Landscapes

This map shows the natural landcover types that existed in north Florida before development. The categories are as follows (descriptions from Florida Natural Areas Inventory):

SH = Sandhill: upland with deep sand substrate; xeric; temperate; frequent fire (2-5 years); longleaf pine and/or turkey oak with wiregrass understory.

HCM = Hardwood/Conifer Mixed Forest: upland with sand/clay substrate; mesic; temperate; rare or no fire; loblolly pine and/or shortleaf pine and/or laurel oak and/or magnolia and spruce pine and/or mixed hardwoods.

BHS = Bottomland Hardwood Swamp: flatland with sand/clay/organic substrate; occasionally inundated; temperate; rare or no fire; water oak, red maple, beech, magnolia, tuliptree, sweetgum, bays, cabbage palm, and mixed hardwoods.

PFW = Pine Flatwoods: flatland with sand substrate; mesic; subtropical or temperate; frequent fire; slash pine and/or longleaf pine with saw palmetto, gallberry and/or wiregrass or cutthroat grass understory.

So those are the types of landscapes I'd like to include in some form on the layout. Of course, my layout will be small enough that there won't be much area available to model much of these, but perhaps some representations can be included. Another consideration is that much of north Florida was already converted to agriculture and pine plantations by the 1950s.

Helix Design

Reason #273 why I love the internet: I ran across a post on the Model Railroader forums that shows an ingenious design for helix construction. The design uses threaded metal rods for support, with nuts to set the height of the roadbed at each level. I really like this design because it allows you to adjust the height of the roadbed as you go to maintain a precise grade. I think this is the way I'll go with my mini-helixes, especially since I'll be dealing with tight clearances between levels. Here's a link to the forum post:

http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/730861/ShowPost.aspx

Seaboard Paint Schemes

Here are some pictures of Seaboard Air Line paint schemes for early generation (1940s & 50s) diesels. The first photo shows the classy black and red paint scheme used for switchers.

Next up is the standard freight scheme for the era, before they switched to a brighter "Jolly Green Giant" scheme in the 60s.


Information on passenger trains is a little harder to follow, but to my knowledge all early Seaboard passenger diesels were painted in the "citrus" scheme shown here:

At some point (late 50s/early 60s) Seaboard switched to a new passenger diesel scheme shown below. It is described as "pale green" although in every photo I've seen it sure looks white to me:

Not the prettiest paint schemes in the railroad world, but certainly distinctive. I plan to include units with the first three schemes on my layout. I'll take a look at L&N diesels in a future post.

Vacation

I'm back from a 10 day vacation, so I haven't been around to post updates lately. Also, the railroad's Chief Financial Officer has informed me that there will need to be a freeze on railroad spending for the rest of this month (due in part to the aforementioned vacation), so there won't be much activity on the layout until October. I'll try to find more interesting historical notes & photos to post however in order to keep things from stagnating around here.