Pandemonium in the Panhandle

Citizens of northwest Florida were captured by fear today as a band of wild monkeys rampaged through the area. They were first sighted swinging through some trees near the Seaboard tracks west of Tallahassee.

Later they overran a small crowd at a local ice cream truck, frightening several small children. "I was running a special on banana splits," the driver remarked. "They plumb cleaned me out!"

Finally the monkeys arrived at their ultimate destination, Herman's Hamburger and Hotdog House. Apparently they were related to the proprietor and were seeking employment. Diners claim the cuisine has deteriorated markedly since their arrival.

Railfan Trip, part 3

After Cottondale, the next stop on my trip was Chipley. The original depot is gone, but this freight house is still standing. It's been restored and is used for community events and markets. The whole station area is now a park, but you can still see remains of several tracks running through that indicate this was once a busy place.

After Chipley I headed west and stopped in DeFuniak Springs. They have a nicely restored depot, probably in the best shape of any along the line.

The depot has been turned into a local historical museum, and there were great finds for the modeler, including this old photo of the depot, showing additional freight houses around it.

Even better were these photos of local businesses. Even though I'm not modeling this town on my layout, these still offer some great ideas for buildings to add elsewhere.

My last stop and destination was Milton. I've posted photos of the Milton depot before, so this time I'll just show the swing bridge over the Blackwater River.

This bridge appears to be the same style as the one I photographed on the Apalachicola River, and I'm told a similar bridge was once located across Escambia Bay as well. This bridge is still operational--my wife (who's from Milton) tells me she remembers traveling down the river on their boat and blowing their horn to alert the bridge operater. He would come trotting out of a nearby shed and operate the bridge from the small structure in the middle. The bridge swings on the large pivot located under it's center. There's a working model of this bridge on the layout housed at the Milton depot.

That's all for my December railfan trip. As I mentioned before, there wasn't a lot remaining from the heyday of railroading, but I managed to find a few nuggets to inspire my modeling. In other news, my latest order of track and turnouts arrived yesterday, so if I get some free time this weekend I'm going to try to complete the entire mainline and get it wired up. We're thinking this could be our last weekend before the baby comes though, so there are lots of chores to do!

Prenatal Progress

Our baby is due any week now, so I've been trying to make as much progress as I can on the layout before I become a dad. All of the plywood subroadbed is now installed, except for the two town areas sitting in the middle of each helix. I've also completed the cork roadbed along the entire main line.

Here's a panorama shot of the entire layout except for the helixes on either end. The upper back level is now in place. Pensacola will be on the upper left and Tallahassee on the upper right. The upper train is passing through Milton after leaving the junction at Cottondale. The lower train is pulling through the yard at River Junction (Chattahoochee).


Here's a closeup showing the three levels. The cork roadbed is now in place along the mainline through Tallahassee and Pensacola.

This view looking toward the north helix shows Tallahassee on the upper left, Cottondale at center and Chattahoochee beneath. I've still got some weights and clamps in place to hold the freshly caulked roadbed.

Finally, here's a closeup of trains on the middle and lower levels. Actually, this could be one REALLY long train...

So I've made good progress. The next step is to order more track and switches so I can complete the mainline and then start wiring it up. Probably won't get all that done before the baby comes.

I've still got one more installment from my December railfan trip that I'll post soon. After that there may be a hiatus for awhile--I have a feeling fatherhood is going to keep me busy!

Railfan Trip, part 2

After crossing the Apalachicola River, I stopped in a couple of small towns, including Sneads, which had very little to show for their railroad heritage. The next town with anything worth mentioning was Cottondale, which is the subject of today's post.

As I've mentioned before, Cottondale is one of the towns I'm modeling on my layout, primarily because I have a mainline grade crossing and I wanted to make it plausible by modeling it as a junction interchange with another railroad. In Cottondale the L&N line crosses the Atlanta & St Andrews Bay RR (now just called the Bay Line). There were (and still are to some extent) several interchange tracks, as well as some spurs to serve local peanut and probably cotton warehouses.

