Never being one to take the easy route I've decided to model an American railway. My initial thoughts were of the Fifties. This is a classic time in American railways as the last of the steam locos gave way to early diesels. I researched American railway companies but kept coming back to the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad in Maine. This was a 33 mile long railway with a rather chequered history (that can be found here http://cprr.org/Museum/BMLRR/index.html ) before expiring in 2007.
Belfast is today a rather twee tourist town with holiday homes, delis and craft beer. Back in the Twenties and Thirties it was a rather more gritty little town with a variety of small industries on the waterfront.
Belfast Maine in October 1923
Map of Belfast in 1875
Belfast Yard c1900
Now I rather like the image above of Belfast in 1900 - having the beginning of the line running along an embankment with water either side seems pretty cool (later on the tidal pool was filled in and built on which was rather less interesting). Originally, when the line was built in 1875 this wasn't an embankment but a trestle bridge. In the late 1880's the embankment was installed for all but a small section to allow the tidal water to flow in and out (hard to see in the above shot but the remaining trestle was down at the far end just before the line regained dry land) and by the 1970's was filled in entirely. The yard sits on a flat flood plain with hills rising behind.
I currently live in a small London flat that precludes the large basement "empires" you see in American model railway magazines so anything I build will need to be small with a capital "S". It seems to me that the B&ML RR would be pretty much ideal for a small modular layout.
Now my initial thoughts were of a layout set in the 1950's. By this time there were no steam engines on the B&ML RR - they ran some GE 70 tonners from late 1946 until the line finally closed in 2005. Of course, by the 1950s the tidal inlet had gone, the steam engines had gone and Belfast seemed a rather less exciting place to model.
So I started thinking about earlier in its history. I could run it as a Maine Central operation (Maine Central Railroad leased the track and facilities from the B&ML RR from it's construction in 1871 through until 1926) which would be fine, or I could run it once Belfast had taken back control. For those of you wondering the B&ML was the only municipally owned railway in the US - Belfast City owned just short of 80% of the shares.
In 1926, when Maine Central resigned their lease, Belfast was left with 33 miles of track and the buildings. Maine Central had run their own engines and rolling stock on the track. The B&ML RR was a railway with no trains. In the short term they leased some stock from Maine Central and then over the next few months acquired a hodge podge of second and third hand equipment on the cheap from a variety of sources to fill out their needs.
This I thought could be rather fun - much of the stuff they bought dated back to the late 19th Century and was out of date by the time they got it in the late Twenties. Hence the nickname "Broken & Mended" for the line.
So, I'm thinking of building the line as it was in the late Twenties / early Thirties - except I prefer the Belfast of 1875 - 1900. So not a strict prototype - lets say an "homage". General track plan, general style of buildings where possible, same style of engines and rolling stock where the exact match can't be found.
And without further ado - here is the first draft of my track plan:
This represents an area of 2 feet by 12 feet - separated into three equal chunks of 2x4 feet. The middle section is where most of the track is - unfortunately you can't stuff an accurate track plan for Belfast yard into 2 feet by 4 feet (I forgot to mention this is HO - obviously it would be a doddle with N scale!). So you have to compress it a bit and leave bits out. The buildings are "placeholders" until I figure out what kits are good matches or can be scratchbuilt. My plan is to build the middle chunk, then add the right hand module (not much track but plenty of buildings as this where most of the industries will be). The left hand four feet will be last (I think for operations early in the day I'll add a simple extension of two or three feet of bare track rather than a full blown extension).
So, on the upper left you have the track entering the yard, the line that runs straight on serves the various industries lining wharves of Belfast and the points leading to the right run into the Yard itself. The upper branch serves the railways freight office and warehouse, the lower line services the passengers. The 90 foot turntable has two branches that lead to a twin track engine shed, the track leading to the turntable has water and sand facilities (and I guess ash pit as there is nowhere else for it to go).
My thoughts about this plan are the passenger line needs to be extended - they only ran 60 foot carriages but even so that seems short. And the line serving the wharves may be a bit boring to operate - although plenty of potential for cars to get in one anothers way as the engine crew struggles to get to the industry at the far end of the line. But having said that I think my interest lies towards building structures. To which end I'm wondering if I shouldn't give myself another six inches (oo'er missus) and make each module 30 inches wide rather than 24 so I can fit a bit more in..
By the way - apologies to any Scots looking at this - they will be well aware that a "moose" in the context of the blog title is a mouse rather than a moose (with antlers) - for those confused Americans looking at this please check the link: Hoots Mon or for those of you in the UK: Maynards Wine Gums
