Enjoying Railroad Days in CB & Omaha: Rails West

This is the first in a series of posts to describe a recent trip to Omaha, Nebraska and Council Bluffs, Iowa to take in Omaha Railroad Days 2008.

My first stop was at the Rails West museum in Council Bluffs, where an old Rock Island depot has been turned into a museum featuring actual old rolling stock and a number of quality exhibits inside the museum/depot.

An interesting fact about the depot is that it has two waiting rooms, which were completely separate with separate entrances from the outside, one for men and one for women and children.

Aside from the depot, one of the other main attractions for me here was the Omaha Club Car, a car originally built in 1927 for service on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy RR.

During the 1930s and 1940s this car saw service between Chicago and Lincoln on the CB&Q and was used mainly as an observation and lounge car. This basically means that the passengers had seats elsewhere on the train and they came here to smoke, play cards, or just visit.

The level of remaining detail and the general condition of the car was quite impressive considering its age and the many years it has spent out of service.

The fixtures were mainly complete, the oak paneling in good condition, and the original furnishings helped to recreate the feel of the car in its heyday.

The other exhibits outside the depot included locomotives and a caboose, a mail car, and several types of station equipment. Inside the depot was a variety of war era artifacts and other general railroad memorabilia - a very impressive collection. Additionally, the depot houses the model railroad of the Greater Omaha Society of Model Engineers (GOSOME).

I had visited the layout previously, and the layout alone is certainly well worth a visit. When you add in the opportunity to view the depot, its contents, and all of the rolling stock, this is a must-see for the railfan and the history buff alike.

Model Railroad Benchwork: BV Central, Phase One

All aboard the Boyer Valley Central Railroad! As promised, here is a shot of the existing bench work. Also notice the re-painted woodwork and walls. I used anything and everything, including remnants of an old built-in closet that I tore out of this room to make more space. Underneath the pink foam, you can see the wooden support brackets which are made from some of this recycled lumber.

Note how close the ceiling is to the back of the tabletop. In HO scale, it is actually about the equivalent of a five story building from table top to the edge of the "sky". Thankfully, the pitch of my roof is fairly steep, so it rises quickly as we move out, away from the wall.

This section extends along the length of the west wall. It will likely house a cluster of industries loosely modeled after the Dunlap/Denison area of western Iowa. This basically means a bunch of agri business. Possible prototypes include Dunlap Fertilizer (a rural fertilizer plant), Quality Liquid Feeds (a livestock feed manufacturing plant), Amaizing Energy (an ethanol plant), a few smaller online industries and several casualties of modernization: industries located near the mainline but not actually served by the railroad.

Check back soon and see what grows here!

Plywood and styrofoam and homasote - Oh my!

It's pretty late at night, so this is just a quick post to jot down a thought before I forget. I got to thinking that when I get a little further along, my layout will have a really neat feature: it is essentially three layouts in one: a modular layout with two modules, each 2' x 4'; a shelf layout with shelves along two walls; and a basic oval although not quite 4' x 8' (closer to 4' x 6'). It also will comprise several base materials (pink foam board, homasote, good old plywood, and shelving a.k.a. particle board). It should be fun to document the progress! I've got the pink foam installed already and will get a picture posted soon, as well as that diagram I promised earlier.

Layout Design Challenges

At right you can see a photo of my designated layout room, in an early state of repair. This view is facing north, standing just inside the doorway. It had wood paneling up the walls when I started. When I removed the paneling, it had been attached with adhesive that ripped large pieces of drywall away. This picture was taken after I had patched up the walls with sheet rock compound and prior to repainting the entire room.

I painted the walls light blue and painted the base boards and woodwork in lighter shade of brown than what is shown here. You may not be able to see it in the picture, but the floor is finished with vinyl tile (why did people love vinyl tile so much in the 1960s?). Although I'm no big fan of vinyl tile, especially in an upstairs bedroom, I will leave it installed for now. I'm no interior design specialist, but I think this should work fine for what I'm going to use it for.

So as you can see, my layout won't reside in a basement, as so often is the case. Although utilizing utility spaces like basements for model railroad layouts can be challenging, I think this upstairs spare bedroom will also present a few challenges. For instance, it is fairly constrained due to small dimensions (about 12 feet square), door and window openings, "under the eaves" sloped ceilings that are about four feet high at the wall, lack of any electrical outlets, and the fact that it still needs to do double duty as a guest bedroom. For all of these reasons, the design phase is moving along slowly, in somewhat modular fashion, and I'm going to try to reach a certain degree of finish and operation on each phase before moving on to the next.

If you have ideas on how best to use this particular space, feel free to respond with a comment. I am starting out with the idea of an "out and back" type of operation with a terminal yard on the east wall, a mainline run on the north wall by the windows (facing straight ahead in the photo above), and a set of linear stops with a small loop on the west wall (left in the photo). I will try to get a drawing posted to better convey all of this.

I have started with the west wall and I am trying to get a few basic industries planned out to represent the area between Woodbine, Iowa and Carroll, Iowa along U.S. route 30. This area is popular with rail fans due to the high volume of through freights on the Union Pacific line, as well as the more locally focused Canadian National which switches a ton of industries, although sadly much of this switching happens at night. Proximity to highway 30 makes the whole show very accessible to railfans.

Train plowing snow - video

Here's a video of a snow clearing operation on the railroad, taken by a railfan and you can hear the fan's comments as well as the crew (on scanner). Pretty neat.

Union Pacific 844 Pictures

The UP Steamer #844 traveled thru western Iowa last summer and I discovered these pictures, taken during a service stop in Denison, Iowa while I was cleaning out some old data this week.