Tilley Yard South, Chicago, Winter 1956

[Robatron86]

Hi all,

This is the next chapter in my ongoing american adventure.

The one thing I regret with North Valley is the lack of real operational interest, my own fault for not really thinking it through, so with this next one I have designed it with an inglenook in mind.



Very rough design. The crossing adds interest and the traverser acts as the second point.

5'2 (again) by 1. It's a size I like as it fits in the car nicely.

I'm looking at concrete set rails, ice and snow. Zebra stripe locos and tatty 40 footers with some shiny 50 footers.

I have designed it with Peco 100 Setrack points as they have nice tight radius and they won't be seen once set into "concrete".

Let me know your thoughts and opinions. This will be a slow build as other factors (such as the wee nipper) get priority.

Thanks

Edited December 22, 2015 by Robatron86

[Adrian Wintle]

I take it that the highway is a bridge to hide the traverser?

 

One thing to note in the winter in the rust belt (where they use salt on the roads) is that spray from the cars/trucks will freeze into a small bank either side of a level crossing. This then ends up having a train/snowplow-shaped hole in it after a train passes through. It can be quite alarming to hit one in a Bombardier cab car (GO Train in push mode) on the first afternoon train of the day (i.e. they have had a good 8 hours since the last train knocked them down).

 

It looks like you don't have a real road crossing in your layout, so this may not be applicable in your case.

 

By midwinter there would probably be a few large piles of snow from having cleared the tracks and access areas (likely with a piece of construction equipment).

 

Adrian

Edited January 6, 2015 by Adrian Wintle

[Robatron86]

Yes it's an elevated highway. No there isn't any real road crossings, just where lorries and the such cross the tracks in the yard.

 

Doesn't mean I can't have a plow...

[highpeak]

Adrian makes a good point re the snow. Those heaps of snow take a long time to melt and Chicago isn't noted for balmy winters. There is a lot of scope for reflecting cold weather without making the whole thing a snow scene, frozen puddles for instance. You could look at some of Mike Confalone's work for portraying the kind of cold, snowed a couple of days ago look. Heaps of plowed and frozen snow would be interesting challenges in terms of shape and colouring.

[Adrian Wintle]

Yes it's an elevated highway. No there isn't any real road crossings, just where lorries and the such cross the tracks in the yard.

 

Doesn't mean I can't have a plow...

 

Plowing in a yard with inset rails would likely have been done with a wheeled front-end loader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loader_(equipment) with the snow just piled in an unused area and taken away in a dump truck when necessary.

 

Adrian

[Adrian Wintle]

Adrian makes a good point re the snow. Those heaps of snow take a long time to melt and Chicago isn't noted for balmy winters. There is a lot of scope for reflecting cold weather without making the whole thing a snow scene, frozen puddles for instance. You could look at some of Mike Confalone's work for portraying the kind of cold, snowed a couple of days ago look. Heaps of plowed and frozen snow would be interesting challenges in terms of shape and colouring.

 

By late winter the piles of snow would be getting quite dark, dirty, and compacted as they melted. You could easily have the remains of a snow pile in a shady area hanging on long after the rest of the snow had gone.

 

Adrian

[dave1905]

Why are the tracks set in concrete?  They only do that if the tracks are in a road or have to have access by trucks.   The only track that might need access by trucks is the bottom most track (or the track inside the building).   If this is the 1950's, in an urban area it would most likely be brick or asphalt rather than concrete, unless its a brand new facility.

[Robatron86]

I had that exactly in mind. Frozen puddles and big piles of moved snow, that has turned into grey frozen sludge. The loader would be a lovely addition.

[Robatron86]

Dave, yes I said concrete and instantly regretted it, knowing it wasn't right. Rails set in brick would be better.

[Adrian Wintle]

Here is a bit of snowbank inspiration, from an ice-racing track used in the Quebec Rally in about 1997. It is the only urban snow picture I had handy.

 

Adrian

[Robatron86]

Thanks for that Adrian. That will be useful reference material. As highpeak said, it's going to be quite a challenge modelling those banks.

[Adrian Wintle]

Post #8 has some late-winter inspiration, albeit in a rural situation. Note the depth of snow on the north-facing bank compared to the clear south-facing one.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/86481-southern-ontario-pictures/

 

Adrian

Edited January 6, 2015 by Adrian Wintle

[Adrian Wintle]

Thanks for that Adrian. That will be useful reference material. As highpeak said, it's going to be quite a challenge modelling those banks.

 

Bear in mind that those outside banks were probably made by a snowblower rather than a front end loader, based on the uniformity and the disribution of the snow.

