Large Scale Central

Tuscarora Lumber Co. Southern Division Railroad

Track and Trestles
#1

Good day,

Been awhile since I posted here (life stuff has had me quite busy). Over the last few weeks I transformed my train room in the house (N scale) to our grand girls/guest room (grand daughters will be here this week visiting for three weeks). This move was necessary because we moved the Mrs.’ mother in with us late last year (she can’t live by herself any longer) which took the existing guest room.

This exercise gave me the motivation to plan and start putting together a layout in the back yard. The name has kind of fallen into place; the model railroad group that I’m a part of, organized and led by our LHS owner, has worked on an HOn3 narrow gauge layout for the last few years, the Tuscarora Lumber Company out of Tuscarora NV. This layout has been presented at the past three train shows hosted by the LHS here in town (next show is September 13-14, 2014 in Jacksonville, AR). The former layout has become semi-retired and is being re-imagined in the hobby store, and a new module based HO and N project is now being worked on for this years show.

The module project has been tabbed the “Tuscarora River Rail Project”. In planning this layout I wanted to start small and plan work in phases. In talking with the Tuscarora “boss”, he gave his blessing to utilize the Tuscarora Lumber Co. and move it south to the river valley of Arkansas, lush with timber in the early 1900’s. So with that settled, I pulled out some track and started assessing where in the yard I could start.

In wanting a little bit more than just a roundy round, I added a passing track, and three sidings (only one of which has been connected at this point), and an interchange track that will fuel the construction for phase II (around the shed to the back of the yard).

So here is the current lay of things. I don’t have any ballast down yet, that will hopefully be done this Thursday evening/Friday just in time for our family BBQ on Saturday.

The current space is 22ft x 15ft and is relatively flat. The garden in the middle was existing and will be spread out some to include some ground covers and more color for the railroad. The current structures will be remodeled and many new structures are being planned (once time permits).

Here is a “not to scale” current layout plan made with the Anyrail rr planning software.

I have run a small 2-4-2 Bachmann steamer around the mainline and passing track with minimal problems. I do have some track leveling to do and then get the ballast set in (going to be light ballasting, not the giant hills of ballast I’ve unloaded in the past) to give it the “small budget back woods lumber company railroad” feel.

I also have a lot of updates to do to locomotives and rolling stock. The most time consuming will be exchanging stock couplers with Kadee couplers for all locomotives and cars. One of the engines (the Kelly Circus 0-4-0) will get new paint and possibly a larger boiler and a small tender to change its’ overall look.

So the good news is that it’s a new start for garden railroading at the Tollett Depot! I’ve been reading through numerous threads and articles here to get some ideas for upgrades and structure builds.I look forward to reading any suggestions or comments that you folks wish to make.

Currently everything will be DC track power. I’m looking at making a few engines battery operated in 2015, with the desire to have a fully battery operated railroad by the end of 2016.

michael

#2

That’s a good start, Michael. You’ve passed the first hurdle, you’ve got some track down, and the second hurdle, as well, you have a direction to go.

Bravo Zulu! Well done!

#3

I’ll second what Steve said and look forward to what progress you make…:wink:

#4

I too am a firm believer in the “Just do it” method. Getting track down and trains running is the best way to visualize what you want to do next. Sure, there will be some re-building, but for me that’s part of the fun.

Great start!

#5

Nice start. That’s how I started. Start small and expand as time and money permits.

#6

Shawn (napkin builder) Viggiano said:

Nice start. That’s how I started. Start small and expand as time and money permits.

Thanks Everyone;

Shawn I’ve seen your layout in Garden Railways, yes? Enjoyed the article and the theme and setting.

#7

From picking up locomotives here and there and rolling stock as well here and there, a majority of my equipment is Bachmann. All locomotives are Bachmann and honestly I’m quite pleased with them even though they’re not really 20.3. I have an eclectic inventory of rolling stock, most of it is Big Hauler stuff (budget minded - I just can’t afford the 20.3 Spectrum stuff) so I’m content to run that while adhering to model railroading rule #1.

As time allows I’ll do some upgrades, i.e. finish getting metal wheels on all freight cars, new paint schemes, new lettering for the home railroad, and I’ve started getting the desire to try my hand at scratch building some rolling stock pieces to better fit the TLC/Sd flag.

It’ll be a mish mash look when assembling trains to run, but the important thing is that trains will be running!

#8

Nice railroad… If you are happy with what you have, then that’s all that’s required…

#9

Michael Tollett said:

From picking up locomotives here and there and rolling stock as well here and there, a majority of my equipment is Bachmann. All locomotives are Bachmann and honestly I’m quite pleased with them even though they’re not really 20.3. I have an eclectic inventory of rolling stock, most of it is Big Hauler stuff (budget minded - I just can’t afford the 20.3 Spectrum stuff) so I’m content to run that while adhering to model railroading rule #1.

As time allows I’ll do some upgrades, i.e. finish getting metal wheels on all freight cars, new paint schemes, new lettering for the home railroad, and I’ve started getting the desire to try my hand at scratch building some rolling stock pieces to better fit the TLC/Sd flag.

