Layout Design - 2 - Theme

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Layout Detail. Layout Detail identifies the parameters within which the layout must be designed. It is broken down into two main elements: 5) Layout Design, and 6) Construction to build the railroad.

  

Under the element Layout Design, the following area is considered: Layout Theme.

 

In Layout Design 0 I discuss the strategic decision of placing the WWSL in Montesano Washington. 

 

Era. In Selecting an Era I discussed my thought process on choosing Summer 1955 as my operational era. Here I am considering the Western Washington Short Line's physical location in Gray's Harbor County and its interaction with other railroad's in the area.

Concept.  In Choosing a Locale The Western Washington Short Line ('Whistle') is a small class 3 railroad located in the Olympic Peninsula region of Washington State. I found that the cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam were huge in the lumber industry. I chose to orient on a smaller town just east of the cities - Montesano Washington.

 

Type of Railroad. The WWSL is going to be a Short Line - a relatively small, general purpose railroad hauling both passengers and mixed freight, usually generating and terminating its own traffic.

 

Class of Railroad. The WWSL is going to be a Class III railroad - with low operating revenues.

Railroad operations. The WWSL is going to replicate the following: 

• Passenger operations. 1) scheduled excursions such as the Pacific Logging Conference trips to lumber companies, 2) a pacific railroad historical society railfan trip, or as some logging companies did in the late 1050's 3) weekend excursion for the public to points of interest in the Olympic Peninsula National Park using steam driven passenger equipment.

• Freight operations will be conducted along the local freight model - starting at a yard, moving along the main line switching industries along the way and returning to the yard at the end of the business day. Trains will operate as Extras, rather than Time freights listed on a timetable.
  

• The WWSL will have a yard in the vicinity of Montesano. It will do classification of inbound freight by train type to industries along the WWSL main line, and classification of outbound freight to the appropriate Class 1 (Northern Pacific, Milwaukee Road or Union Pacific interchange.

• The WWSL will interchange with the three Class 1 railroads in the area (Northern Pacific at Montesano WA, the Milwaukee Road and Union Pacific at Preachers Slough WA, and with two Class III railroad, the Olympic Peninsula Logging Company in Headquarters WA, and the Saginaw Timber Company in Wickwood WA.
  

• The WWSL will have a short line era appropriate MOW operation to include a MOW train run as necessary to good operations. 

Industries. The Pacific Northwest is a large producer of wood products such as lumber, pulp, paper and specialized building products. Most of the industries on this layout are based on actual industries located on the Olympic Peninsula, which hopefully will provide an authentic feel. Industries are sized based on square footage of layout space allocated and number of carloads transacted.

 

Large sized industry. The WWSL will have two large sized industries:

• Olympic Peninsula Lumber Company, Dimensional lumber is produced at this mill and shipped in boxcars and flat cars. Peelers are shipped to veneer and plywood plants located in Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Centralia and Olympia Washington. The OPLC will have its own railroad operations, employing steam locomotives for log train operations and industrial switching.
  

• American Mill Company. This mill produces corrugated paper for paper bag and corrugated box manufacturing operations. The paper, both rolls and bales, are shipped by boxcars. The mill requires chemicals in tank cars and covered hoppers and wood chips in boxcars gondolas and hoppers. The Mill will be serviced by the Saginaw Timber Company, employing first generation diesel locomotives for chip train operations and industrial switching.
  

Medium sized industry. The WWSL will have two medium sized industries:

• O. King Coal Company.  Coal is mined and shipped in hopper and gondola cars to power plants and major industries located in Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Centralia and Olympia Washington.

• Basalt Sand and Gravel Company. Sand and gravel is quarried crushed and shipped in hoppers, covered hoppers, gondolas and boxcars to the cement plant in Tacoma, Washington and distributors in the Northwest. Basalt S&G will have a self propelled locomotive crane providing switching operations.
  

Small industries. The WWSL will have three small sized industries:

• Cascade Pole Company. Large timbers and poles shipped in gondolas and flat cars.

• Y. Knott Lumber Company. Gondolas and flat cars will carry dimensional lumber and poles from this mill for wood preservation treatment. Tank cars will deliver wood treatment chemicals.

• Western Washington Power Company. Gondolas and hopper cars will carry coal for delivery and carry ash away from the power generating plants in Coal Grove WA, and Wickwood WA.
  

Switching locations. The WWSL will have four switching locations in Montesano:

• Burn-Moore Coal Company. Coal will be delivered in hopper cars for distribution locally by truck.

• Planck Lumber Company. Boxcars and flat cars will carry the dimensional lumber to this local distributor.

• Caster Oil Company. Fuels delivered in tank cars and lubricants in boxcars for distribution locally by truck.

