@BobHastings posted:Is there an anyrail file you can share? I use RR-Track software myself but it should be an easy conversion.
Thanks,
Bob
Bob, I can share the AnyRail file, but there is no conversion mechanism to RR-Track. You could download the free trial version of AnyRail, which will allow you to open and inspect the layout, and manually rebuild it in RR-Track.
This is Atlas-O, not FasTrack.
I should give anyrail a try. At least I should be able to see what size track and switch is in each location on the layout. Of course then I'll start tweeking it a little here and a little there. 😄
I have consolidated my discussion about the SP&S Shelf Layout here.
Thanks for the anyrail file Ken. Let the tweaking begin!
I'm looking at building a variation the GS&S in On30. I have 3 pieces of 1/2 inch thick plywood measuring roughly 18 inches by 4 feet. These I thought would make the surfaces of three sections/ modules. The main concern is my current motive power consists of two Bachmann On30 2-6-0 Moguls. I have 1 passenger consist of 1 combine and 2 coaches and my freight cars are 2 18 foot flat cars, a box car and 3 wood side dump ore cars. The idea was originally to make a 4 x 8, but now that's changed due to moving into an older 1 bedroom apartment. I have room for a shelf layout.
The railroad in concept is a narrow gauge route running from the Kansas River/ Kaw River in Shawnee County, Kansas to coal mines in Osage County, Kansas. The terrain in between is a mixture of flood Plains and wooded rolling hills with a steep bluff on the south shore of the Wakarusa River which runs through southern Shawnee County just above Osage County. The switchback of the GS&S could represent a similar switchback to climb that bluff.
It's interesting that in O scale the 5 or 6 inches for the upper station of the GS&S would almost be the right elevation once the scale feet are considered. The bluff is vertically 20 or more feet above the level of the Wakarusa River's flood plain.
My road name is the Kansas River and Southern. I am very loosely basing this road on the real Kansas Central Railway/ Kansas Central Railroad/ Leavenworth, Kansas and Western that was 3 foot gauge until 1891 running from Leavenworth, Kansas on the Missouri River to Miltonvale in North Central Kansas.
The biggest difference is that the KR&S runs southerly from the fictional river port of Meek, Kansas (named for Dave Meek of the Thunder Mesa Mining Company and Thunder Mesa Studio) to the fictional coal mining town of Underwood, Kansas (named for Brent Underwood who owns the ghost town of Cerro Gordo, California and has the Ghost Town Living channels on YouTube and Patreon.)
When I was going to build the 4 x 8 there was a spur to a riverboat landing. Now that is going to be off layout as will be the town of Meek. Now I may have the farm town of Richland, Kansas represented besides Underwood. On another shelf plan in an L shape I represented Richland with a Wye for turning my locomotives.
The original design called for 2 engines so no run-around was needed.
If I recall correctly, the designer also said that it didn't turn out as he planned and he didn't like it after all. Running it was too tedious.
I am still looking at modifying the GS&S for my line, but what is the grade on the incline and would a Bachmann On30 2-6-0 Mogul make it with a short string of cars? I have two Moguls mainly because those are the locomotives I have been able to find. I have a passenger consist using two Bachmann On30 Coaches and a Bachmann On30 Combine. My freight cars are a single Bachmann boxcar, two Bachmann flatcars and three Bachmann wood side side-dump ore cars. I was thinking of using the upper station on the GS&S to represent an Osage County, Kansas coal mining town and the lower station as a river front town on the Kansas (Kaw) River in Shawnee County, Kansas. Until 1864 though as late as 1866 small steam boats went up and down the Kansas River from Kansas City to Junction City, Kansas. The lower town was to be an interchange between the riverboats and the interior of Kansas south of the river. My options are to build a flat 3.5 ft x 6 or 8 ft table layout or a 2 ft x 10ft shelf with a switchback and elevation which may or may not have an extension that extends 4 to 6 feet to the right of the main shelf. Will a 2-6-0 handle the grade on the GS&S? I am sure what curves exist are doable.
I began following this thread earlier this year late last. I moved into an apartment with very limited extra room. I have available some modules that were once my dad and mom's Lionel modular layout. I am taking three of them and repurposing them to be my On30 narrow gauge layout. I have an area that is roughly 3 feet wide by fifteen feet long. Each module is 48 x 32 inches and will make end to end a layout 2 feet 8 inches wide by 12 feet long. I took what I remembered of the layout of the GS&S and developed a plan using turnouts and track I have on hand. I have six No. 4 (3 left and 3 right,) two Wyes, a Right Snap Switch, five sticks of 36 inch flex track and two Left Snap Switches. I left out the two left Snap Switches. In the attached picture that is of a screen shot of what I designed using SCARM. I call my route the Meek and Underwood Branch of the Kansas River and Southern. The setting is in southern Shawnee County, Kansas and northern Osage County, Kansas. The railroad is entirely fictional, but from 1871 to 1889/ 1890 there was the Kansas Central that ran from Leavenworth, Kansas to Miltonvale, Kansas that was a 3 foot Gauge until the Union Pacific switched it to Standard Gauge from 1890 to 1892. My Kansas River and Southern services the coal fields of Osage County and the farms of Osage and Shawnee Counties.
