The Western Maryland Railway 'Gordon Sub-division'

[5050]

After a 5 year break/hiatus/lethargy and due to the rotten weather we've had plus a dose of pneumonia (both of which have stopped me riding my bike for quite a while) I've decided to 'have a go' again.  As I don't reckon my somewhat  rusty skills are, as yet, up to the demands of P4 Chassis building etc. and as my WM layout still needs a lot of work and is staring me in the face under its protective layer of dust, I thought I would start with some scenery on the still naked second half.  First though, I had to clear away 5 years worth of inactivity on my workbench which, along with my layout room in general, had become a dumping ground for all sorts of extraneous household 'things' that don't have an immediate use.  An afternoon of work - accompanied by grunts and sayings such as 'I'd forgotten I had that' and 'so that's were that is!' - and the resulting disposal of a quantity of evaporated jars of thinners, solvents, dried up tubes of glue, things  that 'will come in useful' (but haven't!) and dead insects, resulted in the relatively tidy expanse in the photo.  I also took the opportunity of refreshing my memory as to what I actually possess in the way of US stock, locos and kits (quite a lot as it turns out - but don't tell the wife!).  My WM books came down off the shelf and I found it rather surprising as to how much I discovered I had 'forgotten' - or rather temporarily displaced from the inner recesses of my memory.  I was soon getting up to speed and finding half-finished projects (eg. chop-nosed GP9, old-time Baldwin 2-8-0, hammerhead RS3, a complete coal mine and tippler).  These are, for the time being, on the back burner until my eyes and fingers hopefully rediscover their aptitude for handling things smaller than 10mm.  A bit of messing about with cardboard, paper and glue will suffice for now.

 

I use the corrugated card, cornflake packet card strips, j-cloth and brown paper method for forming the basic contours which is quick, easy and lightweight.  It also has the advantage that major sections can be built on the bench in front of me rather than having to stretch across wide boards to reach.  The basic construction should be readily seen in the photo but if anyone needs a fuller explanation then just ask.  As part of this I had to make a small 'box' that I use for protecting the point motors under the scenery on the more distant parts of the layout.  This was the first thing I had made from 'scratch' for years and I was pleased to find that it was relatively straightforward.  I suppose modelling is like riding a bike, once you've done it the ability stays with you even if it can be a bit fiddly at first.

 

The attached photos show the current state of the 'new' scenery (the basic 'bones' were made over 5 years ago) along with a view of the more complete 'half' of the layout which contains 'Gordon' station and industrial area (on the WM there was a 'Thomas' sub-division and a 'Henry' station etc. - so why not a 'Gordon'!).  This still requires work, especially lots of trees on the hillsides above the climbing section.  I've got views of it's general construction as well if anyone's interested.

 

I hope I haven't bored you with this, I felt I had to write something about my return to the hobby.  Hopefully I'll be able to stick with it for a while now!

 

 

Edited January 13, 2014 by 5050

[clark33]

5050, I enjoyed reading theabove. I’ve been there, and nowadays find my fingers are not as nimble as a decade ago.

 

Anyway, you’d certainly know more than me about Western Maryland. I’m looking at a map, can see Baltimore in the East and Pittsburgh in the West. I’m putting an interchange pair of tracks on my layout  for cars to/from Pittsburgh. I’ll name the location Baltimore (Steel).

 

Do you suppose (in my late 1960s scenario) the WM is a credible routing of DTI box cars from Ford (Detroit) going south to Florida, RDG anthracite hoppers going south to Florida?

 

Phil Clark, Catarman, Philippines

[clark33]

 

Regret WM map is a .bmp - how do I upload it?

[shortliner]

Load it into Irfanview (free!) and  re save as a jpeg, and post

Hope it helps

Edited April 1, 2013 by shortliner

[5050]

Thanks for your comments Phil.  i do not profess to be any sort of an expert on WM, I just know some general facts about the line - all taken from books - and in particular the Thomas Subdivision on which my layout is loosely based.  The main through freight traffic on the main line to Connelsville was the 'Alpha Jets', a fast freight route called the 'Alphabet Route' from Pittsburgh through to Baltimore and/or New York.  Google it for more info.  Whether Ford DTI boxcars for Florida were part of the consist I don't know and the same goes for the RDG coal but there is a man who might.  Have a look at this link, he may be able to help you a lot better than I can.