• Buyher Propane Gas.  Propane delivered in tank cars for distribution locally by truck.

Traffic.  The WWSL will replicate a variety of freight and interchange traffic as follows:

• WWSL operates 5 days per week, and moves about 50 carloads a day. Yard switchers, Transfers and Way freights (Turns).

• OPLC operates 5 days per week and moves 30 carloads a day. Yard switcher and logging trains.

• STC operates 5 days per week and moves about 30 carloads a day. Yard switcher.

• NP, MILW, and UP operate 6 days per week and move about 50 carloads a day. Transfer runs.

Traffic Patterns.

• 1^st Subdivision. Traffic pattern is primarily empties in and loads out for coal, lumber and stone. Some lumber moves northbound from Headquarters to Coal Grove for weighing. OPLC logging trains have been granted based on trackage rights.between Headquarters and Camp 4 reload site.
  

• 2^nd Subdivision. Traffic pattern is primarily loads in and empties out for paper mill and power plant. STC switcher for plant servicing, chip train from STC main line to chip spur.

• Interchange yard. Transfer runs from SM yard to NP, MILW and UP interchange tracks and vice versa. 

Locomotives. The Northern Pacific Railway, the Milwaukee road and the Union Pacific Railroad utilize first generation diesel-electric locomotives. The WWSL uses electric locomotives. The Olympic Peninsula Logging Company continues to operate steam locomotives. The Saginaw Timber Company uses first generation diesel-electric locomotives.

 

Rolling stock of interest to the modeler. 

 

Layout Design - 1 - Prototype v Freelancing

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Layout Detail. Layout Detail identifies the parameters within which the layout must be designed. It is broken down into two main elements: 5) Layout Design, and 6) Construction to build the railroad.

 

Under the element Layout Design, the following area is considered: Prototype v. Freelancing.

 

Degee of Fidelity to Prototype

The common goal of model railroading is fun, and each model railroader has his own idea what fun is. For a railroad modeler there are three design approaches, or three degrees of fidelity in modeling the prototype: prototype, prototype freelancing or freelance prototype.

Prototype. This design approach where actual main and branch line schemaics, site trackage and scenes, place names, trains and ther consists, interchanges and operating practices are adopted. This approach offers the advantage of an in-place reference system - where the model is the faithful reproduction of the original in miniature.

Prototype freelancing. This is a variation of the prototype approach. Usually the variation is found in the question 'What if ..... ? (.... X railroad is still in existance) ( .......... abandoned line acquired by someone else) or (....... X railroad built a line from Y to Z).  It uses one or more prototype railroads to establish a set of guidelines and then creates a railroad within the chose framework. The modeler chooses to portray an area of the country or an operation activities that are based on sound prototype practice, a plausible traffic rationale and functional interchanges wth prototype railroads.

Freelance Prototype. The railroad is fictional, but is based on prototype practice, is run as a prototype and is modeled in such depth as to become believable a railroad. The modeler selects the topography, industries, motive power and rolling stock, etc., and combines them to form a railroad to his exact liking. It balances creativity and credibility. 

There are 4 excellent sources for showcasing railroad modeling:

• Great Model Railroads, a Model Railroading annual magazine.
  
• Model Railroad Planning, a Model Railroading annual magazine.
• Prototype Modeler (out of print) located at trainlife.com
• RailModel Journal (out of print) 
  

I was influenced by a number of railroad models: 

• Jack Burgess’ Yosemite Valley,  (prototype)
• Tony Koester’s Nickel Plate Road (prototype)
• Tony Steele's D&H, (prototype)
• Bill Darnaby's Maumee (freelance prototype)
• Allen McClelland's Virginia and Ohio (freelance prototype)
• Tony Koester's (freelance prototype)
•  , Omaha and Northwestern (freelance prototype)

The WWSL

Well you wont find the Western Washington Short Line referenced in any books, magazines or railroad historical societies, or located on any map except the one here. The Western Washington Short Line is a freelance prototype railroad. It is a fictional Class III railroad, occupying a real logging railroad right of way originally built by the Schaefer Brothers Lumber Company in the late 1800s, with its own alternate history blended into the real economic and social history of Gray's Harbor County.

The WWSL will interchange with three Class I railroads : the Northern Pacific, the Milwaukee Road and the Union Pacific. These railroads will be modeled under the prototype fidelity design approach.

The WWSL will also interchange with two Class III railroads, the freelance prototype Olympic Peninsula Logging Company and the real but otherwise prototype freelanced Saganaw Timber Company (What if the STC didn't dissolve in 1947 but instead sold its right of way to the WWSL and became an industrial line servicing a pulp mill?).