It’ll be a mish mash look when assembling trains to run, but the important thing is that trains will be running!

You said it perfect. Nothing wrong with the Big Hauler stuff. That’s what I did because it was so much more affordable. My goal was to create something believable and something I was happy with,even if it meant using 1:22 and 1:24 scale stuff.

#10

Many of of the best Large Scale railroads on the North American continent, Dave Goodsen’s Colorado Consolidated and Fred Mills Ironwood, Peter’s Pond & Western Railway, along with Richard Smith’s Port Orford Railway, and Ken Brunt’s RGS all use the Bug Mauler as the basis for their railroads. There are many others, too numerous to mention, that use the Big Hauler.

Its not what you run, its how you run it. You have nothing to apologize for.

#11

Hey, as the owner and operator of a shoestring budget, narrow gauge railroad, the Big Haulers are the bulk of our equipment. Much of it second hand.

#12

Nice railroad, you have to start somewhere and you have a nice start.

#13

Well, you’ve got great taste in railroad names, that’s for certain! :slight_smile:

Congrats on the new railroad. I like the track plan. Simple, but plenty of opportunity for operation in a fairly small space!

The Tuscarora Timber Co. wishes your operation the best of luck, well, so long as you don’t have northward expansion plans. :wink:

Later,

K

#14

Kevin Strong said:

Well, you’ve got great taste in railroad names, that’s for certain! :slight_smile:

Congrats on the new railroad. I like the track plan. Simple, but plenty of opportunity for operation in a fairly small space!

The Tuscarora Timber Co. wishes your operation the best of luck, well, so long as you don’t have northward expansion plans. :wink:

Later,

K

No Northern expansions planned. From west to the south is the only area we need! So some pretty good news; last night we had a pretty good storm roll through, lot of rain, some wind, thunder and lightning. I went out as the rain died down to inspect the layout (and check for standing water) and I was pleased to see no standing water, and no evidence of a large run off or wash. I had done some grading while laying track for some low spots, so I was glad to see that there weren’t any ponds covering the track or debri against the tracks where a runoff would have been.

That lets me know that it’s pretty safe to install the ballast now (will probably get to that Friday).

I do want to ask while it’s on my mind. Do any of you folks have some structure plans handy that you might be willing to let me borrow via email to start putting some scratch buildings together? I’m looking for plans for the following;

a small passenger/freight depot

small/medium lumber mill

a meat processing facility

small town row buildings, i.e. barber, saloon/hotel, mercantile, etc.

Or if you have any links off hand that might have some designs or plans for structures like that. I have started making some plans of my own but thought there might be some already floating around that I could spend less time figuring out measurements, window and door placements, roof pitch angles, etc.

thanks again to all for the kind posts! I’m looking forward to the first “run” this Saturday at our family BBQ.

michael

#15

I have some plans that I got from Garden Textures that I’ve used as a basis for other types of buildings.

The mercantile building at the top of the picture was based on the Icing Facility that Garden Textures has. I just removed the icing platform and used the loading dock portion for what I wanted. The Woodworking, Depot and Freight Transfer were all scratch built (no plans, other then what was in my head and pictures). The Creamery was based on plans contained in a booklet of structures from a long defunct local railroad.

The Freight House at the top left is another Garden Textures structure. And again, this depot was scratch built (from pictures in "The RGS Story).

The Lumber Mill in this picture is another building from Garden Texture plans. The Mill at the top right was built from plans by Stoneworks for a 3 story Gristmill.

I’ve bashed a number of Colorado Models structures into a number of different buildings. They’re cheap and durable.

There’s also “Build Logs” mainly in the Modeling forum for all of these buildings and a few other guys on here have build logs for their buildings as well. If any of them catches your fancy I’d be happy to send a copy of whatever plans I have.

#16

Thanks Ken,

For your scratch builds, do you use 1/24 measurements or do you measure out the 1/20.3 measurements? I think I saw where 20.3 equaled out to .951 inches, which was about 61/64’s? That gets a little tricky finding that on a measuring tape…lol

#17

Since all my stuff is B’mann 1:22 I generally use 1:24. Most times I just “eyeball” it…:wink:

#18

Ken Brunt said:

Since all my stuff is B’mann 1:22 I generally use 1:24. Most times I just “eyeball” it…:wink:

That’s what I was leaning towards. I’ve been scouring through the Arkansas Encyclopedia online to get some 1900-1920 building pictures to build from. Of course they were pretty much generic and looked similar all over, but it twas my first thought of research material.

As the first picture shows, I have some PIKO buildings that will stand in for now until I start putting together replacements.

btw, that’s a beautiful layout in your pictures. Are there more shots in a layout log or article section by chance?

#19

Oh, I have pictures spread out all over the place, but here’s your best bet: http://www.trainweb.org/rgs/

That’ll also provide links to Photobucket and if you scroll down on the left to “Expansion” it’ll show a lot of how the layout and some of the buildings were made.

#20

Michael Tollett said: I’m looking forward to the first “run” this Saturday at our family BBQ.

Cool!

Nice start on the RR