After months and months (13) of thoughts and realizing what I wanted to accomplish vs what I would have liked to model. The final-final decision was made to model my layout in HO scale based in the summer1953. The layout plan will come from prototype engineering drawing acquired from Grand Trunk & Western Historical Society. The history of the Dequindre Line was gathered from Historical writings that went into detail the history and the activity of the “Dinky Line” as it was called. The Dinky Line was a little over 4 miles in length from the Brush Street Station and Detroit Yards to the Milwaukee Junction and the D & M transfer yards. The line was broke down into 4 zones with well over 50 industries to be serviced by rail.
The layout will consist of hand laid code 70 track and hand made #6 & #8 turnouts. for switching crews working the north and southbound industries.
The layout will be DCC with all manual turnouts. Facing, trailing and run a round movements for spotting cars are from the actual drawings. Authorized speed is set to prototype speed of 25 mph max for switch crews and GTW S.O.P for freight service. (Switch crews will have fun staying out of the way.) As you can tell, this is a total switching layout.
Scenery is plain and simple “Urban” with buildings and streets with very little vacant ground. Since Deciding to model the Dinky Line in HO, I have lost allot of the trackage to include the Brush St Station and a large amount of the yard and a mile of two holding sidings for inbound and outbound cars in N scale. The Milwaukee Junction is also gone from the picture which was at MP 4. N scale would have afforded about 3.3 scale miles and with the helix for the 2nd level 4 miles was obtainable.
What is to be modeled is still a ton of switching. My track plan is non existent at this time, since I will use the Eng Drawings and lay the track as paper and then transfer hand layed track in its place once I’m satisfied. The loss of length will be offset by DCC w/sound, and being able to read car numbers without the aid of Optivision’s for myself, grandkids, and guests. All in all it feels good to be back at modeling rather than thinking about it.
Start of benchwork and drywall
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Help me "The Dinky Line was a little over 4 miles in length from the Brush Street Station and Detroit Yards to the Milwaukee Junction and the D & M transfer yards" where is that, town, state? Google tells me the US is full with "dinky lines"
faraway Wrote:Help me "The Dinky Line was a little over 4 miles in length from the Brush Street Station and Detroit Yards to the Milwaukee Junction and the D & M transfer yards" where is that, town, state? Google tells me the US is full with "dinky lines"
The Dinky Line, Formal name was the Dequindre Line, was part of the Holly Subdivsion. Grand Trunk and Western. Brush Street Station and the Lake Yard (Detroit Yard) was located in Downtown Detroit MI at MP 0. The Brush St Station used to be sitting where the Detroit Ren Cen (GM HQ) is now sitting. The Dinky Line was from MP 0 to MP 4 which was at The Milwaukee Junction and the old Detroit & Mackinaw Yard. That Yard was a transfer point for GTW, NYC, Wabash, C&O and Peire Marquette. The mainline split into three at Milwaukee Junction to go North on to Pontiac MI, Flint MI, Durand MI, Grand Rapids MI and Chicago. The second split was westbound to Grand Rapids and Chicago. The 3rd split went N/E on to Port Huron MI to the yard which also had freight from Sarnia Ont. via the Port Huron Tunnel. Not much left of the Dinky line in Detroit anymore since the decline of the City in 1967 caused manufacturing to leave for better spots or just went out of business. I would say that the trackage is maybe a mile past what used to Milwaukee Junction. Still a couple of sites still in business, but GTW is no longer a revenue railroad and Canadian National has taken over all revenue outta Port Huron to Flint and Beyond as well as Port Huron to Detroit. GTW used to be a major passenger service as well. (Detroit to Chicago)
Sad how things go. Heres a shot from Bing showing the Swift Meat Packing plant today. There used to be a double main, 2 passing sidings, and a spur on both sides to service Swift on the east side and Armour Meats on the west side of the mains at that location.
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I'm a big Emery Gulash fan, and I think he may have some footage of the Dinky Line on one or two of his DVDs -- certainly the Brush St Station is featured on the Detroit Passenger Trains DVD. If you like architecture, the Brush Street Station and the neighboring Brush Street Presbyterian Church would really be great features!
ChuckC Wrote:...Dinky line in Detroit...
Thank you, I was totally lost
jwb Wrote:I'm a big Emery Gulash fan, and I think he may have some footage of the Dinky Line on one or two of his DVDs -- certainly the Brush St Station is featured on the Detroit Passenger Trains DVD. If you like architecture, the Brush Street Station and the neighboring Brush Street Presbyterian Church would really be great features!
As much as I would have loved to have had the Station, as it was in my original plan in N scale, the Station was to have been the frontal part of the layout where everything was to begin. The 6 passenger tracks with butterfly canopies and 9 freight leads. The total length in N was about 12 feet but that included 2 large inbound and outbound freight warehouses and REA facility. By going HO I will only have a small staging yard (6-8 feet) leading out to the industries ending with another small yard for empties for re-staging as loaded freight to go into the Detroit Yard.
I'm going to Durand today for Train Days, and will check and see if they have his DVD's for sale in the museum. Thanks for the tip on Gulash.
Sounds interesting. I'm a big fan of lots of switching. I'd experiment with that 30" depth, it can be a big reach as well as a lot of extra space to scenic.
The line going south from Milwaukee Junction is now the Detroit Connecting, owned by the Adrian and Blissfield. Last summer the DCon was running about 4 days a week. The track is active until it enters the Dequindre Cut -- the cut is being turned into a walking/jogging path now. The DCon parks its 44 tonners between Farnsworth and Frederick, two blocks east of Russel (I-75), if you're interested in getting a look. There are a lot of very cool industrial buildings and sites in and around Detroit that would make great models. Are you planning on modeling the cement plant down by the river? There is also the Globe building and some cool warehouses around that area (complete with some tracks in the street too!).
Chuck
Chuck,
I've never done this before...so here it goes...copy, paste...is this where you are talking about?
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Farnsworth+and+Frederick+detroit&hl=en&ll=42.365078,-83.047438&spn=0.001541,0.002642&sll=39.353317,-77.240096&sspn=2.3192,5.410767&hq=Farnsworth+and+Frederick&hnear=Detroit,+Wayne,+Michigan&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=42.365113,-83.047333&panoid=1cVcS3SU6zflRraBZwA96g&cbp=12,315.26,,1,-0.82">http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Farnswort ... 6,,1,-0.82</a><!-- m -->
Mark
That's the place. It looks like both 44 tonnners are there -- cream and green, dark green and black, and it looks like the A&B Sw 7 is there too. That SW unit is gorgeous -- I have some pics of it from last summer. The 44's were on the fritz, so the SW unit was filling in for them.
Chuck
Chuck Wrote:The line going south from Milwaukee Junction is now the Detroit Connecting, owned by the Adrian and Blissfield. Last summer the DCon was running about 4 days a week. The track is active until it enters the Dequindre Cut -- the cut is being turned into a walking/jogging path now. The DCon parks its 44 tonners between Farnsworth and Frederick, two blocks east of Russel (I-75), if you're interested in getting a look. There are a lot of very cool industrial buildings and sites in and around Detroit that would make great models. Are you planning on modeling the cement plant down by the river? There is also the Globe building and some cool warehouses around that area (complete with some tracks in the street too!).Chuck
I'm planning on getting in as much as possible. If I do put in the cement plant, I'll have to change the direction of the spur which is ok. Globe Trading might be the new GERN Plant. GTW Warehouse will also be set in the first corner also. Got to play with the paper track and turnouts to see where I set with space. I think using track templates and mock building footprints will aid me.
Haven't had much time this past week to do anything more than drywall mudding. Wife had HD's for me.