Why add two more railroads to the mix? While it would be easy for the WWSL to service all those industries, I thought it would be interesting to have additional railroads participating on the layout for operational diversity. 

A little of everything in the layout design: prototype, prototype freelance AND freelance prototype!

Layout Design - 0 - Designing the WWSL

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Layout Detail. Layout Detail identifies the parameters within which the layout must be designed. It is broken down into two main elements: 5) Layout Design, and 6) Construction to build the railroad.

  

Under the element Layout Design, the following areas are considered: 

1. Prototype v Freelance
2. Theme
3. Geography
4. Layout Design Elements
5. Vignettes
6. Station Maps
7. Track Plan Analysis
8. Technical Specifications

Under the element Construction, the following areas are considered:

1. Room Preparation
2. Benchwork
3. Lighting
4. Human Factors

Designing the WWSL 

At this point in time in my research it became clear to me that to do my railroad justice I needed to come up with a beginning and develop a corporate history that 'ends' with the era I was going to model. Based on my research I made the decision to 'interject the WWSL' into history just after World War I. The NP, the CMSTP&P (MILW), and the UP were established in Grays Harbor and were conducting business. Here is the link to the Corporate Histories page of the blog - starting with the County of Gray's Harbor, and the three Class 1 railroads, the Northern Pacific, the Milwaukee Road and the Union Pacific.

I was particularly interested in the Montesano area. Montesano was the centralized location for three logging railroads - the Schaefer Brothers Logging Company located north of the Chehelis River and the Clemons Logging Company and the Saginaw Timber Company south of the Chehelis River in what the Forestry Department names the Vesta-North River Watershed. Unfortunately none to the three logging railroads actually interchanged with the Class 1's. All three took their logging trains to log dumps along the Chehelis River, and moved the logs to the sawmills in Hoquium and Aberdeen via log rafts. Finished product was either loaded into ships to other West Coast or Asian ports of call or moved in freight trains originating in the Class 1 yards in Hoquium.

What Montesano did have that made it an ideal spot to base a short line railroad was 1) a 75 car length rail siding, and 2) a railroad bridge crossing the Chehalis River and linking the NP, MILW and UP. So let's start our alternative history with finding articles of incorporation for a logging railroad being formed east of Seattle in the Upper Green (along the Northern Pacific main line). A quick renaming within the legal documents became the source for the organization of the Olympic Peninsula Logging Company.  

 

The Olympic Peninsula Logging Company (OPLC) overlays the original rights of way of the Shaefer Brothers Logging Company in early 1920, a right of way overlay I 'imaginate' from the activities of the US Spruce Division. Research revealed that the US Spruce Division laid out plans to construct some 30 logging railroads in the Pacific Northwest to provide aircraft-grade spruce to the war effort. Only 13 were actually build and one in particular was finished on 19 days after the end of hostilities and never saw a single log hauled for the war effort. Now there's an opportunity for a budding entrepreneur! The created history of the OPLC is located here, the US Spruce Division here.

 

Using real life economics of the period and logging railroad operations in general in the Pacific Northwest lead to the creation of the Western Washington Short Line. The OPLCs business and financial activities during the Great Depression caused management to split the railroad operations into two operating companies. The WWSL came into existance as a common carrier in 1932, a not-uncommon strategy among logging railroads in other areas of the country but not in the Pacific Northwest. Common carrier was often used to condemn lands through eminent domain statutes for railroad right of way, keep out competitive logging companies, and entitle freight rate sharing adantages with connecting railroads. 

In the next blog I will discuss the concepts of prototype and freelancing modeling as they apply to the WWSL.

 

Layout Planning - Given and Druthers Matrix

 

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Structure. Structure identifies the parameters within which the layout must be designed. It is broken down into two main elements: 3) resources available, and 4) layout planning to build the railroad.

Now that we've gone thru the process of identifing the parameters within which the layout must be designed its time to spreadsheet them so we can go to the next area of layout design - Layout Detail.

Givens

I have a number of givens:

• Space. I am going to construct the WWSL in the 30' x 25' basement. Approximately 75 percent of the basement will be used for layout and the other 25 percent for utillities, workshop and crew lounge.

• Scale. I am continuing to model in HO scale and will reuse my existing locomotive and rolling stock as appropriate to the WWSLs concept.

• Finances. I have sufficient finances to initiate construction and bring the layout to completion within the time frame established.
  

• Benchwork. I will recycle the benchwork I had used for WWSL v2.0

• Modules. I will continue to use the 2' x 8' transportable modules I had used for WWSL v2.

• Trackwork. I will continue to use Shinohara / Walthers code 83 track, turnout and special works.

Druthers

Using Bernard Kempinsk's spreadsheet format, I have outlined my druthers based on functional area.

