I'm finding more and more interesting stuff to include on the layout. A couple of weeks ago I surfed to bridgehunter and saw some quite interesting information about bridges on the line (Scroll to the bottom of page 1).
That led to a slight reevaluation of what to include. There are enough bridges over Muchakinock Creek in Mahaska county and Miller Creek and its tributaries in Monroe county in the 23 miles between Oskaloosa and Albia that at least some must be included. They can serve as mini scenes as well as scene breakers since I plan on having discrete scenes and the scenery will not be continous. This latter as a result of wanting to include the interchanges with the Wabash, CBQ and CRI&P in a functional way with the tracks in the right place versus the M&StL tracks. This means I have to come up with some off scene way to get the other railroads back to the right side of the M&StL tracks. Black boxes might help here and strategically placed scenery will help.
Look at the placement of the trees at this Pratt through truss bridge over Muchakinnock Creek (go to photos 5 and 6 or 23 and 31) for instance. The location is north of Givin, south of Beacon in Mahaska county, near Kent Avenue and 290th Street.
This link take you to google maps and a photo by John Marvig of the bridge looking north in the direction of Beacon / Oskaloosa. Most likely the view of this part of the modelrailroad would be from the east or right of the picture.
In the same vein, Eddyville has moved up in the list of priorities. Originally I didn't want to include it despite having a long passing siding and a double ended freight spur. It also was the only passing place in later years, after online coal traffic had almost completely dried up. But the discovery of the sand and gravel operations and its scale have led to a reevalution. The interchange with the CRI&P was also a bonus though it might be more difficult to include. But originally I only wanted the bridge over the Des Moines river, more specifically the first half of a through truss span from each end, as a prop to change levels.
This is a small bridge on the south end (Bridgeport side) of the Des Moines River crossing. The crossing consists of this bridge, a plate girder bridge, a long dam (I believe it was originally a pile trestle) and the long bridge consisting of 7 Pratt through trusses spanning both the Des Moines river and Muchakinnock creek. Pictures taken from Bing maps.
And finally just one reference to one of many crossings of Miller Creek.
Note the relative light construction of all the truss bridges. I believe the M&StL's Mikado 2-8-2 steam engines were not allowed on this line. I'm not aware of restrictions on the diesel locomotives though.
It's high time I post a list of all the interesting places on the Oskaloosa to Albia line of the M&StL. I'll use the mileposts as markers. Mileposts were calculated with St. Paul Union Depot as the 0 milepost. Most places are so large and / or diverse that I've subdivided them for better presentation of information.
1 MP 301.1 Oskaloosa
- 1a Depot and trackage to North Yard including freight customers north of depot but excluding North Yard itself (with enginehouse) and College area
- 1b Freighthouse, team tracks and related freight customer tracks
- 1c South Yard
- 1d Wye including CRI&P and CBQ trackage below wye in cut
- 1e 11th district to Monmouth and continuing on as 12th district Peoria, both in Illinois, including trackage to freight customers like Clow Valve and interchange with CRI&P
- 1f ex CBQ trackage taken over in 1934
- 1g CRI&P trackage
2 MP 302.6 Tracy Junction, since washout of the bridge over the des Moines River at Tracy in 1947: Fosterdale Junction
- 2a Tracy Junction area but excluding the Beacon area
- 2b Fosterdale Rutherford coal washer and possibly coal mines nearby
- 2c Rochester
- 2d Tracy bridge over Des Moines river and sand and gravel companies
- 2e Tracy crossing of Wabash RR and Tracy CBQ yard (shared with CBQ)
3 MP 303.2 Beacon
- 3a Beacon M&StL
- 3b Beacon CRI&P including spur to coal mines and junction of line to Oskaloosa and K&D mainline to Evansville and Des Moines right near trestle
- 3c Beacon ex CBQ trestle across CRI&P and possibly coal mines
4 MP 304.9 Excelsior
5 MP 306.7 Givin
- 5a Givin M&StL including tracks to coal mines east and south of CRI&P crossing
- 5b Givin bridges over Muchakinnock Creek
- 5c Givin CRI&P including spur to coal mine west of line
6 MP 311.2 Eddyville
- 6a Eddyville CRI&P interchange and spur to sand and gravel company
- 6b Eddyville M&StL depot including spur to sand and gravel company besides Des Moines river in town
- 6c Eddyville Des Moines river bridge
- 6d Eddyville CRI&P depot
7 MP 313 Bridgeport including ISU coal fired power plant but not Cargill (too late)
8 MP 315.9 Coalfield
- 8a Coalfield station sign (depot?)