 

http://www.wmrywesternlines.net/

 

Good luck!

[JWB]

Do you suppose (in my late 1960s scenario) the WM is a credible routing of DTI box cars from Ford (Detroit) going south to Florida, RDG anthracite hoppers going south to Florida?

 

Phil Clark, Catarman, Philippines

 

Anthracite coal was used primarily for domestic heating in the northeastern US. Its use fell off drastically after WWII due to competition from oil, natural gas, and electricity, especially in postwar housing construction. Very little coal of any sort, outside of power plant use, went to Florida, none of it anthracite. (Among other things, anthracite went to furnaces in basements, and there weren't basements in Florida.) Power plant and other limited industrial coal came from the southern Appalachian region. I think the closest auto plants to Florida would have been in Georgia, and the routing of auto parts would have been from Detroit through Cincinnati to Georgia via the Southern and L&N. Auto parts cars were typically in a pool, so you could see them on any road with auto parts service. Auto parts on the WM would have been running from Connelsville/Bowest via Hagerstown to Harrisburg via the Reading, wouldn't have been headed to Georgia.

[CVSNE]

Do you suppose (in my late 1960s scenario) the WM is a credible routing of DTI box cars from Ford (Detroit) going south to Florida, RDG anthracite hoppers going south to Florida?

 

Phil,

No, I don't.

 

The WM was an east-west line - part of a system of railroads commonly called the "Alphabet Route" between the interior of the country - basically Chicagoland, and the eastern seaboard/New York City.

 

There wouldn't a logical reason to route auto parts bound for Florida over the WM from Detroit - there's simply other, shorter options.

 

And carloads of coal weren't shipped to Florida as a rule - especially anthracite.

 

Sorry to be bearer of bad news, but you DID ask./..

 

Marty

[Barry Ten]

I do like the WM - it was one of the roads I was attracted to before settling on Southern. Good luck getting back into the modelling, I'm sure it'll all come together.

[clark33]

JWB, Marty, thanks for your help. It all certainly makes obvious the gaps in my knowledge.

 

I’ll relocate my Ford plant to Pittsburgh. The DTI cars, with custom racking, are still used for engines modified to use ethanol/gasoline mix. The destination is a Ford (Havana) plant where sugarcane ethanol/gasoline engines are fitted to F-150 pickups. These are Cuban market only (like VW beetles in Brazil), a best seller and a perpetuation of a 1961-1966 fourth generation design. I’ll presume all other parts are made locally.

 

The anthracite is used only by the Key West, Fla power plant, about 39 Mw. I’ll call it Conch Power & Light (CP&L). The excess heat runs a desalination plant. As anthracite became more expensive, the power plant is being converted to use natural gas from the North Cuba basin offshore wells.

 

My scenario (1969) does not see nationalisation of the Esso and Shell refineries in 1960; or abandonment of The Key West line by the FEC after the 1935 hurricane. There is a train ferry to/from Key West using an ex-USN WW2 built harbour.

 

On my H0 model railroad Key West is a 4 track staging yard seeing ethanol/gasoline tank car traffic; mechanical reefer traffic of tropical fruit and vegetables; box cars of parts for the Ford auto assembly plant in Havana; and box cars with offshore oil-rig drilling platform parts for the deep sea wells in the North Cuba basin.

 

Most of this is factual, but the slipping of decades to see that the Castro/Kennedy embargo hasn’t happened yet, is my whim.

 

phil

[jamie92208]

Nice to see that inspiration has returned Paul.   We are going to be overun with WM layouts at Wakefield with our chairman having recently purchased 2 0 gauge WM locos.

 

 

Jamie

[5050]

Nice to see that inspiration has returned Paul.   We are going to be overun with WM layouts at Wakefield with our chairman having recently purchased 2 0 gauge WM locos.

