The First Step Is To Admit You Have A Problem

Rip Van Winkle SPEAKS

Dear Trainboard friends,

No, I haven't been sleeping; like many of you who have disappeared for a while, I've been eyebrow-deep in an enormous, multi-year project at work that left too little time for hobbies. But I'm planning to retire in May!

And yes, I found a solution. One that's right for me. Today, I'm totally committed to prototype-based modeling.

You see, I'm a historian of technology by trade. I've spent most of my university career tracking down dead tech (and dead inventors). By summer, I hope to complete my book on the invention of the voting machine -- a distinctively American technology, which saw its first use in a legal election in April, 1892. I've attached a pic of one of my favorite machines from the 1890s, the Standard Voting Machine, which was manufactured and widely used in New York state from 1897 through the 1910s. It's a beautiful machine and still works perfectly today. It's a heck of a lot better than the machines we're using today, and I'm not making this up.

So I could hardly build a model railroad that didn't make use of the one thing that I'm actually good at (and thoroughly enjoy) -- namely, getting the history right. I see now that this was the push I was feeling in 2006. A model railroad ought to express the best that's in us. For me, it's prototypical accuracy based on meticulous research.

It's the research that's occupied me since then. My layout models the Rio Grande's Utah Division, focusing on the run from Helper to Soldier Summit, in 1965. Since 2006, I've made several trips to study and photograph the existing line. I had the great fortune to make contact with a retired Rio Grande employee who worked the Summit line in the 1960s as a track and signal engineer. He helped me develop a prototypically accurate track and CTC signaling plan. I've attached PDFs of the plan as it stands. There's too much track, of course, but I wanted to start, at least, with the real deal.

The layout is situated in a 12 x 19's over-the-garage room. There are three levels, with Level 1 being the lowest (Helper and Roper staging). It's intended for operation by three people: a CTC dispatcher, a westbound crew, and an eastbound crew. I see it as a game of the nail-biting sort, because that's exactly what is was back in those days. At the start, there are eight westbound trains in the Grand Junction staging and another at Martin (Levels 1 and 2). There are six east bounds in the Roper staging (Level 2), and locals positioned at Colton (Level 3) and Castle Gate (Level 2) that will need to head east to Helper. Plus, most of the westbounds will need helpers to get off the hill, and these will need to get back to Helper. And the Utah Railway's Alcos were irritatingly s-l-o-w (7-8 mph). Somehow, within a specified time frame, the dispatcher must manage to get all eight of the westbounds up the hill, and all six of the eastbounds down. Fortunately, the dispatcher can run trains in either direction on both mainline tracks. This is no easy trick, especially because there are two California Zephyrs involved -- and back in those days, it was simply unheard of to delay a passenger train. The dispatcher directs trains by remotely operating the signals and crossovers, but can, in a pinch, convey train orders to trains at Summit and Helper.

All the best,
Bryan

 

Well, Bryan , it is good to know you settled for nothing less than what would make your retirement years a joy. I just retired Jan 2 and started a much smaller logging layout 6 x 6 of the funnel in North Idaho , in my former home office that shares space with the family theater. I get to run my own RR and UP , NP, GN steam and diesel thru frt and pax, WWII to late transition era.

 

Bryan,
The layout looks really neat. Is it hand drawn? Some of the curves look real tight.

 

I created the graphics with iDraw on a Mac. On one of the layers I created a set of radii -- 16.5, 18, 19.5, etc. The minimum radius is 16.5... tighter than I'd like, although I've found that using generous easements produces realistic-looking operation. It's worth remembering, too, that the Summit route has ridiculously tight curves (and grades to match). In my experiments, I found I needed fairly tight radii to produce the visual effects I saw in photographs and when I visited the line.

These track plans were developed mostly to document the prototype... transforming them into a workable N scale railroad is the next stage.

--Bryan