PRR/Conrail Juniata Division Engineering Report

[Dave V]

The obvious industry near Lewistown is Standard Steel in Burnham.  I'd love to model it, but even a severely compressed version would obliterate the door.

Okay, so referencing the 1945 PRR CT1000 for the area around Lewistown...

First, right in Lewistown is the American Viscose Co., which will be what I rename the structure serving as the "Juniata Machine Tool Company."

I see a number of gas and oil companies such as Juniata Oil & Gas Co and about a half dozen refineries.  One siding has two industries, the "Susquehanna Silk Co. and Overhead Door Co."  There's the Mann Edge Tool Co., an axe factory.  A number of indutsries simply have names that do not betray their purpose.

West on the Middle Division is a Mifflin Sand Company.

A large industry is the Pennsylvania Glass Sand Co. near Ryde.  There are brickyards around Mount Union.

Lots of good thoughts.  I'd love to have a destination either for gons or for covered hopper cars and modified boxcars for operational interest.  The feed mill I have now will also receive the occasional food-grade covered hopper.  Of course, it's worth noting I've not yet built up a fleet of Traincat H30s.

[Dave V]

With some paint, details, and creativity, I wonder if this turd could be polished:

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've sen decent stuff done with them.

I think the first thing, though, would be to replace the windows though, and use a different roof.

[Dave V]

There were (and still are) TONS of rail-served mills and factories in Bellefonte, PA, which, while off the Middle Division, is still typical central PA.  Bellefonte's connection with the Middle Division was a Tyrone by way of the Bald Eagle Secondary.  While looking into what these industries might have been I found this picture of Bellefonte:



Which reminds me a little of this:

[MichaelWinicki]

Great comparison shot Dave...

Look at all the wires you see in the image of downtown Bellefonte. 

[Dave V]

Yes, EXCELLENT point!

My next plan after relaying the track is to string EZ Line.  Don't want to do it until I'm done with the traumatic trackwork.

[Dave V]

So Lewisport is now fading into Lewistown...



At some point I will need to tackle scratchbuilding the iconic Lewistown station.  I'm inspired by the HO layout in the lobby of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania that depicts Lewistown in the late 40s:

[Dave V]

This weekend my son Jacob and I attempted to "op" the Juniata Division.  We were disappointed.



We made up a "Lewistown Local" in 1956 Enola (though the real one is made up in Lewistown's own yard) using an L1s class 2-8-2.  Backing a combination of body mounts and truck mounts through a c55 #5 yard ladder with a heavy, cast-pewter loco that's not exactly dainty can be an exercise in frustration.  Nevertheless, we picked up the right cars and a cabin and headed out onto the Juniata Division.

After one loop, we pulled into Lewistown, and dropped the train on the westbound main east of the crossing.  We picked up cars at the American Viscose plant and the freight station and dropped them off on the eastbound main.  So now both mains are blocked.  We then went down the switchback to the farm store and cleared 3 empties, with barely enough room on the switchback tail at the Viscose plant to clear the switch (3 cars and a loco).  That cut was deposited (get this) on the eastbound main (that's the outer curve on the bottom) between Lewis and Spruce crossovers.  It had to be; there's no passing siding at Lewistown on my layout.  Then the loco pushed the empties from the farm store back past the Lewis crossover as far back as the stopped brass K4 and MTL heavyweights on the eastbound main would allow.  We cut the train to allow traffic to cross on US322.

Finally we could pick up our train from Enola.  We dropped off a cut of Merchandise Service boxcars at the Lewistown freight depot after dropping our cabin east of the crossing...  but then had to do another run-around move on both mains again between Lewis and Spruce crossovers in order to drop a loaded hopper and two tank cars at the farm store (it also sells fuel; coal and oil).   After that, we could finally drop the last cut of cars at the Viscose plant.  Then, some serious zig-zagging allowed us to finally move our new train from the eastbound main to the westbound main and pick up our cabin.  We could then continue to "Altoona."

Was it fun and challenging?  Yes, for the most part.  But what spoiled it was the decidedly un-railroad-like way it went.  Very unlike PRR to have a local tie up all east and westbound traffic for the real-time equivalent of several hours.

This layout was designed by MR as a show layout and has the standard Lou Sassi switchback spur.  When I built this I wanted a show layout, and it's superb in that role.  But these days I'm taking a liking to real ops, and that's where this layout fails miserably.

[GaryHinshaw]

I sympathize.  This week I had the opportunity to operate on not one, but two CPR Boundary sub layouts and they both offered challenging, but realistic, operating schemes.  Not surprisingly, they both attempt to follow portions of the prototype fairly closely.  (I'm taking notes as I make my new plans.)

Would your session have gone better with two shorter turns than one longer one?

-gfh

[wm3798]

I totally dig your dilemma.  Back before the WMRY Western Lines was abuild, I constructed a simple 36 x 8' loop with a passing siding and a couple of switches for industries.  The idea was to be able to run a train now and again to keep the itch scratched, and to have a test bed for scenery techniques.

It quickly developed into a switching layout, and I added a wye and a shelf for a small yard.

This quickly evolved into a storage yard for a bunch of rolling stock, but I could still whip up a local to go out on the line.  Then I wanted to make up a coal train to send out the other way (I could because I had a wye) and the ops scheme almost immediately outgrew the infrastructure.

Rather than succumb to the frustration presented by the small layout, I used the experience to spur on the design and construction of the current WMRY.  Even with a significant amount of staging and a long main line run, I can still end up with log jams if I don't really think through what's going to happen during a run.

So part of what I'm saying is that a bigger layout will help solve this problem, but at the same time, a larger layout will present new problems you haven't even thought of yet!

My suggestion is to reduce the train size to the bare minimum, add the crossover you need at Lewistown to allow the run around moves to stay on that side of the layout, and think out your car blocking in the yard before heading out on the line.

A wye between the yard and the Juniata Division would also be a tremendous asset, allowing you to turn steam locomotives, and to send eastbounds east and westbounds west.

Lee

[Dave V]

Correcting all of the deficiencies in track design (along with the switch to code 55) is daunting to the point that it's tempting to just start over.

[eric220]

Correcting all of the deficiencies in track design (along with the switch to code 55) is daunting to the point that it's tempting to just start over.

Just a thought, why not?  You can always build on another door, so you can keep the current layout while it's being built.  Just make it with the same connection to Enola, and you can swap one for the other depending on your wants/needs at the time.  Once you get the second one to where you like it, you can decide whether or not it's worth keeping the current one.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Eric is a smart man in this regard.

[wm3798]

Well, yeah... to a point.  A door sized layout is always going to fraught with compromises, particularly for a PRR guy whose Jones will always be for massive stone structures and a four track "broad way".  (You can say you'd be happy with a Pennsy branch, but that's bullshit and YOU KNOW IT!)

My approach would be to keep the current as is, but add a wye to one corner, or even break the loop, then use a second door, maybe 18" to 24" wide, to do a straight line main where you can stretch out the legs a bit, with Enola tied to the other end of that.

I'll have to tinker with some sketches, but I'm thinking an extended dogbone, basically a double track oval, but with the middle pinched together to make the 4 track main.  Use the Juniata Division as one end of the loop, keeping the two tracks, junctions etc.  With Enola at one end, it would be a point to loop, with a wye at one end of the JD, you could still have continuous running for show ops.

Lee

[DKS]

I still think this idea has a lot of potential...
 


It wouldn't solve all of the problems at once, but I think it might provide a good interim step, one that can be explored at relatively low cost and effort (so it wouldn't be a big waste if it failed and got ditched); and it might lead to new ideas.