 

Adrian

Edited January 6, 2015 by Adrian Wintle

[Robatron86]

Very nice. Thank you again. I guess front end would be just massive piles on either side?

[highpeak]

Hi all,

 

This is the next chapter in my ongoing american adventure.

 

The one thing I regret with North Valley is the lack of real operational interest, my own fault for not really thinking it through, so with this next one I have designed it with an inglenook in mind.

 

 

tatty 40 footers with some shiny 50 footers.

 

 

Obviously you are a long way from starting to accumulate rolling stock, but I wouldn't go overboard with making 40' boxcars look too disreputable. If you look at pictures from the era:

-almost no graffiti. Chalk marks relating to traffic purposes are about all I can see in the pictures in "The Postwar Freight Car Fleet" (Kline and Culotta, published by NMRA). There may be some other scribbling, but it's not obvious that it's graffiti. Markings on the lower parts of the car, think about where a worker standing on the ground would be able to reach.

-I don't know if the pictures in the book were selected for being undamaged, but the cars are generally in good repair. New 40' cars were still being built in your time period, and the railroads had bought or rebuilt quite a lot of equipment in the late 40s after the war ended

- 40' boxcars were very much the majority. According to the January 1953 ORER the Milwaukee had 27,061 40' boxcars of various types and 3,283 50' (or longer). For other roads:  Rock Island 18,294/1,754; UP23,156/3,969; PRR 57,922/9,197; ATSF 33,199/5,109; NYC 61,518/7,065

 

I think the 40' car thing helps with a small layout, the occasional 50' car could make life more interesting.

[Robatron86]

Thank you for that. I do have a nice collection of 40 foot ATSF stock, with some light to medium weathering. Nothing too rough looking. But knowing I can use Rock, PRR and NYC opens up me to some new stock. I have some Burlington Route stock too. Would that be suitable?

[Adrian Wintle]

Thank you for that. I do have a nice collection of 40 foot ATSF stock, with some light to medium weathering. Nothing too rough looking. But knowing I can use Rock, PRR and NYC opens up me to some new stock. I have some Burlington Route stock too. Would that be suitable?

 

Pretty much anything that was a current or previous livery of any road would be a possibility. Depending on the actual industries/loads you have in mind it could be weighted towards a few roads (if the traffic is going to one destination) or could be anything (if it is a factory that ships product all over the country).

 

Adrian

[Adrian Wintle]

Very nice. Thank you again. I guess front end would be just massive piles on either side?

 

Pretty much. I'll see if I can't get some photos since a lot of places use fron end loaders to clear parking lots. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of snow on the ground at the moment, so you may need to wait a few weeks...

 

Adrian

[Robatron86]

That would be fab Adrian thanks. But no rush. I don't have a board or track yet...

[highpeak]

As Adrian said, what shows up depends largely on what your presumed traffic flows are. I just quoted those roads to show a rough ratio of the 40'/50' boxcar fleet. And even that might not be entirely relevant, your traffic might require a disproportionate number of bigger cars compared to the overall ratio.

 

The era you have chosen is often thought of as being rather drab. It's true that most boxcars were painted some shade of boxcar red, but there was a tremendous degree of variety within the boxcar fleet once you got past the colours.

[Robatron86]

I choose that period because of the loco scheme, Zebra stripe. My wife loves that paint scheme. Realistically, what sort of traffic would have been around? I've got boxcars and gondolas mainly.

 

I think the main appeal of the layout is the puzzle, plus showing off various liveries and stock.

[Adrian Wintle]

Assume your building is a factory making something that would be shipped in boxcars to anywhere (furniture, appliances, etc), and then you can use any boxcars that fit the period. Gons would be less likely in a tight urban setting unless it was very industrial, in which case you could see rolled metal loads, pipe loads, etc. (but you would need a crane for unloading). 

 

Adrian

[Robatron86]

 

This is some of the stock I plan on using.

 

With the gondola, I guess I could install a crane on the unloading platform. Possibly taking away surplus/scrap from the warehouse/factory?

[Adrian Wintle]

With the gondola, I guess I could install a crane on the unloading platform. Possibly taking away surplus/scrap from the warehouse/factory?

 

Or possibly bringing in sheet steel if they are stamping parts for appliances or the like.

 

Adrian

[DanielB]

Quick reply whilst I remember - I'm gonna go back over this thread and read it all from the start - but if you are planning urban switching in winter, you should totally get an etched brass manhole cover and stick a small smoke machine under it to represent steaming sewers!