more believable. From your last post I can just visualize them running on your layout.
Interesting, my St.Paul Duluth and Canadian is a very similar concept, only running from Duluth up the north shore to Port Arthur/Ft. William Ontario (now Thunder Bay).
I plan on building an ore dock, glad to see you doing it too !! BTW since someone asked, ore cars were pretty much always pushed out onto the dock, not pulled.
From my experience the one problem would be the grades. I have a BLI 2-8-2 heavy. Even on moderate grades it can maybe handle 20 ore cars at best. The only steam engine I have that can pull 30 cars is my Spectrum 2-6-6-2. If you want to keep the grades you might want to considering getting some really BIG steam engines, or sneaking in a few diesels (like a Stewart FT A-B set, both powered.) If you moved ahead a year to 1949 you could run a couple of Atlas GP-7’s demonstrators.
Got a Soo Line layout going.