Atlantic Spur

Unfortunately, given the location of the junction with the spur on my layout, the bulk of the line would land in the aisle.  Here's a pic of that junction and the portion of the branch I had room for, with the Pellet track on the left:

The above arrangement works well for modeling IAIS operations.  Like the prototype often does, empties ordered by Harlan Elevator at the end of the branch ("Farm Service Co-op" in the above schematic) are just shoved onto the portion of the spur shown above, and outbound loads are retrieved from the same location.

What the above arrangement doesn't buy me is the ability to switch Harlan Elevator itself, seen at  https://www.google.com/maps/place/Atlantic,+IA+50022/@41.439247,-95.0017717,174m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x87ecb376b52964e1:0xc84a283c828e44d8 and in this Andy Brown photo:

They're owned by ADM, and have a neat little GE 45-tonner complete with side rods, ADM 4441 (Andy Brown photo):

It's such a neat little locomotive, and the excellent Bachmann 45-tonner is a great match for it.  I couldn't resist buying one to model this unit, and my friend Keith Jordan took pity on me and installed a Tsunami (see  [topic:id=16509] ).  It quickly became about my favorite locomotive on the layout to operate.  However, the short stretch of track shown in the layout photo above just wasn't enough room to stretch its legs.  

I've searched for some time for a way to extend the portion of the Atlantic Spur I modeled and allow more room to see that little 45-tonner's side rods at work, but could never find a good way to do so.  Yesterday, though, I had the pleasure of hosting David Lehlbach of Tangent Scale Models for a very enjoyable layout visit, and he came up with the idea of modeling Harlan Elevator as a separate stand-alone module for my own use between operating sessions, simply moving cars between the layout and module by hand.  Great idea!

While I probably have too many layout projects at the moment to tackle something like this right now, I definitely plan to do so down the road.  Until then, though, it occurred to me that some of you might want to consider the Atlantic Spur as a stand-alone layout.  In addition to ADM 4441, you could also have IAIS power either shoving or pulling cars from staging up to the elevator and pulling loads back to staging, as well as working Pellet Petroleum (covered hoppers and tank cars of fertilizer) and Moorman Feeds (box cars of bagged feed).  The latter doesn't currently get rail service, but did in earlier IAIS times, I believe until the late 1990s.

Harlan Elevator mostly ships covered hoppers obviously, but also gets tank cars of fertilizer at times.  The grain empties are shoved up toward end-of-track on the branch, and are then pulled out in small cuts by the 4441. As each cut is loaded, they’re shoved into the two stub-ended tracks as well as out onto the IAIS spur trackage leading up to ADM. Lots of work to keep those side rods flying!

Atlantic spur.

"I've always wanted to model more of Iowa Interstate's approx. 2 mile long Atlantic Spur, the IAIS schematic of which is shown below:"

  Hi Joe, looks like that spur could make a neat stand alone small layout with the staging representing the mainline and beyond? .......DaveB

Staging

Exactly!  That's the staging I had in mind, but I wasn't very clear.

Or, if you had less space and weren't interested in the IAIS portion of the operations, simply modeling a stretch of the branch before it reaches the elevator would allow inbound empties to be staged there as though the IAIS had delivered them between sessions.

Come to think of it, I believe the IAIS may have loaned ADM one of their units in the past when the 45-tonner was down for maintenance.

Joe you said the bulk of the

Joe you said the bulk of the pellet line would land in the aisle. I may be well off the mark here, but would a hinged extension be of any use? Do you have room for that sort of thing?

Loving the photos.

Stand alone

Atlantic Spur

Hi Mike - Unfortunately, extending the Atlantic Spur from its current arrangement would require blocking the main aisle of the layout during op sessions.  No worries though!  As things stand now, I'm able to represent the IAIS portion of operations, and I'm good with that.  Car capacity of the Atlantic Spur is smaller than I'd like, but that just means I have the local that works the elevator re-spot them during op sessions.

Exactly right Paul - just a simple double-ended siding.  I don't know why they call it the Circle Track, because it doesn't look that circular (see the Google Earth image linked above).

My mistake!  The branch is actually about two miles long, but after reading your reply, I realized how my original phrasing of "approx. 2 miles" might have been misinterpreted.  I've corrected that now.  But two miles is still pretty short! 

Thanks for the clarification, Joe

Small layout

Thanks Paul.  Another neat aspect was that the Atlantic Spur would support 5-6 distinct varieties of cars, which I thought was pretty good for only three industries in such a small space.

• GATX and SHPX tank cars of fertilizer for Pellet
• ICG, AEX, and INTX covered hoppers of fertilizer for Pellet
• BN box cars of bagged feed for Moorman
• IAIS and ADM covered hoppers for grain loading at Harlan Elevator (or in earlier times, IAIS, IATR, and NOKL)
• CSXT/NYC covered hoppers of fertilizer for Harlan Elevator.
• I'm pretty sure Harlan has also received tank cars of fertilizer, but I can't locate the data on that at the moment.