- 8b Coalfield spur to coal mines
- 8c Coalfield multiple bridges over Miller Creek
9 MP 318.8 Lockman
- 9a Lockman junction to coal mines
- 9b Lockman coal mines
- 9c Lockman trestle
10 MP 319.4 Hickory
- 10a Hickory station sign
- 10b Hickory hill including big trestles over Miller Creek
11 MP 323.2 Maxon
Interchange with CB&Q
12 MP 324.6 Albia
- 12a Albia Depot & freighthouse (joint with Wabash)
- 12b Albia yard, engine facilities, freight track
- 12c crossing of Wabash, M&StL and interurban Iowa Southern Utillities (ISU) including facilities, if any, of the latter interurban
13 MP Rizerville
Junction of line to 1 coal mine and line to Hocking parallel to Wabash and ISU, passing track
14 MP Hocking
Coal mines of subsidiary Hocking Coal Company
That's a long list of items to consider for a railroad in a small room and clearly not everything will make it onto the layout but not bad for a railroad line only 23.5 miles long, right? Also, not all places existed at the same time so there is that to consider.
It feels like I'm trying to fit a gallon (of 3,785 liters) of railroad in a liter of train room...
I have to put the design of the home layout on ice for a bit due to lack of funds. I plan on using Ikea's Ivar storage system as benchwork as I need to store stuff under the modelrailroad. I also want the layout to be easily covered to protect it and I want good lighting.
I'm one of those people who needs to see things in the flesh modelrailroad wise before things sink in as I still have problems visualising N scale. Got some information from my American sources and it seems I have to do some serious thinking as not even a 50 cm deep Ivar is deep enough to contain 4 (of 8) sorting tracks, 2 (of 4) arrival / departure tracks, siding, main and more freight tracks than I thought there were in the South Yard of Oskaloosa Iowa. Not to mention the trackage taken over after the CBQ left town in 1934.
I also need to think about the way I want the storage of trains handled. Current thinking is surround staging on the upper deck featuring Albia Iowa and Hickory Hill down to the Des Moines River at Bridgeport / Eddyville with active interchange by Wabash in Albia and CBQ in Maxon.
The lower deck will contain South Yard at Oskaloosa down to the Des Moines River at Eddyville. Staging here could be done on a deck below that as the line to Peoria would need to curve into the room and thus a small helix could be used.
Lately I've been thinking about using an elevator to go from one deck to another as there is not enough length available to go from one deck to another unless I go to a helix that blocks too much of the small room (which is 360x205 cm) and I don't fancy a twice around through the same scene to gain height or even more.
But all the research is an enjoyable thing so that's no great problem. I do need to think of a way to present it here. If only to make better sense of the information and to see where there are still holes in the information. Would also help in presenting it in this blog.
Meanwhile, a German friend offered to help me with the design of the home layout as well as the reconstruction of some Fremo americaN modules I want to reuse. Theme for that is a section of track just south of Interstate 80 in Grinnell Iowa called G&M Junction and a broad curve just south of it. The M in G&M stands for Montezuma and is a nice place to model also, particularly since the Rock Island had a slightly larger station right next to it but coming from the south wereas the G&M (later Iowa Central then M&StL) came from the northwest via a small place called Ewart.
And then there is Story City Iowa. Another end of the line station on a M&StL branch. This line had its junction at Minerva Junction just northwest of the division point of Marshalltown Iowa and went in a northwesterly direction. The line was build by the Iowa Central & Northwestern, an Iowa Central subsidiary.
I have enough plywood lying around to do Montezuma or Story City. The latter I might do as it is simpler to build and above all easier to transport by train, all straight modules. The Story City line has been reasonably docmented and the line will be a subject for the next layout of a well known M&StL modeller in the USA.
This shows the situation at G&M junction in 1937. The curve is just south of it *with the two groups of trees at the east side and will include the road crossing the railway. Source is http://www.historicaerials.com/
Anyway, that's it for this time.
