BillyJoeBob's Train Set (HO)

[BillyJoeBob]

the Jersey Regional Manufacturers Railway

This layout's design is a broad culmination of what I have gleaned from a lifelong hobby - handlaid track, feeder to every piece of rail, reverse loops as a design element and operations grounded in personal experiences. An old Penn Line set, a new Revell set, Westcott's 'HO Railroad That Grows' and a sheet of plywood, circa early 1960s was my start. This, my fifth layout, was started eight years ago and is 100% DIY.



The North Vernon Cutoff Loop is hanging off the edge. Having the open reverse loop high in the mountains allows for excellent views of trains, just as any great train watching spot should. This loop is 32, 55-foot cars in length. Longer trains must do some interesting switching in nearby Social Circle's tiny yard before entering the loop. The train is arriving in West Social Circle, where the main line passes within 15 feet of the backs of buildings of an artist conclave area including art shops, non GMO/gluten free eateries, galleries, and studios. Add in lots of pedestrian traffic that can be on or near the tracks. Slow speeds, lots of bell ringing and horn blowing helps the trains become noticed. Urban legend has it that paintings have actually fallen from gallery walls when "those darn noisy" trains pass by.



On the trip down the mountains, trains often work in South Monroe. Here the train has left a cut on the main. The train has slacked off and started easing slowly through downtown Monroe proper. Waiting on the yard lead is a local crew ready to enter the main and couple up once the train clears the area. What is a boxcar doing in a hopper train? It is a block car. Instead of standing trackside looking for, and possibly missing, a particular car number as the train rolls by, the trainman just looks for the odd car and that is his cut. This is a trimming move required for the train to turn itself in Blueberry Yard.



Blueberry Yard contains a cut-off track that was originally used to turn inbound steam locomotives arriving on passenger trains. Known as the "slide," this short steep (5% grade) track now allows inbound trains to change directions within yard limits. Then the trains can drill the old passenger terminal trackage, turned stub ended freight yard, seen in the distance.This loop is 22 cars long and the shorter length is why the trim move was made in South Monroe. If the trim is required to be delivered to Blueberry, the trim cut will be made here and worked by a yard job.



And the final pleasantness of the "slide" is this train set under-n-over. It is important to include stories when designing. Folksy tails like in Photo 1, operating narratives as in Photo 2, sensible contrivances per Photo 3 and personal preferences no matter the oddity as in this photo.

Psst...wanna see a snap of some brat track?


Main line out of Blueberry Yard. Takes easing along to get in/out of the yard. Bad track plagues the JRMR mainline at a few locations. Shhhh...I like bad track!

I hope you enjoyed the tour! BJB

[Paul S.]

Thanks, BJB! I always enjoyed your articles in the mags, especially RMC.

[BillyJoeBob]

Thanks Paul. My personal RMC favorite was the tote article (even though the print was a bust) and then the bad track article.

[Paul S.]

I remember both articles quite well, BillyJoeBob! The track article still intrigues me after 40 years. 😃

[Allen]

Great first post BJB! Welcome aboard.
Since I model The Rock, I like bad trackage as well. 😉

[BillyJoeBob]

Cool . I have always thought "how do they stay on the rails."

[Allen]

Well, a lot of the times they didn't, lol

[Paul S.]

The main structure is a coal tipple, with coal coming down a covered belt conveyor from a roller/crusher at a truck dump up on a hillside, BillyJoeBob .

[BillyJoeBob]

Paul – your model and your information a couple of days ago inspired me to finally place a tipple on a spur that I have wanted to for a couple of years. I didn’t know what I wanted until you told me it was a tipple – some things I know, some not so much.

Here’s the scheme: just south of the Big Box Boutique and setting back aways is a roller/crusher. Trucks come from mines and dump their loads and the coal is processed. A horizontal auger conveyor moves processed coal from the building, across a lot, under the Georgia Road tracks and directly into the tipple. The auger and trough come from the building in a concrete channel with steel access lids that can be opened for maintenance. Underneath the tracks is a concrete maintenance tunnel, one end of which can be seen in the photos. The auger/trough then enters the tipple.

