What Railroad Do you Model In 3RS?

PRR. Pretty easy to model and there is a ton of information available.

I'm the SooNut and model the Soo to 1964. Also the Great Northern and Wild Mary. (Western Maryland)

Also have a Pennsy H10, L1 & I1 plus a NKP berk and mike. And then there is the SantaFe diesel roster. I'll be honest I have loved trains since birth or shorty thereafter.

If I get tired of one road I replace it with something different.

Oh I forgot, I started a modern era of Iowa Interstate. God help me!

George

So do you guys incorporate any of the real RRs into your layout scenery or buildings or is it like mine...Anytowne USA?

I've tried to capture the look of some of the industries from back in the late 50s-60s, but it's been hard to find decent photos of them.

I have a lumber yard, a cement plant, an oil storage facility, and a cold storage plant on my layout, in addition to a downtown with a freight shed.

The Walther (now Atlas) Walton & Sons Lumber Company is a close match to one of the buildings of the Portsmouth Lumber Company that still exists.

The cement plant I have is scratchbuilt.  It's suppose to represent an old Lone Star cement plant but looks nothing like the one that was around here.

The oil storage facility is another that is merely a representation of an old oil company in town, Smith Brothers Oil.

The cold storage plant may be changed to represent the old Skippy Peanut Butter plant or the Proctor & Gamble plants that were in town.  Right now it's "Stuart's Cold Storage" named after my son because he worked at a couple of them around town.

The downtown area is loosely based on downtown Portsmouth.  No replicas of original buildings, I used OGR and Lionel buildings as they were easy to get.

I've seen some layouts that are modeled after certain areas and they look just like photos of the real deal.

i model the southern and norfolk-southern railroads. i have some southern buildings and accessories. most of my rolling stock and passenger cars are southern and norfolk-southern........rogerw.

I do ATSF steam era and also stick only too engines and passenger/freight trains that were run over Raton pass. My layout (under construction) will focus on operations over the pass. Things like hooking up a Y-3 for helper service for example.

Well I went to the layout and took the following pix of my favorite road.

I'm just starting in converting my freight cars to Kadee's 805 couplers. I like to model the NS, CSX and for a change of scenery BNSF and SF. Having fun though.

I model the B&M, Guilford and Pan Am around my old home town of Lowell, MA.

So that means I also include the former NYNH&H, PC, Conrail interchange.

Let's me use CSX and NS run through power which is very prototypical.

I model the, uh, well I don't really model anything.  In O gauge I just run whatever trains I like.  In HO, I model the ATSF in the early transition era to the 1970's.  But, in O gauge, I keep the layout set around Kansas.

I run em.

Usually Wild Mary, PRR and Beano or somewhere in there...

I try not to be too particular. Makes life easier.

Have fun!

OK, although this seems more like a 3-Rail Trains thread, this is what I model/run:

First, CB&Q, NP, GN

Second, NYC

Third, SP & UP

Fourth, C&O, N&W, NKP, and some PRR 

The Reading and B&O.

Aside from the lobster claw couplers, I think my Weaver G1 and SGL G3 are fairly accurate off-the-shelf models:

Jim

I am modeling a fictional modern NS/CSX exchange.  NS trains run coal from a modern Sunday creek mine at Millfield to CSX's recently acquired Columbus Buckeye Yard. From there CSX takes these hoppers north to Toledo and west to Middletowns AK Steel.  CSX returns to Columbus with coil steel and empty hoppers.  Coil Steel is taken from buckeye yard to marysville Honda plant via a CSX local. NS takes empty hoppers back to Millfield.  

Should be fun!

Soo Nut,

Is that oil barrel rack scratchbuilt or store bought?  I need 1 or 2 on my layout!

Does anyone model shortline RRs like St. Mary's Railroad down in Georgia?  I almost wish I had modeled my layout after the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line here.  Most of the freight in this area moves via the Belt Line anyway.

Having Kadees on everything sure has made coupling/uncoupling easy, plus they just look and operate better.

I had a derailment the other day, 1st one on this layout that was not caused by "pilot error".  As it turns out, I have a "S" curve that I hadn't noticed giving me any problems before.  I had my Atlas GP9 with fixed pilot and Kadees moving a MTH 40 foot boxcar and noticed the front truck of the boxcar starting to rise off the track.  The "S" curve (a 054 Wye connected to a 054 righthand switch) will have to be dealt with.  I've been thinking of taking up some track anyway and this would remove the righthand switch as well.

If I could give one piece of advice to someone it would be to lay down track and run trains for a year BEFORE putting down any scenery.  In the past week I've made a number of changes to my track plan.  I've removed 1 siding, relocated 2 other sidings, and I'm getting ready to add a 3-4 track yard.  In the process I've had to remove about 10 square feet of scenery.  I haven't put any scenery back yet, want to make sure the track does what I wanted.

I am modeling the PRR at Trenton NJ station with a shortened Delaware River bridge.

Also including Fair, Morris and Midway interlockings.  See Silver Meteor on main forum.  Working on switch wiring, power wiring done and mostly works, difficult working in reverse. 

I have been mostly posting on main forum, since my models have received "not really scale" comments, perhaps, I'm too thin skinned. 

