08-25-2010, 09:46 AM
B.T.S. has a set of three firefighting cars in their McCabe Lumber Co. series. While you may not want to buy it(some REALLY high prices over there), you can take a look at it for ideas on how you might scratchbuild one. It sounds like a really neat idea, and definately makes sense. It made even more sense back in the days of steam, when fuel sources were EVERYWHERE (coaling towers made from wood and filled with coal, log bunkers usually made from wood and holding none other than, you guessed it, wood, and numerous other combustibles, passenger cars were made from wood, lots of other combustible materials around railroad property too)...
The best plan of attack would be to make your tool car and your firefighting car first, then build however many water cars you think are appropriate.
Possible operations with a fire train on the line might be, using car cards/waybills, something like: A multi-block waybill for a fire train is called for by a random dice roll. I would use a 100-side dice and have only 1 or 2 numbers be a fire train, but definately no higher than five. So for instance, every five minutes or so during the session, rolla 100-sided die and if it comes up as, say, a 42, 16, or 92, everyone pulls off of the tracks and somebody drops their engine to pick up the fire train and takes it to the site specified on the waybill, which would be drawn from a special box with different sites named on them(coal tower, Durango station, Telluride water tower, Saltillo tankhouse, or wherever you might decide a fire could take place). The fire train would then be taken there, you might have some sound effects(water spraying, the sound of the pump, some people running around screaming their heads off, or anything else of that nature), and you would have it sit there. You might rev the prime mover up some to make it sound like its powering the pumps or something, but otherwise it would stay there while it "fights the fire," then returns, and everything resume as normal. You could then haul away any possible remains from something to generate still more traffic on your line.
The actual possibilities are endless. You could do so much with a fire train added into your operations, or plan one in if you haven't built your layout's main yard, or have't built a layout at all yet.
The best plan of attack would be to make your tool car and your firefighting car first, then build however many water cars you think are appropriate.
Possible operations with a fire train on the line might be, using car cards/waybills, something like: A multi-block waybill for a fire train is called for by a random dice roll. I would use a 100-side dice and have only 1 or 2 numbers be a fire train, but definately no higher than five. So for instance, every five minutes or so during the session, rolla 100-sided die and if it comes up as, say, a 42, 16, or 92, everyone pulls off of the tracks and somebody drops their engine to pick up the fire train and takes it to the site specified on the waybill, which would be drawn from a special box with different sites named on them(coal tower, Durango station, Telluride water tower, Saltillo tankhouse, or wherever you might decide a fire could take place). The fire train would then be taken there, you might have some sound effects(water spraying, the sound of the pump, some people running around screaming their heads off, or anything else of that nature), and you would have it sit there. You might rev the prime mover up some to make it sound like its powering the pumps or something, but otherwise it would stay there while it "fights the fire," then returns, and everything resume as normal. You could then haul away any possible remains from something to generate still more traffic on your line.
The actual possibilities are endless. You could do so much with a fire train added into your operations, or plan one in if you haven't built your layout's main yard, or have't built a layout at all yet.