The Photos show a sketch & mockup – the tipple scene, the crusher/roller building and the auger and trough coming out of the maintenance tunnel towards the tipple.







BJB

The old box car at the end of the siding a pet of the JRMRy. The link tells the reason why the railroad has a pet.

Layout design: a cognitive test... Concept, Plan, Scheme, Proceed - Realistic Model Railroading

[Paul S.]

Although I've seen photos of augers, I've never seen a model of one. That would a challenging project, BillyJoeBob .

The raw coal would be hauled to a truck dump. In modeling coal haulers, we tend to focus on the tipples and truck dumps rather than the mines, which could be miles away from a railroad.

[BillyJoeBob]

Challenging yes, but isn't that what this plastic printing 3D stuff is all about - continually print segments of a disk as the head moves up while rotating.

BJB

[BillyJoeBob]

Found this link this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lvErV4l5wQ

BJB

[BillyJoeBob]

Adjunct to above post #311:

Just discovered a small open coal vein and quickly constructed a make shift access road to a new auger mine.





Another source for the Wesley High crusher/roller facility.

BJB

[BillyJoeBob]

Here is my first cut at the mainline operating schematic for the JRMRy. This particular scheme places the Blueberry Yard Complex in the center of the of the mainline.


One type of train in the operations is the thru train that starts at The Abby and ends at North Vernon. This is a ‘loose’ train, so named, because it carries loose freight cars that are to be picked up and delivered at various locations. It also hauls home empty (MT) cars to the Blueberry Yard Complex and delivers foreign road cars to the Georgia Railroad at Social Circle.


This is a Train Chart for this train. This chart shows the train moving through the system without making any stops. If dwell time is required to do switching, making meets, etc. it is added as a straight horizontal line starting at the station and extending the time required. This also shifts the rest of the times to the right. This example in red adds 5 minutes switching at Tipple Lead. This 5 minute addition would be permanent and would affect the train’s schedule.



To develop the above schematic, a friend went to one end of the track bowl and I to the other, we each found a free end and started pulling. Turns out it was the same 313 foot piece of pasta.😏

BJB

[BillyJoeBob]

Let’s say a southbound scoot (an intermodal train) is scheduled to meet a northbound loose at Station “A” 15 minutes into the run of the scoot. How would this be shown on the train chart?

At the top of the following sketch, the two train graphs are shown on a train chart segment where the meet is to be made. First, the trains will pass at the same point at the same time and will cause quite a wreck. Therefore, one of the trains must be completely in the siding before the other goes by on the main line. Let’s also say that the slower loose is to be clear in the siding before the scoot arrives at Station “A” on schedule.


The lower sketch shows how the chart was adjusted – the loose now arrives at Station “A” 4 minutes before the scheduled meet and is scheduled to stay 5 minutes past the scheduled meet in case the scoot is a bit late. If the scoot isn’t there by the 20 minute mark, the loose is to hold until receiving further instructions from the dispatcher.

The scoot makes the meet with no schedule change while the loose must now depart on its run 4 minutes earlier and will arrive at its destination 5 minutes later than previously scheduled. When trains are included on the same chart (showing the complete schedule of all trains), they can affect the schedules of others.

BJB

[BillyJoeBob]

Did you ever put off a project because you needed to come up with a difficult plan and then you needed to come up with the project plan and then you find that there was a simple plan for the project all along?


When, three years ago, I started building the benchwork and track board for Ashbury Park Junction, I had no idea what I would come up with for bridges and an underpass. No clue at all – ‘I’ll think of something’ was (kinda still is) my catch phrase. All I was thinking about at the time was getting the mainline finished. My only concern was two turnouts and 24 feet of track yet to lay.



Then, it caught up with me – ‘you’re going to need bridges.’ First step. Remove the homosote ballast strip close to the ends of the ties for the two bridges on the right of the first photo. Then add a pier – seen to the very left of this photo. I then decided on using ballasted concrete bridges with walkways that resemble passenger depot platforms.