New forum has been good for me, cut my browsing time by at least 60%. 

mikeg

Mike,

I know what you mean, but I feel just the opposite about the main forum.  Over there I get the feeling, if you "Don't Belong" then "Don't Be Long".  If you don't work yourself into a lather over the latest bobbing head car or themed set you're not part of the crowd.  I accept that and that's why I decided to post over here.  Folks over there say the same thing about this sub-forum so I guess all is as it should be.

hey, if all we 3RS guys ever talked about was the latest "how-to" on adding Kadees this sub-forum would be dead after about 5-6 posts.  Just look at the number of responses to this topic alone and compare it to the ones below it.  After all, what we do with our Kadee-equipped stuff AFTER the fact is important too.

(now to go find a place to buy a RCS 072 lefthand switch)

The home road, of course . . . Santa Fe.

Tom

Well, from the "handle" above, you could go out on a limb and guess Colorado roads,

and, surprise!, you're right!  I model a fictional road that connects to the Santa Fe/

D&RGW "joint line" between Colorado Springs and Pueblo and goes off toward the

southwest.  When in HO I stuck very closely to just collecting "Colorado" rolling stock

and have to an extent done that in the big boys' scale (however, there are strays

and orphans, but they won't appear on my layout).  The two roads I use as models

are the Great Western (Colorado sugar beet road) and the Colorado Midland (killed

off by Big Brother during WWI).  Still in the dream stage will be a connecting On3

2 rail DC shortline to interchange with this 3 rail shortline (I haven't decided whether

I will base this on C&S or D&RGW narrow gauge, or make it a fictional subsidiary)  While I have a large sugar beet plant modeled from visits and photos, many structures are from O scale kits, most of those kitbashed, and quite a few are scratchbuilt, but chosen by  appearance and rusticity, vs. being a model of a specific prototype structure.  I have kit built, scratch built and built-up 3 rail rolling stock for Colorado Midland, Great Western, D&RGW, Missouri Pacific, Rock Island, CB&Q, C&S, FW&D, & maybe others specific to the region. (this has been going on for years)

In the area of the joint line interchange at the largest town, will be the sugar beet

plant, brewery, wholesale coal dealer, metal smelter and mill, and east of the front range, across the "joint line", will be a short branch out to grain elevators in the prairie.

The line southwest will have another longer high mountain branch, for logging and coal mining.  Then the line climbs even higher into silver mining mountains, with mills and tipples, drops down into a desert gold mining area (think Great Sand Dunes ), both of these practically ghost towns and decrepit, as this is 1940, at the end of the Depression and well past the Silver Crash and mining boom.  There will be stock pens for ranching in these towns.  And the second largest town will be the terminal and

HQ for the road, also with a retail coal bunker, ore mill, larger stock pen and possibly

a feed mill and packing house so as to put heavier emphasis on ranching.  This will be in a "park", a mountain valley.  The On3 subsidiary will struggle along with ranching and a few still active mines.  The whole plan is an around the wall, large space, point to point, with a reverse loop around the engine house in the terminal town and a Y and  crossing connections with the D&RGW and the Santa Fe in the largest town.  The

"joint line", shown as just two parallel tracks of maybe six feet in length that serve as a passing siding and switching escape,  will also have Rock Island and MoPac connections that are just switches with a (very?)short section of track to the edge of the layout. (gotta lock those switches in place to keep from powering rolling stock

off onto the floor, and have dead space at the ends of the "joint line" for the same

reason)  Trains will start at one end and work sidings through to the other.  (no **** tree around and round)  The  grain elevator branch will be on a peninsula, the logging and coal branch, first to be built, and possible to operate separately as a unit, will be on a large table along a facing wall. It is planned to be serarated from the main line by a short tunnel.  All this is on a big taped together Atlas computer plan printout (although track may be MTH Scaletrax) and measurements and radii have been planned to fit the space.  In this space, a lot of it COULD, but won't,  be paved with track. I hope to have a few feet of track running through the country side, although towns may have to be too close together to depict that.  Operation is visualized as being very old school, with conventional engines and "blocks", and one person following trains from terminal to terminal.  A shortline like this may have only one or two trains running, with one being in the hole, or switching the coal branch, or just steaming in a siding in one town while the crew goes to lunch, and another train operates elsewhere.  Mixed trains, powered by ten wheelers, Mikados, Consolidations, or Decapods, and gas electrics will be the norm.  Hopefully there will be somebody producing small two truck geared logging engines to work that branch, or MTH 2-6-O's and tank engines will be used. Guess I should stop building structures and build tables and lay track...the trains can't run in my imagination...

Bob Delbridge, You asked about the oil drum rack. This was made by Sudder Enterprises of Ohio (I think). Unfortunately the owner had cancer and passed away.

He made many small details and all where excellent. Our loss.

George

Thanks George!  Looks easy enough to make.

My RR name, the Pennsylvania and Pacific RR, sort of tells the story. I have mostly Pennsy and UP equipment with some odd ones thrown in. I have the big Pennsy engines, S1, Q2, T1, J1a, Centipede, GG1, Transfer Diesel, SD-35 and the little E6s. I have the UP Coal Turbine, U-50c, and Veranda engine. Representing the "visiting" roads are: the 3rd Rail H8 Allegheny. I have two F unit lash ups: the late issue Lionel scale F3 Santa Fe ABBA (my only Lionel engine) and the late issue Norfolk-Southern F7 ABBA units that they're using to pull their business train. Lastly I have the MTH Rock Island E-8s with a full passenger car consist including the superdome. About half of the engines are 3rd Rail, almost half MTH and one Atlas O (besides the aforementioned Lionel). 6 engines are 3rd Rail, 8 are MTH with one Atlas and one Lionel. I have not been happy with either the Atlas or Lionel engines. They are both hard to service and have had problems.