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Part 4,  Trains and Operations on the Knik River Railroad.

One of the nice features of the "Freelance" Railroad is that you can come up with what ever scenario you would like on the Railroad as well as the operation of the Railroad.  When I envisioned the KRRR, what I saw in my mind was a short Line RR, which was in operation beyond it's time and by careful management was able to turn a profit.  It's primary function was to haul coal from the Grasshopper Mine to the interchange with the Alaska Railroad at Knik River Junction.  It's other functions are to haul aggregate from Feltman and Butte, Lumber from Garden, Agriculture Products from Butte and to supply this road-less area with a transportation connection to the outside world.

Did I have any Real-Life railroads in mind?  Yes I did, I was seeing several:  The Pittsburgh & Shawmutt, the Cambria & Indiana, the Apache and Tucson, Cornelia & Gila Bend to just name a few.  I also placed my time period at around 1985 which makes it fairly modern, but not current modern.  So now, let's place ourselves in the shoes of a Railroad Manager who has a 30 mile Short Line Railroad to run in 1985. 

As the purchase of new Diesel Locomotives, even in 1985 would require a major capital investment which your budget would not allow, you turn instead to the used locomotives.  Mainline railroads selling off their older loco's such as GP9's, GP20's, GP30's and GP35's.  If you are an Alco person, there are the RS1's and RS3's.  Another possibility would be to use Switcher types of Locomotives such as SW800's, SW1500's or S3's.  I am not turned on with 6 axle power, but if you wanted, you could use SD9's, SD24's and RSD5's.  These Locomotives would be eventually repainted, but would probably be operated for some time, even years in the livery of the original owner with their name blocked out and maybe KRRR stenciled on.  While a smart Manager would make every effort to standardize on the types of Locomotives, this is a Model Railroad and if you want variety, you can do whatever you wish as it is your Model Railroad.

The KRRR principle shipper and the one that you need to satisfy the most is the Grasshopper Coal mine and to do this, you operate 5 coal trains per day, consisting of 15, 40 foot hoppers and powered by two locomotives. The maximum length for any train would be about 10 feet for HO Scale or 6 feet for N Scale trans.  The Coal Hoppers would also have been purchased second hand from class one railroads and as with the Locomotives would probably wear the livery of the original owner for ever.  Another thought would be as the KRRR is a major source for the ARR, you might want to work out some sort of agreement with the ARR to supply the cars.  Depending how you route your cars and how you handle loads and empties, I would estimate that to make this scenario to work would require 100 to 200 hoppers.

The KRRR has 3 secondary shippers, these being the Aggregate from Feltman, the Lumber from Garden and the Agriculture Products from Butte. The aggregate shipments from Feltman would supplement the aggregate shipments of the present Alaska Railroad "Gravel Trains" and would use the same cars as are used for coal.  The cut lumber from Garden could be carried on 60 foot bulkhead flat cars either owned by the KRRR or supplied by the ARR or other railroads.  The Agriculture Products from Butte would be most likely handled in cars supplied by the Brokers who purchase these products.

In-bound shipments using cars of all types would be destined to consignees at anyplace on the Railroad.  The few cars from the Butte junk Yard would use Gondolas and these would most likely be trans-loaded at Whittier.

As the KRRR operates in a road less area, it must also supply Passenger Service to the local residents.  This would most likely be in the form of two Passenger trains a day which make connections with the North and South ARR Passenger trains on the ARR.  Depending on how populated you wish to make your communities, I would say a 2 or 3 car passenger train would be required as well as an RPO for Mail Service.  There may also be a requirement for local service provided by an RDC Car.

Wow, now let's add up what we are looking at:

5 Coal Train round trips per day.
2 to 4 local round trips per day to handle local switching.
2 or 3 Passenger train round trips per day.

All that adds up to 9 to 12 round trip trains per day and I would say that is a fairly busy Short Line. 

The scenario that I have presented above is based on the Free Lance, imaginary prototype that I have presented in this series.  I have made no adjustments for Summer, Winter, any seasonal or other adjustments which could be made at your desecration.  You may wish to also add something to the general idea of the Railroad, such as more mines or industries.  Another possibility would be to change the time period to an earlier date, say 1950 and use steam for power.  The possibilities are endless.  If you should use any of this information or any concepts I have presented, I would be very interested to hear about it and also in any pictures. 

This concludes my presentation of the Knik River Railroad.  If you are interested in what I have proposed, have any questions or anything to add, please free to contact me by e-mail and I will make every effort to respond to you. 







Return to Part 1 and 2.
The Knik River Railroad
Continued




Return to Part 1 and 2.