 With these givens and druthers identified, its time to design the WWSL ver 3.0.

 

 

 

OOPS !

 For some reason Modeling the WWSL hit a snag and i lost a number of blog pages. As an ex-IT guy I should have known to backup all my files but in this case I figured it would be ok and surprise -  Murphy struck!

I'm in the process of recovering my blog pages etc from a variety of sources .... and recreating a lot of content from scratch - so bear with me as you see pages from May thru late July looking pretty doggy.

I promise it'll get better !

Stan

Layout Planning 8 - Control Parameters

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Structure. Structure identifies the parameters within which the layout must be designed. It is broken down into two main elements: 3) resources available, and 4) layout planning to build the railroad.

The eighth area of consideration in Layout Planning is Control.

Documentation.  Each employee knows their duties and responsibilities based on:

• the Uniform Code; 
• the Train Handling Instruction Manual that covers basic freight, passenger and yard operations procedures, 
• an Employee Timetable that identifies exact train schedules and rule modifications that are in effect, 
• Special Instructions related to the safe movement of trains, 
• Dispatcher train sheets and Modified train order Form 19.
  

Operators. Personnel required are:

• Dispatcher to issue Form 19's, develop special operating requirements and instructions such as  clearance cards, bulletins, train orders, loco fueling, within-train car placement and other prototypical elements as appropriate for operating engineers.
• Yardmasters
  
• Conductor/engineer who walk around following the train, controlling speed and direction with the hand-held throttle focused on realistic, slow speed movements and common kinds of delays, such as pumping up air brakes, setting retainers or cooling hot wheels after a steep descent. 
• Station agent/car distributor to use waybilling process to identify car movement requirements.
  

Train Movement. Radio controlled block system is based on the principle that the dispatcher gives a train exclusive authority to occupy a segment of main line. As the train proceeds it gives new authority to occupy additional track and returns to dispatcher the use of track already passed. The dispatcher communicates with the crew via radio. Both Dispatcher and Conductor/Engineman have identical Form 19 (modified). By radio the Dispatcher directs the Conductor/Engineer as they fill out the form.

Car Movement.  Car movement is by waybill and switch list.

Signals. The WWSL is a busy operation, but not sufficiently so to justify any investment in a signal system. It is dark territory, operation is by Train Order Form 19, prepared by the Dispatcher. Block signals are only encountered at Montesano Junction when the WWSL crosses over the NP.

Throttle Control. DCC will be used to operate the layout. I plan to use EasyDCC wireless throttles and SoundTraxx decoders. No provision for standard DC operations is planned. The handheld compact rotary throttle units are connected to the layout through radio control.

Turnout control. The turnouts are under local control by push/pull rods at each location.

Layout Planning -7 - Scenery Parameters

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Structure. Structure identifies the parameters within which the layout must be designed. It is broken down into two main elements: 3) resources available, and 4) layout planning to build the railroad.

The seventh area of consideration in Layout Planning is Scenery.

Backdrops. 

Fluorescent lighting (behind a valence) a sky-blue backdrop, a fascia panel and benchwork curtains present a net finished appearance. Backdrop 24 inches in height, colored sky blue and backdrop hand painted as necessary.

Geology.

Pacific Northwest locale - Olympic Peninsula - Grays Harbor County.

Scenery contours, foliage and other features. Conventional hard shell scenery techniques as appropriate to the geologic requirements. High ratio of scenery to track. Model relay boxes, signals, small bridges, power/telegraph poles, track bumpers, two lane roads, smaller towns, 3-4 track classification yards and small engine facilities.

Right of way and roadbed.

Cross-sections. Flattened ballast slopes, drainage ditches and fill, rivers and streams, culverts and bridges, tunnels. Relaxed standards (representing the dimensions, shapes and colors as they actually appeared during the modeled period, rather than as engineering departments specified them.

Track appearance.

Ballasted, weathered, scenicked and wired. Nut and bolt details; rail fishplates, turnout rail braces and missing hardware. Over sprayed for mineral industries, sand on uphill helper grades, litter on spur and yard clean out tracks, oil drippings in engine yards and along fueling points and spurs.

Roads and Highways.

Suitable width and curvature, horizontal and vertical easements, paved/gravel road shoulders and banking, drainage, signs and curbs as appropriate.

Structure selected.

Plausible building choices added to the layout. Use of a few detailed foreground structures that imply their presence elsewhere. Adoption of regional architecture and building materials.

Aisle Edge Decoration.

Uses the railroad's predominant official color to paint the aisle way surfaces. Use of light valence over layout as a storyboard of prototype structures, scenes, and layout sketches all tell the observer about the modeled or future intention and purpose of each area.