OMAHA, NE. [A.P.] At 12:00 PM today Union Pacific railroad officials, including Lance Fritz, Executive Vice President of Operations, gathered at UP’s Omaha headquarters where Fritz announced plans to re-open a long defunct branch line. The branch served Sequoya Falls, a tiny town in Southwestern Montana. This branch will be included in UP’s North Heartland Division.
Along with the reopening of the branch, Fritz also announced that there will be a new heritage locomotive servicing the Sequoyah Falls area. Unlike previous heritage locomotives, this one is a refurbished GE 44 tonner style locomotive. Fritz did not disclose any details about the paint scheme, but it is expected to commemorate the ‘North Heartland’ division.
Why re-open a branch line that has been abandoned since 1964? In recent years local farming has had bumper crop after bumper crop of grain. The local lumber mills have ample supplies of timber, and to boot, a large company (who wishes to reamin anonymous until further notice) has plans to build a large warehouse/processing facility outside the small town. Business is booming for SequoyaFalls, in contrast to many other small towns.
Fritz claims it will take a few months of work before the entire branch line is cleared of all debris and brush and the track is up to the latest FRA standards. He estimated that trains should be running by the start of the new year.
Okay, the bottom line on that story is: I’ve ordered a new 44 Tonne
Okay, to give you an idea of what I will be working with, here is the full layout plan (4’x12’)
I used Atlas’s Right Track Freeware for this, so it isn’t perfect. I have one more siding, as noted and I couldn’t get everything to line up the way I wanted. But it is a pretty good representation.
Darn. Its not very big. Hmmmm. I’ll work on getting a bigger picture. [:$] Sorry!
Here is a shot from before I got the extension.
By the way, this is before we moved last year, which is why we moved the layout to the living room. I also put on permanent legs and additional under structure support. My roster of rolling stock and motive power has increased quite a bit, in size and quality.
Oh, and here is the ‘final’ draft of what the extension will look like…whenever I get around to laying the inner sections of track!
I plan to use this as sort of a practice layout, get used to simple tasks like ballasting, scenicking, etc. and try some new things. I don’t expect it to be prefect, I know it won’t be.
I like how you did that, Acela. You had me fooled too! Actually, my Toledo Erie Central is a fictitious 17 mile segment of old Pennsy trackage which, in it’s day, lent trackage rights to the N&W, the NYC and the EL until it was abandoned in 1965 and my short line reopened it in 1967 when it was bought collectively by the local industries who still needed rail service along the corridor. The local industries own the right-of-way and the depot at the fictitious town of West Sandusky, as well as the entire home road roster of an SW9 switcher and a caboose. I have been thinking about writing a story on the TEC (fiction, of course). It would add character to the railroad.
Thanks, everyone! My delicate inner-sense of UPS tracking tells me that it shall arrive “from the paint shop” tomorrow! I’ll let y’all know what I think, and I will also post a pic “unveiling UP’s latest heritage loco.”[;)]
I thought about that, but I don’t have any more switches, and now that I have everything finalized, I don’t exactly want to start pulling up track. Nor do I have much cork/foam roadbed. I wish I had a LHS but the closest one is 2-3 hours away. Not exactly ‘local’.
But I do have most of the layout wired for 2 train operation. (I still run DC [8-|])
I love your intro, very well written! The track plan is a bit spaghetti-bowlish, but with a 44tonner and the focus on one town, it looks perfect for the industrial backwater, well-done sir!
Prior to the unveiling of the locomotive, UP officials found that lazy shop workers threw the white tarp over the locomotive while paint was still wet late last night. Unveiling of the locomotive has been rescheduled to Thursday the 12th, in order to give adequate time to patch the paint and let it properly dry.
UPS didn’t deliver today. Hopefully tomorrow? But be expecting an update Thursday [:D]
Yes, I know it says “New Haven” under the cab, but we can overlook that for now, can’t we? The NH is for North Heartland Division, remember?
I think UP was jealous of how good the new NS heritage units looked. [;)]
I was able to dig up a photo from 1972, thanks to the Sequoya Valley Historical Society. UP wanted to bring this baby back to exactly what she looked like in the 50s and 60s.
In as little as 8 years, the industrial tracks from the industries it served are now overgrown by, err, very tall weeds. (Ignore the fact that it looks exactly like almost-dead Fescue [:-^])
I’ll play around with her a bit, then I might either type up or shoot a video a review.