Part 3,  The Linear Light Box Concept.    During the past several months I have presented an imaginary short line railroad which could be built and operated in a realistic way simulating an interchange with a main line railroad.  Now I would like to continue by discussing a style of construction which I will call the "Linear Light Box".  This is not new, but I do not see it used very often.  The end view shown below in it's most basic form, the Linear Light Box is easy to construct and if you are like me, don't enjoy doing scenery, it can be very basic and simple to scenic.  The Linear Light Box may be used in N and HO Scales and it also may be applicable in O or even G Scales.  It also lends itself very well to stacking one level above another level.
D = 8" to 14", but could be 6" to 18" or more.  When wider depths are used, extra support may be required to cantilever the longer horizontal support.

H = 12", but could be 8" to whatever.  Use caution when reducing the height as it may become difficult to work in the reduced height especially where the depth is greater.  Extending the height above say 18 inches tends to defeat the entire effect.

Track-Base
The background could be simply painted blue, a far off hill or mountain silhouette, a stick-on background or a detailed painting.  The use of building flats or building pictures cut-out from building kit boxes greatly enhance the effect.

Lighting: I used clear C 9 Christmas light strings pulled through a series of holes in the 1 by 4 upper frame, 3" or 4" behind the front 1" by 4" facia.  Then the individual lights were held in place using black tape, to tape the lights to screws in the horizontal supports. 

Looking at the picture above, we see that what we have is a fairly narrow, flat area to build our railroad on and the track may be laid anyplace on the track base.  I used 2 by 2's for my vertical supports and 1 by 4's for the horizontal supports which are then covered with ¾ inch particle board for the track base.  If you wanted to build a peninsula or finger into the middle of your room, it could be built using floor to ceiling vertical 2 by 4's and the entire width could be as narrow as 24 inches.  If you are going to add a level above, then that would provide a top to the lower level, but if this is the top, then any thin hard cover would work.  The background piece may be just about any solid material, I used ½ inch particle board, 1/8 inch Masonite curved around the corners and feathered in using drywall mud.

I would recommend using a narrow depth where you are limited in height, as it will become very difficult to work with low headroom.  In general, I have found that a 8" to 12" depth and a 12" to 14" height is ideal.  I have found that you can use a height for the track base as low as 30" above the floor.  While I have seen 24" used, I think this is a little too low and uncomfortable.  For ease on switching operations at the low levels, I provide the operators with a secretary's chair with easy rolling wheels.  Placing the lighted overhead at a height where people can look up under it at the lights tends to defeat the effect, however if one wishes to use these heights the overhead may best be left off.  I find it best to limit any area requiring switching to about 55" above the standing surface.  Just remember that some operators could be as short as 5' or less and for a short person operating at high levels is a real problem and turn-off.

There are many variations which may be applied to the Linear Light Box.  Some of these are shown below.

As shown above, one variation may be with the track base built on a slope to give a grade.  This could be simply accomplished by building the supporting bench work, horizontal supports on the desired grade.  Any buildings which are placed on a sloping surface would have to be shimmed or otherwise compensated so as to sit vertically and not slope with the base board. 
Like this
.
Not like this.
On the left is an example of a sloping mountain behind the track and a shortened (narrower) base to allow for a drop-off in front of the track.  To give the illusion to the track winding in and out on a mountain side, swing the track back and forth and adjust the Mountain and front drop-off as necessary. If also on a slope, this would give the illusion of a track climbing and curving around the mountain ridges and gullies.
Mountain
Track
Front Drop-off
On a surface which is even as narrow as 8" in HO or 6" in N Scale, there is plenty of room for a main line track, a passing siding, an industrial track and a building flat.  Walthers now is making many of their buildings in a narrow version and many can be modified to be built narrow.  One trick which Pat Durand showed me a while back is to save all the pictures off the boxes which the building kits come in and cut them out and stick them on the background for scenery.  (And after I burned I don't know how many boxes.)
In the picture shown above, the silos to the right are pictures from a kit box while the silos on the left is the kit that was in the box.  The row of stores at the far right background were cut-out from an old Walthers Catalog.
Shown above is a section of a Linear Light Box on my CSWRR.  The width here is 17 inches and the height is 14 inches.  The height of the track board is 30 inches above the floor and is easily accessible for an operator sitting on an easy rolling secretary's chair.  The dark areas on the top and bottom are part of the upper and lower facias.  At each end of this section are curves
Shown above is another scene from my CSWRR which is 12 inches deep and 12 inches high.  The building on the left is made from one wall of a Walthers Cannery kit. While the tilt-up building on the right is masonite with strips of cardboard glued on.  The track in the center of the picture is a dummy and the engine and car between the building are pictures cut-out from Walthers catalogs.  All the backgrounds shown in these pictures were painted by Pat Durand.