@Ken-Oscale posted:Perhaps more interesting:
Scenic wise, that bridge over the grade hid the short train somewhat. You plan exposes the train almost 100% of the time...getting rid of the mystere of the layout!
I'm glad to see that others have found potential in this thread born of an idle thought prompted from a reprinted article that was in a old book I borrowed from the library.
My most recent thoughts: for recreating this layout, K Line Porters, 19th century Ore Jennies, MTH 19th century 34ft boxcars, and Industrial Rail log cars would be a great choice, though the Porters might be tricky on the switches. I think a older, rustic look would make a very characterful scene and with very a 19th century setting you could use smaller equipment and even not have cabooses which might simplify operations.
Here's some new thoughts:
I wonder how having a engine house next to the depot on the upper level as opposed to the lower level would effect operations?
Would it be possible to have a runaround tracks on the grade, so you could run the engine round the train before ascending\descending it?
I'm curious if, maybe, just turning the spurs at either end of the layout into runaround tracks might be a simple solution to the run-around problem?
The dotted line here is the "simple fix" proposed by someone earlier in the thread, and by Carl Ardent and I'm sure many others. It changes the way the layout runs, and isn't a real replacement for a runaround track, it but would allow you to only run the line on a single locomotive as long as you envision the locomotive as pushing the cars up the grade, and entering all switches facing forward.
But, you are only "pushing" the cars up the grade until the switchback; then, you are pulling the cars the rest of the way. When you arrive at the top, how do you spot the cars and send the engine back downhill?
Chuck
At 2' by 12' in O scale , It makes a nice industrial layout , for a diesel switcher and 40' cars , all though it needs to have a run around track , to reposition the engine, Ideally for modern equipment it should be 4' longer and at least 1' wider . in 2 rail , the old Rocco switches would work, in 3rail no idea! FYI cars are and engines are measured end to end, not over the couplers. so a 40' car is 10's , plus the couplers!
@prrhorseshoecurve posted:Scenic wise, that bridge over the grade hid the short train somewhat. You plan exposes the train almost 100% of the time...getting rid of the mystere of the layout!
that works
If anyone is still following this, I have built a 1'x8' version in HO. I also used the track arrangement without the bridge. It allows a little more gentle gradient. If anyone is interested about the lack of a run-around track, please read the original Yungkurth GS&S article for the sequence of operation. Having to use 2 engines to switch adds to the interest of operation. For a small layout, it gives some feeling that your train actually goes somewhere. Track power is controlled simply by the direction of each turnout. Only one 2 wire power feed is required.
@Ken-Oscale posted:This configuration might be more interesting:
One might run the passing track at 1%, and get a little more rise overall, but no additional vertical clearance.
Turnouts are O60. One curve at O60, others at O72, O84, and O96.
Would this diagram work with version from Bachmann's EZ Track Book? They have a 2 ft x 8 ft version of the GS&S roadnamed Midwest Quarry. It has the original GS&S conficuration except at the yard. There they have just two tracks for the On30 and dummy track for O standard guage. In the book's chapter on the MQ they show how to take the Plasticville Warren Truss Bridge frame and make a bridge for the gap where the upper leg passes over the lower leg of the switchback.
I am wanting to construct my own version of the layout and base it in East Central Kansas' coal country of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. I still have the two moguls, but I've added a Class - B Climax as well as a Davenport Gas Mechanical. I am thinking of making the layout now with the Bachmann EZ Track like in their book, but don't like the lack of a runaround track. I have some scrap plywood my sister is letting me use for this project and I can cut it into 2x4 foot panels and used the rest to make the frame.
At the moment the railroad I am going to build has the following motive power 2 x 2-6-0 Moguls, 1 x two truck 28 ton Class - B Climax, 1 x Baldwin 2-6-2T Trench Locomotive and 1 x Davenport Gas Mechanical (In the Engine Shop for overhaul. The lights come on, but it won't move.) For freight the railroad I am calling the Kansas River and Southern or KR&S has a two gondolas, a flat, a boxcar, & three wood side dump ore cars. The non-revenue car is a short caboose with the rear mounted coupola. The passenger cars are two Combines and a Coach.
