OLD Layout Information and Trackplan - Version 4
Here is the basic information on the trackplan for the layout as of June 27,
2003. I made some modifications based upon some comments from friends on
the Western Maryland Railway Yahoo Group (WM_Rwy).
This is a minor update to the plan posted June 26th, 2003 (no longer on-line)
| Prototype |
Western Maryland Railway |
| Prototype Locations |
Semi-prototypical MD Junction and Chaffee Theme |
| Main Modeling Interests |
Roundhouse and Engine Terminal Design and
Operation
Chaffee Branch Coal Operations
Basic Industrial Switching
Freight Operation
Occassional Small-time Passenger Operation
Scratch Building WM Prototype Structures
Scratch Building WM Steam Locomotives
General Model Building and Detailing
Model Photography
|
| Era |
Late Steam through Early Diesel (Transition Era
+/-), approximately 1947-1953 |
| Room Size |
11' 9" x 10' 6" |
| Scale |
HO |
| Ruling Mainline Radius |
24" |
| Ruling Mainline Grade |
3.25% (not counting staging which is just over 4%) |
| Ruling Chaffee Branch (Shay) Radius |
18" |
| Ruling Chaffee Branch (Shay) Grade |
9.8% (prototype is 9%) |
| Trackwork |
Hand-laid Code 70 (TBD) track and #5 turnouts.
Possibly to Proto:87 standards. I need to test radius, as it is very
tight for something like P:87. Shay trackwork will be code 55 or 70 with
#4 turnouts. Will likely use Central Valley tie strips with glued rail
rather than wooden ties and spiked rail. The visual effect of the CVT
strips is stunning. |
| Sub Roadbed |
1/2" Plywood "table" for yard, and
free-form/ribbon plywood on risers for the rest of the layout |
| Roadbed |
Homabed on mainline and sidings, Homasote sheet in
main yard. |
| Track Design Software |
3rd PlanIt by
Eldorado Software |
About the Prototype
The Western Maryland Railway was one of the most photogenic and interesting
railways on the east coast. It ran all the way from Baltimore Maryland
through central Maryland and out to West Virginia in the west, and southern
Pennsylvania in the north. The WM was primarily thought of as a coal
carrier, although it did handle lots of types of traffic through its
participation in the Alphabet Route. Passenger operations were fairly
spartan, and consisted of very short passenger trains typically headed by one
of the Baldwin K2 4-6-2 locomotives.
Maryland Junction and the nearby Ridgely Yard were located near Cumberland
Maryland, on the West Virginia/Maryland border, nestled right next to the
Potomac River. While MD Junction did not have shops the size of those in
Hagerstown, it did have a very sizeable roundhouse, good shops, and one of the
more modern and more interesting A-shaped coal towers.
In the late steam era, the Maryland Junction roundhouse was home to, among
others, hulking H9 Consolidations, enormous J1 4-8-4 Potomacs and one of
the largest and most powerful classes of decapods ever built, the I2.
This mixture of serious road power makes MD Junction a natural place to model
if you are into building and / or detailing locomotives.
From Maryland Junction, trains left east towards Hagerstown and Baltimore, south
to Chaffee and on to Elkins, and north to Cumberland and other points.
Chaffee and Vindex are well known to WM fans as the home of the Shay
locomotives. The grades up to the coal mines on the chaffee branch were
so steep and the curves so severe, that only a geared locomotive like a shay
could handle the trip up and back. Even the massive Shay #6 (now run by
the Cass Scenic Railroad) could only handle a few loaded hoppers on its
downhill run back to the siding off the mainline.
If you are interested in Maryland Junction, track and other plans are available
from the Western Maryland Railway Historical Society.
Trackplan
Here is the latest version of the trackplan (updated 2003-06-27). It is a simple
"Out and Back" plan with a stub yard. It addresses the window access
problems as well as provides more places for the trains to go, a larger
operating pit and access to the closet. This was achieved mainly by
reducing the minimum radius from 26" to 24" and by making the coal mine
operation less prototypical (no switchback or engine house, and a reduced coal
yard). In addition, the round house is only a partial round house (it
ends at the walls). This means that I will have few full-length stalls,
but the view from the turntable will look very nice.
This version has a yard based upon the "Metro Yard" from the May 2003 Railmodel
Journal. I made some changes to that plan to allow for a larger radius
and turnouts (the plan in RMJ has 18" and 15" radiuses, and #4 turnouts,
definitely not appropriate for the motive power I want to use), to widen the
track spacing under the coal tower, and to allow for a larger roundhouse with a
larger turntable (16" instead of 12"). In doing so, I removed a lot of
the switching targets and industries from the RMJ plan. If you are
interested in switching and will run small locomotives and cars, I highly
recommend that you look at that yard plan - it fits a lot of nice "things"
in a 12' by 6'8" L-shaped area.
This plan is simple enough that I can just build this, and quit agonizing over
plans. After a year of trying plan after plan, it's time to build :-)
Of course, I'll have my hands full building turnouts, including the curved
turnout and the one double slip switch, but I was interested in trying
those anyway. Plus, I think I'm going to need to sell my soul
to Circuitron to pay for all those Tortiose Switch Machines!
I took some liberties with locations. For example, Cumberland station is
not (in the 12":1' version) in the way to Chaffee and Elkins. However, in
my world, it is :-) Same goes for the relative position of the switch at
MY Tower, and the position of MY Tower and the tunnel as related to Cumberland
Station.