Me Too

Joe, I was faced with the exact same thing when I was designing my layout. There was a 2 mile branch line that serviced multiple industries. I wanted to model it but if I did I would have narrow aisles that would be uncomfortable and hard to navigate. or I could widen it, but I may not have the room. So in the end I decided not to do it.

You do great work. Im sure no matter what you decide to do it would look good.

Atlantic Spur response

Hey Joe,

With respect to your desire to have a longer branch, you might consider flattening the backdrop that hides the support post/waterpipe, straightening the main line to be against the wall, and adding another four plus feet of the spur and the desired industry at the layout front just west of Walnut Creek.

Philip Stead

trainman07@aol.com

Options

It's nice to be in good company.  I've got such a long to-do list on the layout as it stands that any addition of Harlan Elevator would be years down the road, so for now, I'm sticking with the status quo as well.  A man's gotta know his limitations.

Thanks for the suggestion Philip.  That was one scenario I mulled over, but it would do away with all rural running between Atlantic and Hillis, likely making that whole side of the layout and on west to Hancock Jct. look like one large industrial switching area.

If I move ahead with Harlan in the future, I'm actually considering the thought of putting my existing Atlantic Spur trackage on an elevator that'd drop down to the Harlan Elevator scene on the lower level.  (An elevator elevator?  Hmmm...)  It'll probably never happen, but it's something I'm mulling over, and I think it's the cleanest option for incorporating the elevator scene itself without trying to shoehorn it in in some unnatural way.

IAIS power

Typical power

The local job that works the Atlantic spur is called the Atlantic Rover.  Most common power is 1-2 GP38-2s, but it's not at all unusual to see an SD38-2 or ES44AC in the mix, solo or mixed with a Geep.

Thanks Joe

SD38-2s

Me too!  As you can see at  http://www.iaisrailfans.org/gallery/LLPX-SD38-2s , they're favorites of mine.  IAIS only had four during my era, all still in LLPX blue, but is now up to 8, IAIS 150-157, all now repainted in standard IAIS colors.  Prototype pics can be seen at http://www.iaisrailfans.org/info/Locomotives .  Personally, I like the variety that the blue adds, and it reminds me a bit of Rock Island "bankruptcy blue".

"Most common power is 1-2 GP38-2s,"

I could always tell when the SP local was running GP38-2's as they sounded  louder going by about 1/2 mile from my house. Don't know if it was a unique SP exhaust system or if all of them sounded that way?....DaveB

GP38-2s

Did the SP units have a liberated (4-stack) exhaust?  I was thinking they only had the standard two, so I would guess they'd all sound that loud.  I saw a video recently with a GP38-2 trailing a pair of SD40-2s, and it was amazing how the little Geep seemed to drown out the bigger power.

One thing I really enjoy about the era I model is that I get to hear the GP38s, GP38-2s, and SD38-2s intermixed with earlier 567-powered Geeps and Geep rebuilds.  It's always a treat to hear the two types fall in and out of unison as the 567s go through transition.

The sounds of an older era

I like to mix that with U boats and Alco Centuries.

Did the SP units have a liberated (4-stack) exhaust?

Hi Joe, No, they had the regular two pipes. Maybe the lack of turbo makes them sound different, more deep and luggy?  Anyway it was a great sound to hear on a summer evening working the cement train off the branch back home, up and down the inclines of the watersheds  then rumbling across the trestle down steam from my place....DaveB

lack of Turbo Whine = more bottom end...

Dear Dave,

The lack of high frequency Turbo whine will avoid biasing your ears towards the upper frequencies, 
leaving them un-encumbered to appreciate and percieve the lower-frequency burble...

(I can and have had someone being pummelled with 100Hz from a subwoofer,
but complain that all they can hear is the high-pitched whistle,
because both signals being of equal dB SPL amplitude at the ears,
the human ear is more sensitive to, and thus "locks onto", the higher-frequency sound...)

Happy Modellling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Recovered from spam

Just recovered this from the depths of Spam-dom.  Thanks to James McNab for the heads up.

IAIS RR in Blue Island IL

There are three known to me beautiful state of the art layouts depicting the Iowa Interstate. The three from west to east descend in both room size and length of mainline. Extrapolating based on the available information and the fact that the cities/areas modeled are roughly equidistant, it seems that the next layout might logically be based on Blue Island in a 7 X 10 space with a 19 foot mainline. Would any of you more familiar with the railroad care to suggest what might be done to depict the Blue Island end of the railroad ?

Philip Stead

trainman07@aol.com

Not Blue Island, but...

I don't have enough experience with Blue Island to make suggestions on modeling it, but given the large yards there, portraying it in the space you mentioned seems like a very tall order.  Personally, if I was to model another portion of the IAIS, it'd likely be either the pocket-size Iowa City yard before the South Amana facility opened, or else Bureau IL and some portion of the line to Peoria.

A friend of mine, Chris Roberts, is planning a bedroom-sized layout based on the Atlantic Spur.  I don't think he's on MRH yet, but hopefully he'll join soon and share his progress.

hmmmmm.....yes, but I've got pics of power in BI

including orange and white rebuilds at the lumber yard where they used to park......

sound interesting????