The "Why" of Railroad Modeling

One of the great aspects of this hobby is that each individual can choose where on the various spectrum they want to be.  You can be an extremely serious modeler of equipment and simply like to watch trains run "in circles", or a savvy student of operations bent on recreating the feel of the prototype to the fullest with un-weathered equipment spotted at cardboard boxes vaguely resembling buildings.  OK, those are extreme examples and presumably the serious operator would get around to weathing the cars and building actual structures.

Personally, I fall more towards the railroad modeling end of the overall spectrum and seek to recreate the operations of the prototype.  There are an infinite number of ways to achieve that, ranging from basement-sized empires recreating a many miles of territory down to smaller layouts focusing on just a few industries.

The smaller has become very appealing lately.  The trend began for me with the design and construction of the Beer Line (that was published in Nov 2011 Model Railroader).  Even though the Beer Line soon grew to three times the size shown in the magazine and became a representation of the entire six-mile branch line, it still feels small in the scope that it sets out to capture.

I hope to achieve the same with this Frisco spur.  At less than two miles in overall length and with just a handful of industries, it feels achievable.  I'm probably still a ways off from building (space acquisition), but the research has been just as much fun -- figuring out "how it used to be".

Along the way I keep coming across more and more great ideas that follow this same theme.  The most recent I discovered was a series of feature-length articles by Mike Cougill of OST Publications.   I recently read Vol. 5 about switching operations and it's message about studying the prototype, understanding the  "why" behind its operations and using that as an input to model railroad design is a much more elegant presentation of my own thoughts.  Go read it.  When I get to more building, I'll also probably get a copy of the book on detailed track construction.

Also top-notch is Lance Mindhiem's Blog.  His thoughts and writings have been a big influence on and reinforce the way I think about building something that I can "finish" and derive maximum enjoyment from.

Mid-July Update

Research continues as I find time, though that's always harder in the summertime.  Nevertheless, with the help of fellow modelers and historians from the Frisco.org wesbite, I've been able to get some more information on Battenfeld Grease and the line's history.  I updated the original post to reflect the new findings, plus created a Google Map to provide some spatial relation for the items discussed in these posts.

I'll continue researching the histories of the various industries in an attempt to frame a modeling period for the line.  I've traditionally been interested in recreating the mid-to-late-1970s and much of the equipment I already own dates to that era.  Industrial branch lines like these were in fast decline following the Staggers Act of 1980 that, through deregulation of railroads, allowed for making the case for abandonment easier.  Also, many cities experienced a decline in the urban industrial fabric as companies either consolidated, moved to the suburbs or went out of business altogether.

That being said however, there are some plausible opportunities for stretching the modeling window a bit to include some industries that may have not survived into a particular era.  I'm cautioning myself in this arena though, since modeling "too far out of the box" doesn't appeal to me -- forcing rail service upon something that's no longer economically feasible destroys the plausibility.

So I might consider modeling a decade in general, though, if I were to span the year 1980, I'd have to choose between orange-and-white (Frisco) and green-and-white (Burlington Northern).   Or even a green patch over orange-and-white?  Hmm...

Fairgrounds Branch Early History

Some interesting history regarding the Farigrounds Branch came to my attention while researching industries. It was originally constructed  in 1873 by the Kansas City, Memphis & Mobile RR, which was later purchased by the KC & Southern RY and finally by then the KC, Osceola & Southern RY.  South of 31st. St. the road started but never finished the Westport Tunnel. The KCM&M also graded the line from Mill St. to Dodson, this line was later built as the KC Public Service Co., today's Trolley Track Trail. John Blair's KC&S intended to use the line as their entrance into KC but the cost of completing the tunnel & the heavy grade was too much so the KC&S built north from Dodson to Coburg instead. After the KCO&S was purchased by Frisco & as industry around Rosedale developed Frisco used the 29th St. Line to reach Coleman Highlands, but instead of completing the tunnel they built around it.

The tunnel was later converted to an entrance for an underground office park.  http://www.deanrealtyco.com/Downtown_Underground/History/.  In earlier research, I'd noticed topo maps had shown this area to be largely undeveloped with little mining symbols on it.  The development of that underground office park and reuse of the abandoned tunnel connects a few dots on this area, how it became the way it was, and why railroad tracks were built that way in the first place.

Fencing

I found this great post over at Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine on James McNabb's fencing project that is worth sharing and saving: Don't Fence Me In.  The results are great and the price is right.

Rail Waybill Data

In a follow up to my musing in the Carthage Marble post about researching commodity flows, I came across a modern-day data set called the Public Use Waybill Sample provided by the STB.  The data files themselves are large and in record format that can be deciphered using this guide.  I'll play around with one to see what it might provide.   Microsoft Excel should prove handy for splitting the data file into usable fields.

