02-15-2010, 01:57 AM
Ken;
Here is a schematic diagram of a shelf layout I have proposed for a friend with limited space and who wants to model the Frankfort and Cincinnati Railroad. Reporting marks: FCIN.
![[Image: fcinlayout.jpg]](http://www.fewpb.net/~evasser/fcin/fcinlayout.jpg)
He has a couple of Bachmann GE 70 ton locomotives that another fellow painted and lettered for him, so he's off to a good start. He's also expressed interest in doing a layout in N Scale, but no GE 70 tonners available in N scale (at this time anyway) and using ALCo's S-2's or an S-4 would be past the time that the Buffalo Springs Distillery existed - not to mention the FCIN running to Georgetown (track through here was abandoned after 1970 and before the ALCo's arrived on the scene). But of course you could use "Modelers License" and use the ALCo's anyway!
As much as he'd like to try and model the entire FCIN line between Frankfort and Georgetown (pretty much impossible) - I suggested that he do a "scene" with the distillery and track at Stamping Ground as the main feature. His available space requires a shelf type layout and is roughly 23 feet with a 10 foot length on one end and a 12 length on the other where he could put narrow staging tracks. One or both of these could even be removable so as to not tread into his wife's "No Train Zone". Since the Buffalo Springs Distillery is what I term "Model Railroad Size" - it should work pretty well.
My idea for operating this a layout would be to stage Train No. 40 on the Frankfort end (right side of drawing). The train would leave staging and arrive at Stamping Ground. Then pick up and set off any cars in the train for the distillery and the occasional team track shipment. The train would then leave the scene and go into the Georgetown staging area. A little while later, Train No. 41 would return from Georgetown and do some more switching at Stamping Ground, then leave the scene in to the Frankfort Staging.
If I didn't have room for the staging at each end, I'd have the train come into the scene from the Frankfort end, do all the switching then return to staging as if it were a "turn" coming from Frankfort. On the real F&C, there was a night time train that only switched the two major distilleries in Frankfort (National and Schenley), so if the Buffalo Springs Distillery had continued in operation, who's to say that this train wouldn't have gone the additional 8 miles or so past Old Grand Dad to Stamping Ground too.
You can always arrange the track plan so that the staging end would be Frankfort, regardless of which end of the layout your staging track was located. You would have to have enough room past the Stamping Ground siding to be able to run around your train. A couple of car lengths should do nicely.
Note that switching the distillery coming from Frankfort and continuing on to Georgetown, would require a lot of moves to get your cars in and out of the distillery and lined up in your train. But you could just set out your distillery cars in the Stamping Ground siding and switch the distillery on the return trip from Georgetown. In that case, any cars pulled from the distillery that were destined for Georgetown, would have to be left in the Stamping Ground siding to be picked up the following day - not the best situation on the prototype, but it did happen that way from time to time. Of course cars spotted at the distillery must be placed in the proper locations. And with a pretty good variety of equipment there's a lot of operating potential for this small layout.
I put two tracks in each staging area, mainly for car and/or engine storage, but a single track would work just as well. In N Scale, you could keep the same overall dimensions, giving you a longer run or if necessary, reduce the overall dimensions. Trains would be short - no more than 5 or 6 cars would be typical, and of course if the train was "passing through" Stamping Ground, it would include through cars destined to either Georgetown or Frankfort. Such through traffic would even include 89 foot piggy back cars moving between Frankfort, Georgetown and Paris! Yes, piggy back cars!
Coal hoppers would always come from and go back to the Frankfort staging, but box cars would come from either direction. Covered hoppers of grain could also come from either direction if desired, although in reality most grain would come from the Frankfort end. Car loads of case whiskey; feed; empty whiskey barrels or as I mentioned in the previous post, loaded with whiskey in barrels could go out in either direction. In Stamping Ground proper, there was a coal dealer that got an occasional load of coal and of course you could have a car of "general merchandise" set off there from time to time too. Some possible loads might be a "once in a blue moon" load of farm machinery, or a box car or covered hopper load of fertilizer and box or flat cars of lumber. Stamping Ground was/is a very small community, but any of these would be believable loads for this community.
Buildings for the distillery could be "kitbashed" from available model structures and would give you the overall "feel" of the real distillery. The bonded warehouse in the drawing was a metal sheathed building about 3 stories tall. The bottling/case house was a one story brick building with a loading dock next to the track and canopy over the dock. It held two 50 foot cars. Off hand, I have no suggestions for building kits that could be used, but I'm sure a little looking around would yield appropriate looking structures. The main distillery building could also be brick if desired as most of the distilleries around here were brick for the most part.
As for motive power, the F&C had 3 GE 70 ton locomotives that it purchased new (early Phase I models) Nos. 100, 101 and 102, and later acquired 2 more from the Montpelier & Barre Railroad (Nos. 20 and 21) that remained lettered for that Pinsly line, until they left the property. All of the 70 tonners faced West (railroad direction South) and most of the time, trains 40 and 41 would have 2 of them for power, because of the 2.5% grade out of Frankfort. I'm not aware of any one that does decals for the F&C, but I do believe that decal sets for the M&B locomotives are available. In their original paint scheme, the locomotives where lettered "FRANKFORT & CINCINNATI". When the Pinsly scheme was applied to them (during 1962) they were then lettered "FRANFORT AND CINCINNATI RR", the "AND" in small letters that were placed diagonally.
Hum? I'd consider doing a layout like this myself, except that there are some other short lines that interest me and I've acquired a small fleet of Bachmann GE 45 ton loco's for my future layout. Of course, I could model something like this but freelance the railroad and location. Oh boy, idea's, idea's!