 

 

Jamie

Yes, I'm gradually feeling a bit more relaxed about the processes involved in creating countryside.  Glue, card and paper seem to be about my level so far, nothing to adventurous.

 

However, plaster, ground foam and ballast are beckoning.  It's a good job I built the boards strong enough to crawl on so I can get to the back corners etc.

 

Mr Chairman's locos are very nice.  I have the same ones only half-sized.

[5050]

Can't believe it's 6/7 weeks since I started this thread!  To much going on in my life at present I'm afraid.

 

However, I have done some work on the layout and a couple of shots show this.  The industry is intended to be a tannery which will need lots of incoming traffic (skins, chemicals, fuel etc.) and outgoing finished products. So plenty of box cars, hoppers, tankers.  The buildings shown are mock-ups based on the Railway Design Associates 'Delaney Iron Works' plus some odd ones I have knocking around the railway room.  I will probably 're-design' the kit buildings somehow to hide their origins slightly.  TBH, I think the mouldings are a bit crude but they'll do the job.  The company houses are re-designed Grandt Line ones (as per Tony Koester) obtained at a Northern Counties group meeting a week ago.  They are exactly what I wanted.  The basic ground forms have had a coating of 'grass etc.' and plaster rock faces added but there will be more work required in due course to improve it all. At the moment I just want to get the basics on so that I can see progress being made.  I've also been working on scenery at the other end of the board around the general coal tipple area.  Tipple buildings ahve been made for some time and are stashed away in a box waiting for painting and installation.  When I'm working like this I tend to only have a general idea of what I want and usually make it up as I'm going along.  Sometimes it works out OK and sometimes not!  If not it's easy enough to change it.

[5050]

Another two months gone that I won't see again!  I have however, been quite active during them - on the layout at least (don't ask about the cycling!). I've got the tannery buildings 95% finished and also the company houses plus a fair bit of the scenery has been improved.  I need to decide what colour and how to lay the road surfaces.  Would they be gravel or tarmac in this sort of environemt?  I'm heading towards gravel TBH as I have some lovely grey dust left over from the debris of some building work that has recently been completed outside.  Some poly-fibre clump 'trees' have been sourced (but I'll need LOADS more!) and have been temporarily placed to get an idea of how it might look one day.

 

The company houses have come out quite well I reckon.  Based on the Tony Koester models of his adaptation of the Grandt Line kits I'm rather pleased with them.  I obtained them part built as in the 'grey' version in the photo and added the mounting board roofs with masking tape 'tar paper' and Evergreen strip hand rails etc.

 

The 'garage' ('Als A1 Autos') is actually a model built by Arthur Whitehead for one of his EM gauge light railway layouts.  I found it in a box of odd buildings named 'Bert's Garage' but renamed it as I can't remember hearing the name 'Bert' being used in the US. 'Al' is a more common version of 'Albert' I think.  the British adverts were removed and US ones sourced from the web substituted.  An old-fashioned glass petrol pump, rotting old model T, wheels and tyres should improve appearances a bit.

 

The tannery buildings are kit-bashed differently to the card mock-ups and I think they fit the space better in this form.  Still work to be done on the ground work around them as I can't decide what surface to use, especially around the big stone building.  I was considering cobbles using some Metcalfe sheets that I have.  Would they use cobbles/setts in deepest West Virginia?

 

Once I've got the road sorted, track ballasted etc. it's on to the coal tippler and associated items.  When I start this - I'll be back!

Edited July 25, 2013 by 5050

[shortliner]

Paul - make sure thatv your houses are up-wind of the tannery - I can assure you that you wouldn't want to live down-wind of one - the smell is dreadful - I got a job, as a teenager, in one and lasted half a day and only went back to collect my cards - by lunchtime I could barely breathe! Probably a great industry for generating and recieving traffic - but  don't model the "smell factor" - your first exhibition would be your last!

[5050]

Paul - make sure thatv your houses are up-wind of the tannery - I can assure you that you wouldn't want to live down-wind of one - the smell is dreadful - I got a job, as a teenager, in one and lasted half a day and only went back to collect my cards - by lunchtime I could barely breathe! Probably a great industry for generating and recieving traffic - but  don't model the "smell factor" - your first exhibition would be your last!

