Don Ball

What a nice guy!  What a sane person!

It has been a pleasure to see his published ideas grow and develop over the years.  He is a better model builder, better layout designer, researcher, operations planner and engineer than I will ever be, but there is never a hint of ego in his writing.  The proof is on the product!

All this, and he got to marry his high school sweetheart!  There is providence!

S&C

I was fortunate to be able to operate on Don's layout during last weekend's "Prairie Rail" ops event.  What a blast!

Beautiful scenery and smooth running.  I was able to get a local and worked most of the towns along the main line.  Don is a great host and enjoyed it, one of the highlights of the trip.

What a fantastic layout. I

Great layout

Very nicely done. It's great when people do something a little different than the usual steam to diesel transition or modern era. Being a traction modeler myself I can appreciate the joys and challenges of soing something off the beaten track.

One thing I wondered about is what he did for couplers since the modern knuckle coupler wasn't common until somewhat later - I suppose the S&C could have been an early adopter of the then new Janney coupler.

"One thing I wondered about

 IIRC 1895 was when the change over  to knuckle couplers was happening, it was delayed a few years due to the railroads not getting the cars equipped. When I was researching for  a turn of the century layout I recall reading of some link and pin cars and someknuckle coupler cars running in the same time frame.Some knuckle couplers had a notch so link and pin couplers could be connected to them.Some cars also had air lines but no air brakes so the train air could pass thru them to other airbrake equipped cars. Sounded like an interesting and challenging time to be a railroader :> ) .....DaveB

Good article, amazing layout!

All too true. I appreciate any good representation of a specific time in history on a layout as not a lot of people in the hobby are that specific to any given timeframe.

Couplers

He uses a mix of KD 714 and KD 58 variants.  1906 was the cutover date for knuckle couplers and air brakes.

There are many challenges to the era.  One thing that I notices right off the bat is the smaller cars, the area used a lot more of the 28 and 30 ft boxcars, while I, modeling 1903, have more of the "bigger" cars, 34 and 36 foot.

There are also the other things like left opening doors (most PRR cars pre-1910 opened left instead of right) and different grab iron arrangements.  Cars had grabirons on the side or the end, but typically not both.  If there are grab irons on both the ends and sides and they line up with each other, its a good chance the car is post 1905-1910.  They also only put sill steps and side grabs on the right hand corners of the cars.

You don't turn the headlights on during a typical op session, they are kerosene lamps and are only burned at night, a light on during the day is a waste of kerosene.  

Here's a 3 way meet between my local, a grain train and the perishable train.  I'm in the clear about to make a trailing point move, the perishable train has doubled the hill and is in the clear in an industrial track, and the ggrain train is coming through the siding (note the 3 way stub switch under the flat cars.)  the car right behind the engine is a grain car (note the bags of grain on the car).

 ​

Here is my local coming across the big bridge:

Nice layout! Need a full pic

Nice layout! Need a full pic of that big Keystone Ravine bridge...

I'm putting this layout on

I'm putting this layout on the bucket list to see in person if at all possible. My main interest is 1890's railroading and towns. Don's layout is wonderful thanks for featuring it here in MRH for us to see.

Amazing!

This article was very much inspirational. I need to do some more modeling now.

excellent layout, pix, and write-up

I've experienced Don's railroad several times over the past few years.  It's very challenging and includes numerous unique features, as the article and images show.  Nicely done!

trains.18