Ed
Here is a schematic diagram of a shelf layout I have proposed for a friend with limited space and who wants to model the Frankfort and Cincinnati Railroad. Reporting marks: FCIN.
He has a couple of Bachmann GE 70 ton locomotives that another fellow painted and lettered for him, so he's off to a good start. He's also expressed interest in doing a layout in N Scale, but no GE 70 tonners available in N scale (at this time anyway) and using ALCo's S-2's or an S-4 would be past the time that the Buffalo Springs Distillery existed - not to mention the FCIN running to Georgetown (track through here was abandoned after 1970 and before the ALCo's arrived on the scene). But of course you could use "Modelers License" and use the ALCo's anyway!
As much as he'd like to try and model the entire FCIN line between Frankfort and Georgetown (pretty much impossible) - I suggested that he do a "scene" with the distillery and track at Stamping Ground as the main feature. His available space requires a shelf type layout and is roughly 23 feet with a 10 foot length on one end and a 12 length on the other where he could put narrow staging tracks. One or both of these could even be removable so as to not tread into his wife's "No Train Zone". Since the Buffalo Springs Distillery is what I term "Model Railroad Size" - it should work pretty well.
My idea for operating this a layout would be to stage Train No. 40 on the Frankfort end (right side of drawing). The train would leave staging and arrive at Stamping Ground. Then pick up and set off any cars in the train for the distillery and the occasional team track shipment. The train would then leave the scene and go into the Georgetown staging area. A little while later, Train No. 41 would return from Georgetown and do some more switching at Stamping Ground, then leave the scene in to the Frankfort Staging.
If I didn't have room for the staging at each end, I'd have the train come into the scene from the Frankfort end, do all the switching then return to staging as if it were a "turn" coming from Frankfort. On the real F&C, there was a night time train that only switched the two major distilleries in Frankfort (National and Schenley), so if the Buffalo Springs Distillery had continued in operation, who's to say that this train wouldn't have gone the additional 8 miles or so past Old Grand Dad to Stamping Ground too.
You can always arrange the track plan so that the staging end would be Frankfort, regardless of which end of the layout your staging track was located. You would have to have enough room past the Stamping Ground siding to be able to run around your train. A couple of car lengths should do nicely.
Note that switching the distillery coming from Frankfort and continuing on to Georgetown, would require a lot of moves to get your cars in and out of the distillery and lined up in your train. But you could just set out your distillery cars in the Stamping Ground siding and switch the distillery on the return trip from Georgetown. In that case, any cars pulled from the distillery that were destined for Georgetown, would have to be left in the Stamping Ground siding to be picked up the following day - not the best situation on the prototype, but it did happen that way from time to time. Of course cars spotted at the distillery must be placed in the proper locations. And with a pretty good variety of equipment there's a lot of operating potential for this small layout.
I put two tracks in each staging area, mainly for car and/or engine storage, but a single track would work just as well. In N Scale, you could keep the same overall dimensions, giving you a longer run or if necessary, reduce the overall dimensions. Trains would be short - no more than 5 or 6 cars would be typical, and of course if the train was "passing through" Stamping Ground, it would include through cars destined to either Georgetown or Frankfort. Such through traffic would even include 89 foot piggy back cars moving between Frankfort, Georgetown and Paris! Yes, piggy back cars!
Coal hoppers would always come from and go back to the Frankfort staging, but box cars would come from either direction. Covered hoppers of grain could also come from either direction if desired, although in reality most grain would come from the Frankfort end. Car loads of case whiskey; feed; empty whiskey barrels or as I mentioned in the previous post, loaded with whiskey in barrels could go out in either direction. In Stamping Ground proper, there was a coal dealer that got an occasional load of coal and of course you could have a car of "general merchandise" set off there from time to time too. Some possible loads might be a "once in a blue moon" load of farm machinery, or a box car or covered hopper load of fertilizer and box or flat cars of lumber. Stamping Ground was/is a very small community, but any of these would be believable loads for this community.
Buildings for the distillery could be "kitbashed" from available model structures and would give you the overall "feel" of the real distillery. The bonded warehouse in the drawing was a metal sheathed building about 3 stories tall. The bottling/case house was a one story brick building with a loading dock next to the track and canopy over the dock. It held two 50 foot cars. Off hand, I have no suggestions for building kits that could be used, but I'm sure a little looking around would yield appropriate looking structures. The main distillery building could also be brick if desired as most of the distilleries around here were brick for the most part.
As for motive power, the F&C had 3 GE 70 ton locomotives that it purchased new (early Phase I models) Nos. 100, 101 and 102, and later acquired 2 more from the Montpelier & Barre Railroad (Nos. 20 and 21) that remained lettered for that Pinsly line, until they left the property. All of the 70 tonners faced West (railroad direction South) and most of the time, trains 40 and 41 would have 2 of them for power, because of the 2.5% grade out of Frankfort. I'm not aware of any one that does decals for the F&C, but I do believe that decal sets for the M&B locomotives are available. In their original paint scheme, the locomotives where lettered "FRANKFORT & CINCINNATI". When the Pinsly scheme was applied to them (during 1962) they were then lettered "FRANFORT AND CINCINNATI RR", the "AND" in small letters that were placed diagonally.
Hum? I'd consider doing a layout like this myself, except that there are some other short lines that interest me and I've acquired a small fleet of Bachmann GE 45 ton loco's for my future layout. Of course, I could model something like this but freelance the railroad and location. Oh boy, idea's, idea's!
Ed
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"