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Northern pacific railway model railroad

Dan’s been in touch with a model railroad based on the Northern pacific railway:

“The Inland Pacific Railway is a “what if” HO railroad. It connects Cincinnati Ohio and Denver Colorado and points between.

The color scheme is based on the Northern Pacific Railway. The owner of the layout (Terry Gilmore) worked at various capacities at one time for the NP.

Terry designed the layout to be a realistic working railroad. It was a three level layout with storage and run through on the lower level.

The basement room size was 45 feet by 30 feet. (Alas, it no longer exists. He moved to another city.) You will get some idea as to size from the photos.

We used car cards, time table, phones and track orders early on. We had a dispatch room with a functioning dispatch board. It normally took 5 operators and a dispatcher for a session.

Once it was fully signaled, the aspects of the signals governed train movement. We had a company rule book to explain the functioning of the railroad.

There was a functioning hump yard for classification of trains. The various industries often had a complimentary industry to eventually report to. The locals would return with the cars that were picked up and then broken up for the destinations needed.

For example, the cars might be for the next session’s locals, or off line cities. Off line cars become trains in storage for the next ops session. The car cards had 4 destinations for the routing and industries on the layout or which “off line” industries the layout served.

My contribution was 99% of the scenery and some of the buildings and flats. I had one constraint, I could not change the track plan.

This was a real joy to operate and run as a “real” railroad as much as you could.

This is part 1 of the IP. The second part will be the upper level.

The Inland Pacific Railway.

The track diagram. The spirals show the helix.

The town of Savannah. The hump yard is on the left and the town is to the right. The upper level is not up yet. The hump yard worked well.

The hump tower. We had two KD magnets to uncouple the cars. There was switch panel with a matrix to direct the cars to the proper tracks.

The complete hump yard with a repair facility to the right. Also, at track under the hump to get locos in position.

The beginnings of the helix.

Here it is easier to see the early work.

Construction farther along in this section.

More along this section.

Farther along.

More progress.

This takes us to the far end of photo 8 where the track curved right.

From photo 13 the tracks work their way around to the right. The track with the train on the far fright actually came from the Savannah side of the layout via hole (not ever seen) in the backdrop/wall. It will pass behind an auto plant and then show up at plants yard.

A scene near the far end. The back drop is 2 inches from the track.

The beginning of the long river. I have posted this and all of the rivers on this layout in another post.

The finished river.

The basic floor plan. The levels were the same basic plan.

A big thanks to Dan for sharing – I do enjoy seeing his stuff.

You can see more of Dan in the Hall of Fame.

That’s all for this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get started on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.

OO gauge model layouts

Steve’s been in touch, and he’s added to the OO gauge model layouts on the blog:

“Hi Al

My layout, “Whenton”, is very much a work in progress.

A UK based 00 gauge layout situated in my garage (so-called “double”, but if you put two cars in there, you wouldn’t be able to open the doors on either of them 😃).

The idea behind Whenton – an anagram of “now” and “then” which appeals to one of my other pastimes, cryptic crosswords – is that in the late 40s onwards a group of incredibly rich railway enthusiasts got together to finance a railway preservation society (the Whenton Railway Preservation Society or WRPS) based on the old station of Whenton and the nearby Motive Power Depot (MPD) at Adamsdale.

This backstory is merely an attempt to justify my rather “magpie” approach to buying models – i.e. if I like it and can afford it, I’ll buy it!

The plan is to have a continuous run of double-track main line, with a 7-track fiddle yard on one side of the garage, with Adamsdale MPD and a branch line descending to the “heritage” railway’s Whenton HQ.

Much of the groundwork for all this has been built, although only the “Whenton” heritage railway station site has been scenically treated as of now.

Like many heritage lines, the WRPS holds special events to help with fundraising. The one shown here was their “centenary cavalcade”, which was staged in the mid-sixties to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Great Northern Railway works at the nearby Adamsdale MPD.

It was inspired by the 1975 event at Shildon marking 150 years since the opening of the Stockton & Darlington railway, which I was lucky enough to attend. The fact that 2025 will be the 200th makes me feel rather old!

Temporary stands were built by the TLA showbiz consortium, famous for their live concert seating and stage structures and – not entirely coincidentally – owned by one of the WRPS’s multi-millionaire founders, Sir Frank Silversmith.

TLA stands for Three Letter Acronym (yeah, I know, an acronym should be pronounceable as a word) but coincidentally it’s also my grandchildren’s initials 😃.

The VIP stand seated a select group of local worthies: Lord and Lady Whenton, of course, whose chauffeur had to be content with a trackside view from their Jaguar, the Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Whenton and three of the society’s founders: Sir Frank, Jimmy Keith, at the time guitarist with The Tumbling Boulders – he went on to join Heavy Hindenburg, of course – and Don “Boy” Trotter of the trading empire Nextyear. T

he fourth member of the founding consortium, known only as “GW”, always shuns the limelight so was, as usual, nowhere to be seen. There has been much speculation in the more sensationalist press as to why he or she never appears in public, with theories ranging from underworld connections through alien abduction via being just a clever tax-dodge. The lady sitting next to Sir Frank attracted the attention of the newspaper gossip columnists as she certainly wasn’t Lady (with a capital “L”) Silversmith!