==edit==
Parsing this data with the MSExcel Text Import Wizard is quite error prone, but it worked for a quick test.  The file is longer than my outdated version of Excel can handle (>65535 rows).  For the previously posed question about cut stone products, there is an Standard Commodity Code (STCC) series for it (328**), but in what I managed to open of the 2011 sample, there was only a single 32819 Clay Stone Products shipped in a trailer on a single unit flat car.

==edit==

The STB website only has the previous 11 years (starting with 2011) of data accessible.  I've seen references to this data existing as far back as 1986, and for $80 USD, the 1988 to 1992 data is available on CD-ROM.   I also found a good reference for AAR car types.

Fairgrounds Branch

Finally got connected up with the Frisco.org website (spam filter stole my activation email), and already found more detail on the line, including that it was actually named the Fairgrounds Branch.

Quoting from a post on the Frisco.org website, there's a ton of detail:

The Fairgrounds Branch (also known as (aka) "the Hill") was an interesting industrial switching area near West 31st Street and Southwest Boulevard, close to the state line border of Kansas and Missouri. In the Frisco's Kansas City Terminal Industry Schematics it is known as part of the 29th Street Industrial Area, Zone 3.

The branch is located between the Frisco's Rosedale and 19th Street Yards. It starts at 29th Street Interlocking, under the I-35 overpass behind Ponak's Mexican Restaurant, curves southwest across Southwest Boulevard, passes and serves Schutte Lumber, starts uphill climbing across 31st Street, turns generally southeast and parallels Roanoke Road.

Climbing out of the Turkey Creek valley (prone to flooding) the line climbs in vertical elevation 80 feet in just under 1 mile. Close to the end of the line, after crossing West 34th Street, it stub ends near Karnes Boulevard. From here there is a switchback uphill to serve additional industries to the northwest that again climbs and runs on either side of Terrace Street.

In addition to the really neat area area around Schutte Lumber (with several switch backs and tracks inside lumber sheds) industries along the line included the Garfield Team Track, Paper Supply Company, Carthage Marble, W. C. Tingle, Pacific Mutual Door Company, Battenfield Grease & Oil Company, Safeway Bakeries, Motor Parts Distributors, Sherwood Chemical Company, Union Carbide, American Mineral Sprits, Southwestern Bell Telephone, U. S. Engineering, Swenson Construction Company, Ftyro Fabricators and Fred Wolferman Groceries.  <edit> Additionally, I've found Columbia Bedding, Fairfax Bread Co., Western Electric, Sherwood & Co, Inc., plus Concrete Building Units Co. on a Sanborn Map updated through 1950. </edit>

Branching off the Fairgrounds Branch in the 29th Street Industrial Area is Zone 4 (aka "the Alley"). This spur takes off to the northeast on the south side of Southwest Boulevard. This line ran in an alley (hence the name) behind the buildings that fronted Southwest Boulevard, across from the Kansas City Terminal (KCT) Railway roundhouse.

Industries served on this line included the American Dish Service Company, Rite-Made Paper Converters, Hubbard's Imperial, Combs & Company, Bartlett Container Corporation, C. S. Tull Transfer, City Wide Brick & Supply Company, Koch Supplies, Roll Easy Door Company, K & K Sheet Metal, Gate City Petroleum (tank farm), Dairy & Creamery Equipment Company, Gresham Company, Anchor Roofing and Siding company, Foreign Car Auto Salvage, Webb Belting & Supply Company, Aero Plastics, American Steel Company (with overhead transverse crane), Texaco, Inc., Corbin Equipment Company, Hill Building Materials Company, A.P. Green Fire Brick Company, Skelly Oil Company, Roberts Furniture Company, Jianas Brothers Candy Company, R. L. Faubion Steel and Tank Company, Flint Ink Company and Funkhouser Machinery Company (including an end loading ramp).

Today only a short spur remains from the 29th Street Interlocking to serve Schutte Lumber. Many of the buildings, signs of track in streets and some of the original businesses listed above remain. This would be a great area to model in a relatively small space as it featured a great number of industries in a relatively small space, most types of freight cars served the different customers and would need only a switcher or two for power.

 That last sentence of the original post sums up what I'm aiming for.  Now I have some company names to continue research on and narrow down an era when most of them might've still been receiving rail service.

<<edit>> Corrected W.C. Triangle to W.C. Tingle, a flooring supply company.

Inspiration

Though I've not actually started construction, I've come across a number of really good resources for ideas on other blogs and sites I've been following.

One of the more active ones is Greg Amer's Industrial Lead; I've been enjoying the posts about creating high-quality handlaid track.  Very good and detailed information even if I don't make the leap all the way to Proto87.

Also, Charles Hostetler's CNW in Milwaukee is another of my favorites, firstly because his modeling efforts are on Milwaukee, so I can relate to the locations, and secondly, he does deep and thorough research.  The series about the prototype waybills is interesting to follow -- A late model railroader friend of mine had created software to replicate those waybills and some of the car routing associated with them.