As I have said earlier, the Linear Light Box lends it self quite readily to stacking more then one level above the other giving a far greater possible length railroad in a given amount of floor space.  If you do stack, try to avoid placing one switching area above or below where there will be switching on another level.  Nothing makes things more complicated then to have two or more people trying to crawl over each other for each to reach their train.

Part 4,  Trains and Operations on the Knik River Railroad.

One of the nice features of the "Freelance" Railroad is that you can come up with what ever scenario you would like on the Railroad as well as the operation of the Railroad.  When I envisioned the KRRR, what I saw in my mind was a short Line RR, which was in operation beyond it's time and by careful management was able to turn a profit.  It's primary function was to haul coal from the Grasshopper Mine to the interchange with the Alaska Railroad at Knik River Junction.  It's other functions are to haul aggregate from Feltman and Butte, Lumber from Garden, Agriculture Products from Butte and to supply this road-less area with a transportation connection to the outside world.

Did I have any Real-Life railroads in mind?  Yes I did, I was seeing several:  The Pittsburgh & Shawmutt, the Cambria & Indiana, the Apache and Tucson, Cornelia & Gila Bend to just name a few.  I also placed my time period at around 1985 which makes it fairly modern, but not current modern.  So now, let's place ourselves in the shoes of a Railroad Manager who has a 30 mile Short Line Railroad to run in 1985. 

As the purchase of new Diesel Locomotives, even in 1985 would require a major capital investment which your budget would not allow, you turn instead to the used locomotives.  Mainline railroads selling off their older loco's such as GP9's, GP20's, GP30's and GP35's.  If you are an Alco person, there are the RS1's and RS3's.  Another possibility would be to use Switcher types of Locomotives such as SW800's, SW1500's or S3's.  I am not turned on with 6 axle power, but if you wanted, you could use SD9's, SD24's and RSD5's.  These Locomotives would be eventually repainted, but would probably be operated for some time, even years in the livery of the original owner with their name blocked out and maybe KRRR stenciled on.  While a smart Manager would make every effort to standardize on the types of Locomotives, this is a Model Railroad and if you want variety, you can do whatever you wish as it is your Model Railroad.

The KRRR principle shipper and the one that you need to satisfy the most is the Grasshopper Coal mine and to do this, you operate 5 coal trains per day, consisting of 15, 40 foot hoppers and powered by two locomotives. The maximum length for any train would be about 10 feet for HO Scale or 6 feet for N Scale trans.  The Coal Hoppers would also have been purchased second hand from class one railroads and as with the Locomotives would probably wear the livery of the original owner for ever.  Another thought would be as the KRRR is a major source for the ARR, you might want to work out some sort of agreement with the ARR to supply the cars.  Depending how you route your cars and how you handle loads and empties, I would estimate that to make this scenario to work would require 100 to 200 hoppers.

The KRRR has 3 secondary shippers, these being the Aggregate from Feltman, the Lumber from Garden and the Agriculture Products from Butte. The aggregate shipments from Feltman would supplement the aggregate shipments of the present Alaska Railroad "Gravel Trains" and would use the same cars as are used for coal.  The cut lumber from Garden could be carried on 60 foot bulkhead flat cars either owned by the KRRR or supplied by the ARR or other railroads.  The Agriculture Products from Butte would be most likely handled in cars supplied by the Brokers who purchase these products.

In-bound shipments using cars of all types would be destined to consignees at anyplace on the Railroad.  The few cars from the Butte junk Yard would use Gondolas and these would most likely be trans-loaded at Whittier.

As the KRRR operates in a road less area, it must also supply Passenger Service to the local residents.  This would most likely be in the form of two Passenger trains a day which make connections with the North and South ARR Passenger trains on the ARR.  Depending on how populated you wish to make your communities, I would say a 2 or 3 car passenger train would be required as well as an RPO for Mail Service.  There may also be a requirement for local service provided by an RDC Car.

Wow, now let's add up what we are looking at:

5 Coal Train round trips per day.
2 to 4 local round trips per day to handle local switching.
2 or 3 Passenger train round trips per day.

All that adds up to 9 to 12 round trip trains per day and I would say that is a fairly busy Short Line. 

The scenario that I have presented above is based on the Free Lance, imaginary prototype that I have presented in this series.  I have made no adjustments for Summer, Winter, any seasonal or other adjustments which could be made at your desecration.  You may wish to also add something to the general idea of the Railroad, such as more mines or industries.  Another possibility would be to change the time period to an earlier date, say 1950 and use steam for power.  The possibilities are endless.  If you should use any of this information or any concepts I have presented, I would be very interested to hear about it and also in any pictures. 

This concludes my presentation of the Knik River Railroad.  If you are interested in what I have proposed, have any questions or anything to add, please free to contact me by e-mail and I will make every effort to respond to you. 





Return to top of Page.


Contact Marty Quaas at cswrrceo@mtaonline.net