Some time ago I posted about a city ordinance for Social Circle and ended with something like ‘I will come back to the post once I do a bit of ballasting’ before finishing the ordinance. As it turn out, I needed to build some bridges (four actually) before I could finish the needed ballast and there you have it – no plan no clue to do.

Long story short: I started scheming up some kind of bridge(s) to match my idea of ballasted deck concrete bridges. I went to the scrap yard and found some bridge handrails, and they started me on my path to bridges.



Next, I developed the “decks” for the walkways. Based on the in-place piers and the abutment for the track board, I cut two strips of plywood as the cores for the two walkways. I temporarily placed (fitted but not glued) the cores in place and added pieces of balsa to the ends to have a notch at the end of the core. I’ll touch on the reason for the notches in a moment.



Once I surveyed the center line of the center pier (here is the survey in process) and plotted a line across the bridge (see last photo). Then I cut a template to carry the angle to strips of .015 styrene cut for the walkways, used a pattern to ensure the ends of the cores were even and made matching spacers to use when finally setting the cores in place. These spacers ensure that the cores will be equally spaced from the rail on both sides of the walkway.



I then leveled the cores to the track and each other.



I used pieces of 3/32 balsa for “footings” and .010 & .015 styrene for shimming between the track board and the bottom of the cores. This close-up of the end of a core with an added piece of balsa to form a notch. The notch is to have ample space to model the bridge footing pads that sit atop the abutment and piers. Still need to size and cut the sides of the bridges.

Total lack of planning pays off bigly



I pulled out the railings that I planned to use and did a trial fitting. Found that with just a bit of trimming, two of the pieces joined together sat perfectly on the longer side of the bridge.

And it gets even better! The center of the seven wide posts ends up directly over the center of the middle pier! I can scribe the boundary between the two short bridges on the center post using the surveyed center line to have the look of two bridges sharing a common pier. And it gets a bit more even better. The railing I assembled to fit on other side of the bridge also worked out fine by doing the same trim after adding one section to an original four section casting! Anyone see my flaw?

While these bridges won’t be best they’ll be good for me.

BJB

Now, the one thing I did plan for the two bridges was the closeness of the two 1 x 4s to the lower track. This pier and abutment pair are placed “WILL NOT CLEAR MAN ON SIDE OF CAR” such that that a blast of sound will lead an engine out of the underpass. Add a horn and a bell and it’s a whoopie doo! whoopie doo! And it is a noticeable change. This sound burst can be played by notching up just before entering the underpass.

Thinking about it, the dye was cast for the simple design of these two bridges when I determined the angle between the track on the bridge and the track in the underpass.

[BillyJoeBob]

Here is a second pic of ‘shooting in’ the center of the pier shared by the two bridges.


A needle in a Pink Pearl eraser is acting as the surveying rod and is centered on the pier.



The theodolite end of the ‘red laser beam’ was taped to the core above the center of the pier. Here is the result.



Once the plastic for the top of the short walkway was cut to length, an edging for the track side and one end was attached to the bottom of the plastic. This rough edging will mostly be covered by the ballast.



The short walkway in place for a final fitting. The spacers (note the two hash marks) ensure the outside edge of the walkway will be parallel to and the correct distance from the rail. These spacers will also be used to set the long walkway.



The plastic strips for the long walkway were cut to the proper angle using the angle template. Two pieces of plastic were required because the styrene sheet was 12 inches long and the bridge is 13.5 inches long. Once I cut the angle, I confirmed that the angle was proper using the surveyed center line and a straight edge. The edge is on the surveyed line and the is plastic close enough to verify the angle.



The two pieces of walkway in place to verify that both cut angles are a match. This is where the two bridges meet on the pier.



An overhead of the bridge boundary during a fitting of the handrails. The handrails seem evenly spaced to me.



A close look at end of the short handrail at the boundary of the bridges. Don’t as yet know how I’m going to show the split in the handrail between the bridges. ‘I’ll think of something’

BJB

[Paul S.]

It's getting there, BJB! Looks good!

[BillyJoeBob]

Thanks Paul S. and thanks for the help.

...and to everyone Gobble Gobble Gobble! BJB