Updates made since June 25, 2003 include shortening the switchback at Vindex so
that only two or three hoppers may be used (this moved the shay engine house
away from the tunnel entrance). Also, I modified the staging underneath
so that it is a 4%+ grade to get into and out of staging rather than the
previous 5%+
To download the trackplan in 3rd Plan-It format for your own personal use, click
here.
Here is a proposed scenic treatment for the above plan.. I may add some
more buildings on the removable/swing-out section near the Cumberland
station. If so, I will modify the benchwork accordingly.
Engine Terminal Detail
3d Views
Here are some 3d views of the layout. They help visualize the above track
plan much better. You'll need to use your imagination when it comes to
scenary and benchwork
Here you can see the roundhouse and coal tower. It is modeled after
Maryland Junction, but is obviously heavily compressed. I'm really
looking forward to building that coal tower. I have some great photos
from the WMRHS and other sources. It is a very large, very
interesting timber frame structure. (This is an older screenshot,
but is close to the final version)
Here is another view of the coal loader, sanding tower, water towers, turntable
and yard. (This is an older screenshot, but is close to the final
version)
Here you see tracks coiled around a small mountain and leading up to two
coal mines. You can also see the Vindex mining village and near that, the
shay engine house and water tower. Behind the village you can see the
first coal mine. Up and to the right, you can see the second coal
mine. Keep in mind that I never modeled the mountains (or
base terrain for this level), so the tracks appear to be floating in
air. It looks like a lot of spaghetti, but once it is scenicked, I think
it will look pretty good.
Interesting Prototypical Structures
These are some of the prototypical structures I made a point of putting in the
layout, as I want to build them.
-
Chaffee Branch Coal Mines
-
Western Maryland Cumberland Station (not in its correct location, plans
from MR "Millennium" Issue)
-
Maryland Junction Coal Tower (lots of photos, will have to infer plans)
-
Maryland Junction Water Pump House (will infer plans from photos)
-
Maryland Junction Sand Tower (will infer plans from photos)
-
Maryland Junction Water Towers (will infer plans from photos)
-
Maryland Junction Engineer's Bunk (Overnight) House (no photos yet)
-
Maryland Junction Ash Pit and Hoist (will infer plans from photos)
-
MY Tower (not in its correct location, will infer plans from photos)
-
Maryland Junction Engineer's Register Room and Tool House (no photos yet)
-
Chaffee Passenger Shed (will infer plans from photos)
-
Vindex Engine House (no photos yet)
-
Vindex Company Store (no photos yet)
-
Vindex Company Houses (will infer plans from photos of old Chaffee houses)
-
Vindex Water Tower (no photos yet)
If you have photos of any of the items above marked as "no photos" or plans of
any that are marked "no plans" or "will infer plans", please let me know if you
can share/sell. Thanks!
Mainline Operations (single operator)
Made up trains are sent out to the coal siding where they drop off empties and
pick up loads.
The coal train operates as follows (the switching maneuvers are not particularly
prototypical) :
1) The train (hauling empties) heads out towards chaffee. It heads through
the tunnel at MY Tower.
2) The locomotive uncouples from the empties just before the chaffee siding
switch.
3) The locomotive continues along the mainline, just past the trailing switch
for the siding
4) The locomotive backs into the siding and couples with the loaded hoppers.
5) With loaded hoppers coupled, the locomotive continues to back down the siding
until it is able to use the last loaded hopper to couple with the empties on
the mainline
6) The empties are pulled forward into the siding and uncoupled from the loads
on the western side of the curved mid-point switch.
7) The train heads back to the terminal and yard.
The mainline train also serves Chaffee Station (just a waiting shed), and
Cumberland Station. Obviously a different train would be used :-)
If I decide to keep the staging, other trains will be possible.
Shay Operations (single operator)
The shay locomotive takes the empties up to the two mines where it exchanges
them for loads. Here's how the Shay operations work :
1) The shay (facing downhill) heads down hill to the Chaffee siding to pick
up empties
2) The shay couples with several empties (prototype is 11, but it will be 4 max
here)
3) The shay drops half of the empties off at the Trout siding (prototype can
carry 6 up through the switchback, but it will be 2 here)
4) The shay heads up (backwards) to the switchback.
5) The shay, now pushing the empties from behind, heads up to the mines
6) The shay drops off the empties at one of the mines, and picks up loaded
hoppers. Or, I might simply have loads I can plop into the empties when
they are spotted at the mine. TBD.
7) The shay, now with loaded hoppers, heads downhill backwards with the loaded
hoppers on the uphill side and goes into the switchback.
8) The shay drops off the hoppers at the Trout siding below the Vindex
switchback.
9) If the Trout siding is full, the shay runs around to the downhill side,
couples with the loaded hoppers and heads down to the Chaffee siding.
10) The shay moves forward into the "empties" (western) side. Once the
hoppers clear the switch, it backs them into the "loaded" side and uncouples
them.
11) The shay moves forward and couples with empties as in step #2 above.
Yard Operations (one or two operators)
The yard has a decent amount of operation in an of itself. Trains can be
assembled and broken down, of course, but there are also four "industries" (the
pump house, the overnight house and two other TBD), as well as the coal
dumper for the coal tower.
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