New W-and-N

[dave1905]

I moved almost 2 years ago and the old W&N layout (old thread:http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/t...TOPIC_ID=35035) was razed and the new W&N has been reborn in a bigger room.

The theme is still the same, the Wilmington & Northern Branch of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad between 1900-1905 (mostly 1903) right after the P&R bought the W&N. The W&N ran between Birdsboro, PA and Wilmington, DE, winding through SE Pennsylvania and northern Delaware. It served several iron/steel mills, several quarries, 2 explosives/gunpowder plants, a shipyard and rail car builder plus dozens of other industries. It had an interchange with the B&O, and 5 with different lines of the PRR.

More construction photos and posts to follow.

[dave1905]

Here is a map of the first part of the the new layout. I am building from Wilmington/DRE to Elsmere Jct first.



I have been working on handlaying the track and the benchwork. Here are a couple views under construction.

[railman28]

Very Nice Dave! I like the nice wide isles. Hand laying all your foreground track? That's going to look sharp. Please keep us up to date.

[jbvb]

Following along too. Can you move those bookcases without emptying them?

[dave1905]

Nominal aisle width is 48", tight spots 30-36". All the visible track will be handlaid, code 70 and 55, using ME micro spikes. #4,5,6 switches, 24" radius min radius main tracks, 18" min radius industry tracks. Nominal 2" center to center spacing on tracks. No grade significant grades on the main. Almost all switches are manual control using pushrods. All manual uncoupling, no magnets.

The book cases do have to be unloaded to be moved. They are el-cheapo Walmart chipboard book cases, modified for one interior shelf. The ones on the other side of the aisle have to be about 3" shorter due to benchwork design, those are cut down and shelves repositioned. A project for the distance future will be to add a support under the shelf to strengthen it, replace the cardboard back with a hardboard or thin ply one with either a gap or an access hole in the back so when I drop something behind the shelves I can get to it. If I could find low relief casters I might put them under the shelves, but that's years away.

[dave1905]

The room is 24' wide. That gives me room for three 48" aisles and six 24" deep scenes (one on either side of each aisle.) If I had gone to what I had in the last layout, I could have had four 36" aisles and eight 18" deep scenes. But I decided that 48" would be much more comfortable, especially since both myself and my friends are no longer skinny kids anymore. Even with the wide aisles, the benchwork and fascia is designed to be "clean cab" with all the controls recessed into the benchwork and minimal stuff protruding into the aisle.

[Michael_Hohn]

Dave,

I like what I see with your new layout. Have you designed the whole thing and you are only showing the plan for the current construction of are you planning specifics as you go along?

Apparently, several of us earlyrail enthusiasts are at various stages of building or rebuilding. I'm looking forward to following along.

Mike

[dave1905]

I have pretty much designed the rest of it in rough form. The door to the room is in the wall at the end of the DRE. There will be a peninsula off the left wall parallel to the other peninsula. The idea is that I will have a helix in the blob by Chadds Ford down to a shadow box switching area under Montchanin. That will represent the Kentmere/Rockland branches serving a flour mill, textile mill and gun powder works (the Dupont family were major financiers of the original W&N and served as Superintendents). At the end of the DRE will be Pigeon Point, with a car ferry slip to Carney's Point, NJ where Dupont had a cellulose nitrate works.

Leaving Coatesville the main will run along the bottom wall to the lower left corner, the double back down the peninsula. At the turn will be a wye at Springfield/Elverson with the tail going to another helix down representing the French Creek Branch in a shadow box along the bottom wall. The other peninsula will have a station and a quarry at Trap Rock, then around the end of the peninsula into Birdsboro with another PRR interchange, a foundry, a iron furnace and a few other industries, plus the connection with the P&R. The yards will be visible staging.

[dave1905]

Here is the finished fascia along Wilmington Yard (which was salvaged from the old layout).



The corner looked so vacant, I just had a burning desire to do some scenery. I wanted to model the fall so I had to test out what the trees looked like. I made up a few trees using Goldenrod just to test it.





That worked out well so I had to try a little more. Here is more scenery and ground cover. I still have to paint and "plant" the corn field and build a fence around it. but you get the idea.

[MarkF]

Very nice Dave! Its good to see another railroad being born. It looks like you've been at it for a while. How long have you been working on the railroad to get to this point? I hope you will keep us up to date as you make progress. Its going to look great!

[Michael_Hohn]

Dave,

That's a good looking consolidation. A Reading subsidiary in New England had very similar Baldwns so I guess the P&R itself had some (??).

I also like the coal trestle. The scene I am building is going to require one or two "coal sheds." Although I don't have any photos, just a Sandborn map, I assume it's a type of enclosed trestle like in so many photos.

Mike

[dave1905]

Mark : We moved into the house Dec 2014. Construction on the layout started in about March 2015. I have handlaid about 33 switches so far, about a third recycled off the old layout.

Mike : Yes the P&R has some conventional 2-8-0's. The problem with the P&R is they rebuilt so many engines that depending on when you look they may have been narrow firebox and now Wooten or Wooten and now narrow firebox, plus they were merging with a bunch of other roads so they had bits and pieces of all sorts of rosters. they had engines similar to my model.

And eventually some of them may end up as camelbacks. Portents of things to come.

[dave1905]

There was some interest in the G.W. Bush & Sons coal trestle (yes that was an actual industry on my road in the 1890-1900 era). If is kitbashed and still has a lot of work to be done. I bought a couple bags of trains set over/under trestle bents at a model RR swap meet. After some careful study I found I could use some of them to make a coal trestle. The bents were cut down and additional styrene "timbers" were added. This is a close up view on layout. It serves by wagons on the opposite side.



This is a picture of the wagon side There are pieces of scribed sheet styrene separating the bays so different sizes/types/grades of coal can be stored.




This is a top view. There are two stringers that will support the track (modified flex track). In addition there are stringers on the outside of the tracks that will have a board walkway on sides to allow workers to walk along both sides of the cars, opening or closing the hopper bottoms. The walkways will eventually have railings.




From the bottom you can see the trestle bents. Some of the diagonal braces will be buried in the ground. Not too prototypical but by the time I paint it a weathered grey wood color and fill the bunkers with various sizes of coal, plus having the open side away from the aisle, I doubt that they will be that noticeable.



The approach grade was cut out of a piece of 2" foam and the taper cut/sanded into the foam. It will have a combination of stone and timber retaining walls. One of the reasons it was fitted into the layout early was to test the vertical curves on shoving cars up onto the trestle.

[deemery]

That's a great adaptive use of a train show find!

dave

[Michael_Hohn]

Dave,

Impressive structure. I agree with Dave E: excellent adaptive use. You've given me some ideas on ways to tackle a project like this. Perhaps resin casting.

Mike