Jack, I know!  As a lad I often had to walk past one and the smell still lingers in the memory banks.  They say you can't retain smell memories - but I can with this one.  We used to run as fast as we could to get past.

 

You're right about the traffic, all sorts of stuff - some of it a bit 'iffy' to say the least!  Tank cars for the 'chemicals'  (urine, acids), gons of coal for the boiler house, box cars of hides in and finished goods out (but not the same cars, only old run-down ones for the raw hides).

 

The houses will have to go where they are.  Near to the mine.  Looking at photos of company houses and seeing how close they were to the tracks, conveyors and the tipplers, I reckon a bit of a pong is nothing to worry about compared to the dirt and coal dust!

[5050]

A bit more done over the past 2 months. Got the company houses a lot further towards being finished and also the tannery area.  I went with Metcalfe cobbles/sets for the loading dock area etc. but it still needs weathering.  The road is a bit of a mongrel I'm afraid.  I tried several finishes but none of them really satisfied me, the one here is possibly the best of a bad lot!  However, it doesn't look to bad and with some more weathering should be OK.  Next job is to get on with the tippler area.  I've made a start on some of the track but there's lots more to be done.

 

In another 2 months I'll hopefull be nearly there and be able to get on with some operating at last!

 

BTW, just remembered I've not finished painting the tannery roof yet!

[DanielB]

Lovely. Very nice scenics on that track!

[Adrian Wintle]

Looks good. Don't worry about the road being a bit of a mongrel, real ones frequently are. They might be asphalt, cracked asphalt, patched asphalt, gravel, tar-and-gravel, or oiled gravel*, or some combination of the above. Even if it is asphalt it will likely have gravel shoulders. Surfaces frequently change at jurisdicional boundaries, and can be an abrupt line across the road at the boundary.

 

*into at least into the '70s, gravel roads would get treated with waste oil which helped bind the gravel (poor man's tar) and kept the dust down.

 

I do think there need to be a few bigger trees, particularly near the company housing - without a/c shade becomes a big priority.

 

Adrian

Edited September 30, 2013 by Adrian Wintle

[DanielB]

Interesting information Adrian, and very useful for us modelers!

[5050]

Trees, yes!  I need lots!  I'm trying to collect materials etc. for their manufacture, the ones on the photos are only there for initial effect - definitely not permanent ones.  I can foresee lots of 'forestry evenings' coming up!

[5050]

A couple of shots of the mine tipple area that I've been working on the past few days.  Still need to paint the buildings and finish the ground effects but it's coming on.  I can't see the layout from the positions these are taken from, just thank the digital camera!  That's why the rail sides aren't painted - they'll never be seen from normal viewing position.

 

Lazy boy!

 

Lots of detailing still to be added as well.  Steps, ladders, walkways etc.

Edited October 12, 2013 by 5050

[trisonic]

Another fan of the WM here! Welcome back...

Will follow thread.

 

Best, Pete.

[5050]

Another fan of the WM here! Welcome back...

Will follow thread.

 

Best, Pete.

Thanks.  I'll try and get some WM stock on view soon.  I suppose I ought to confirm that it actually IS a WM layout!

 

Here's a couple of more shots showing how the tippler connects to its  surroundings.

 

Please ignore the bridge side - it was in the way of the camera!

 

I can't decide how to finish the corrugated on the buildings.  Looking at photos it was generally kept up to scratch, not left to rot - but what colour (or color!) should I paint it before weathering down?

[trisonic]

You'll also need a lot more foliage!

You might want to check local sources I think  that part of Maryland is on "Georgia Clay" which is very red. Not certain of that though.

It's probably the northern limit of Kudzu, too (the weed that strangled the South).

 

Best, Pete.

[5050]

Hmmm, foliage has been mentioned in previous posts.  I'm gradually building up a stock of potentially suitable materials for tree-making.  I foresee lots of long winter nights  comprising twigs, seafoam, wire, Woodland Scenics, hairspray etc. etc.