The section of the station yard where the temporary viewing stand was placed, together with the grass area currently in use as a car park, are used on the layout for varying scenes.

I previously sent in photos which Al kindly published, showing a classic car show in the grass area and a traction engine rally set out on the hardstanding where the viewing stand is in these photos.

Last December I set it out as a Christmas Market and there was also a “Santa Special” train running on the preserved line.

Other ideas in the pipeline include a military re-enactment society’s display, a funfair, and a model railway show – the latter probably housed in marquees to stave off the effects of our English weather ☔️.

Regards,

Steve”

Early morning and the cavalcade locos await their crews at Adamsdale MPD. There was light rain overnight but luckily the weather held for the cavalcade weekend.

The viewing stand. Scratchbuilt from card and wire oddments, populated mainly with cheap figures bought from eBay. The steps are unfeasibly steep really – but were “inspired” by the hair-raising real ones at the O2!

Locomotion approaching the VIP stand. VIPs, L to R: Don “Boy” Trotter, Jimmy Keith, Lady Whenton, Lord Whenton, The Mayor of Whenton and the Lady Mayoress, Sir Frank Silversmith and unknown companion. The attendant on the far left is George “Jeeves” Wodehouse, a volunteer on the heritage line who usually works as maitre d’ on the Pullman dining car specials. The Whenton’s chauffeur, Parker, found that he had a great view of the cavalcade from the parking spot next to the VIP stand allocated to the Jag. He thinks that Lord Whenton probably doesn’t know what his first name is – or whether he even has one. This suits Parker fine, since Parker isn’t his real name anyway – the result of a shady past!

Rocket passes the tiny signal cabin at Whenton. Crew are dressed in suitable 1830s gear, including top hats.

LMS (ex-LNWR 0-6-2T “Coal tank”) drifts slowly past the VIP stand.

“Patriot” class Duke of Sutherland comes to a halt at Whenton before reversing into the sidings for the return parade back to Adamsdale shed. Somehow the driver’s white shirt has stayed as pristine as the loco’s paint!

A4 pacific Sir Nigel Gresley coming into the station.

The cavalcade locos waiting for the return parade back to the MPD. It seems that both of the “oldest” locos (actually replicas specially built for the occasion) are receiving some attention from their crews. The locos are: (front row) S&D Locomotion, L&M Rocket, L&M Lion, GNR Stirling single, SDJR Johnson 1P 0-4-4T, LMS (ex-LNWR) Webb 0-6-2T “coal tank” (middle row) City of Truro, SECR P class 0-6-0T, LMS 4-6-0 “Patriot” Duke of Sutherland, LNER 4-6-2 A4 class Sir Nigel Gresley (back row) LMS prototype Co-Co diesel no.10000, BR (ex-SR) Bulleid 0-6-0 + 0-6-0T Leader and BR experimental gas turbine 18000.

A big thanks to Steve for sharing adding to the OO gauge model layouts.

What I like best about his layout is that he’s clearly having fun, and that’s what it’s all about.

I do enjoy reading about a layouts backstory – real or fictional – they just add so much to a layout.

Here are some more OO gauge model layouts on the blog if that’s your thing:

That’s all for this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if creating your own model railroad is an itch you just have to scratch, the the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

PPS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.

Model train bushes

Rob’s been back in touch, this time with an excellent tutorial on model train bushes:

“Hi Al,

I decided to try my hand at making bushes and shrubs. I have made trees and planted grasses, but now I think I will round things out.

Over the years, I have spent a good bit of my hard-earned money buying bushes from online sources and decided there must be a better way. While researching, I discovered that several folks had had good luck using manilla or hemp rope. I decided to try it.

I found that I could buy a huge quantity of this rope at my local big-box home store for next to nothing (100 feet for $5US). This is a lifetime supply of the stuff.

I found that cutting the rope into small sections of 20-25 mm (3/4 to 1 inch) seemed to work the best. I found handling anything smaller than that problematic with my fat fingers.

One can always trim the final bush to whatever size is desired after they are plunked into the hot glue and it has set up.

Foliage for these bushes can be commercial ground scatter, like you can get from Woodland Scenics, painted sawdust, or paper leaves, as I used in the video. I got my paper leaves from two different hobby stores and Amazon.

For the glue, I used Matt Medium, an artist’s product you can get at art stores or from Amazon. It dries to an invisible thin layer that is very stable over long periods, many decades.

The waxed paper I used was very thin and did not have much wax on it. A better quality waxed paper would be better, but I just did not have any.