The back story for the KR&S is that it had its start in the years of the Civil War in Kansas. At that time they had two 2-4-0 Porters, not the reverse arangement like Bachmann sold the models of. In the 1860s prior to the Kansas River being closed to Steamboat Navigation by the Kansas Legislature the KR&S ran coal from what is now Osage County to a landing near the current unincorporated town of Tecumseh along the Kansas River where their owner the Underwood and Meek Coal Company sold it to the riverboats for fuel. When the 1864 legislation passed closing the Kansas River to Steamboats the KR&S switched its clientile. It began bring coal and other bulk products like wheat an corn to Topeka and Lawrence from Northeast Osage, Southeast Shawnee and Southwest Douglas Counties. When the Clean Air Act put an end to the use of brown coal and the major roads like the ATSF and the UP had completely switched to diesel - electrics the coal business dried up, but Underwood and Meek switched to aggregate mining, but eventually started making more money off of tourist trade.
I suggest to not build the version with a run-around track as shown. The operation is better without, where you must use 2 engines. Please read Yungkurth.
@John Hutnick posted:I suggest to not build the version with a run-around track as shown. The operation is better without, where you must use 2 engines. Please read Yungkurth.
If that is the Model Railroader who built the original or rathe designed it for the Model Railroader Magazine I have to find the book I have from Kalmbach in which that road was featured.
At the momen I have the Bachmann EZ Track Book and the chapter in it on the Midwest Quarry RR which is basically the GS&S on a 2 foot by 8 foot shelf. The biggest difference is that the lowest leg of the switch back curves into a tunnel and the third track of the yard is replaced by a dummy O scale standard guage two rail track.
The team that build the Midwest Quarry used an 0-4-0 Porter and a two-truck Shay for their motive power. My Moguls will be too big to even take a string of the wooden sidedump ore cars up the incline, but the Class-B Climax should do just fine. The Gas Electric for now will be if I place it on a track a dummy for photos only. I have to figure out how to get it working. I tried running in on the track I have to test it. Its lights came on, but when I tried to make it go forwards or backwards nothing happened. Now the other option for small motive power on the version I am going to build will be my Trench Locomotive. My story behind that baby is that is was a post World War One surplus buy from the Army. It was one delivered to the Army, but never delivered to France. So between the Wars it and the Davenport were purchased by the KR&S.
I think the 2-6-2T may work on the limited length spurs at the end of the legs of the switchback. Since the Bachmann version only has a two spur track at the upper station with the one going to the left of the other at an angle I think I can actually have my locos work the grade with one doing the setting at the upper yard and the other doing the setting at the lower. Since I don't have any O scale Standard Guage track I may just add back in the third track on the lower level for a servicing track. I think the 2-6-2T Baldwin and the Class-B Climax could operate the layout just fine.
For the revenue cars the box car and the flat could be used to deliver supplies with one of the Combines as a means of workers and visitors to the mine arriving and departing the upper station. I am thinking of getting some of the WW-1 box cars as they're shorter than the mineral red one I have currently. On a solely freight run the Caboose could end the sting of ore cars or the two condolas.
In the time period I am looking at the mines in my part of Kansas were either shaft mines doing the gallery and column system underground or strip mines. The seam here was between a foot and two foot thick. In the current era one can't even find on Google Maps or Google Earth where these mines used to be as they were darned good at refilling the pits and shafts. Yet I am going to kitbash and scratch build my mine using the Berkshire Valle mine tipple and a scratch built structure over it like a photo I saw on the Osage County Website's County History Page.
The shelf layout is going to be built so I can expand off of it at a later date. I may have to alter the part of the scene where the left spur of the upper yard goes over the lower leg of the switch back as there are no Tunnels anywhere in Kansas on any of our railroads even the former Kansas Central which until the 1890s was a 3 foot guage line running from Leavenworth, Kansas to Miltonvale, Kansas. This railroad as a branch operated its full length into the 1930s and afterwards it was cut down to just the tracks around Miltonvale by the Union Pacific.
In the case of the KR&S I will some time in the near future get two of the Whitcomb 44 Ton Diesels. Yet if I don't I will run the Climax and the Trench Loco as my main motive power for the excursion trains that will represent the post loss of the Brown Coal revenue. Some of my inspiration for having the KR&S be a late 20th and early 21st Century excursion railroad comes from the Baldwin City located Midland Railway. They actually have a train that goes to Nowhere. Nowhere is a station on the Midland. My other inspiration is Dave Meek and his Thunder Mesa Mining Company. The name Underwood comes from Brent Underwood who currently owns the California Ghost Town of Cerro Cordo.
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