Here's the line looking west as it enters town:

The siding at right looks pretty dilapidated, but fortunately there's still evidence of what it was once used for:

This is a coal conveyer. It was used to transfer coal from hoppers on the siding to trucks parked under the chute at the right end. Here's another view:

There's a bin under the rails where coal could be dumped from the hopper and then carried up the conveyer to be dumped into truck beds. This is a great little detail piece and an easy "industry" to model in a small space. And Walthers is kind enough to produce a model:

The main industries in Cottondale appear to have been peanut warehouses. Here are a couple that were trackside:

Pretty typical early/mid-1900s elevator and warehouse type buildings that I could easily find similar models for.

Next we get to the junction itself. This view is looking northeast:

The Bay Line is running north/south while the L&N/CSX runs east-west. Finally, here's a view of the Bay Line main looking south:

The freight house is an unremarkable concrete block structure, probably newer than the 1950s. From here the Bay Line continues south to Panama City. My layout will have a single interchange track like the one swinging off to the left of the gondola in the photo above, where I can drop off and pick up cars as if they were left by the Bay Line.

Cottondale was one of the most interesting towns on my trip. I'll have at least one more installment that includes Chipley, DeFuniak Springs, and the bridge at Milton.

Railfan Trip, part 1

Last month I had the opportunity to drive from Tallahassee to Pensacola, so I decided to take US Highway 90, which parallels the Seaboard/L&N (now CSX) route that I'm modeling. I wanted to get photos of any depots, industries, and other trackside buildings that might be useful guides for modeling.

Unfortunately, very little remains of 1950s railroading along this route. There are only a couple of depots remaining, and not much of interest in the way of trackside industries. To top it off the weather was cold and overcast, so it didn't make for great photography. Nevertheless I got some decent photos and found a few gems.

I'll describe the trip from east to west, Tallahassee to Pensacola. I've posted photos of the Tallahassee stations before, so the first photo comes from Chattahoochee:

Here's the yard at River Jct. (Chattahoochee). It bends off to the right, and the wye--long since dismantled--would have been located just to the left of the bend (upper center). Historically this was where the L&N and Seaboard met end-to-end, so the yard served an interchange purpose. Not sure what they use it for now, but it still has about the same number of tracks as it would have in 1951.

Just west of Chattahoochee is the bridge over the Apalachicola River. This is the first time I've seen it in person. There's a small park on the river bank just north of the bridge so I hiked along the bank a ways to get some shots.

I was in luck today, for just as I started shooting this appeared:

I'm pretty sure those are Union Pacific units in front. I've seen UP units a couple of times on freights coming through Tallahassee, probably some sort of lease agreement. Anyway, it's hard to tell for sure but this looks like it might be a swing bridge similar to the one over the Blackwater River in Milton.

That's all for this first installment, I'll post more soon from this trip. And as promised I've got more progress to show on the layout so that'll be coming soon as well.

First Train

At long last, I've powered the rails and run a train for the first time on the ol' Longleaf Layout! Last month I went down to the local hobby shop and bought an Athearn Seaboard RS-3 that I've had my eye on for months. And of course, I couldn't come home with a brand new locomotive and not actually run it, so I bought an inexpensive Atlas powerpack so I could try it out. I cleaned off as much of the mainline as I could and clipped a couple of alligator clips from the pack to the rails. Lo and behold, it ran! Not only that, but it ran smoothly up and down the helix, pulling six or seven cars. That's a relief, because at about 2.3%, my helix's grade is a bit higher than conventional wisdom recommends. Here are some photos:

Here's the first train pulling through the grade crossing with the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay RR at Cottondale. Notice that Herman has moved his business here from Chattahoochee.

Here's a closeup of Seaboard RS-3 #1654 as it rolls through Cottondale. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to discover that this very unit was built by Alco in December 1950, so it's just a few months old here on my layout's Spring 1951 setting. By the way, this is a standard Athearn unit, and you can see even in this photo that the detail is far superior to Athearn locomotives from the 1980s when my brother Marty and I were active in the hobby.

Finally, an L&N caboose brings up the rear. This was a Christmas gift from Marty, and was the exact same model I was planning to get (practically the only L&N caboose currently available unless you go for an obscure craftsman kit). It looks great on the rails!

So there's the first train, a watershed moment. I've actually made a fair amount of progress on the layout since I last posted, and I also have some photos from a railfan trip along the prototype route, so stayed tuned for more new content in the next couple of weeks.

Reverse Loop

This is just a post of my track diagram so I can link to this picture on the Trains.com forums. I want to ask a question about reverse loops.