What's New on the PRR Panhandle 2.0?

[J. S. Bach]

...snip...
[*]My investigation into the PRR signal bridge for the western side of the bridge continues. I got out my MTH one and learned that while it supports 4 signal heads, only 2 may face in any one direction. I can't get what's needed - a 3 and 1 split. : ...snip... George

Get another MTH bridge and make one out of two for a four-track span. I am thinking about that and the project appears to be quite simple.

[G3750]

...snip...
[*]My investigation into the PRR signal bridge for the western side of the bridge continues. I got out my MTH one and learned that while it supports 4 signal heads, only 2 may face in any one direction. I can't get what's needed - a 3 and 1 split. : ...snip... George

Get another MTH bridge and make one out of two for a four-track span. I am thinking about that and the project appears to be quite simple.

Honestly, I am dubious. MTH electronics (of any kind) are a crapshoot at best. I do have 2 bridges, but one of them is reserved for the eastern side of the bridge. I am concerned with cannibalizing both of them and winding up with 2 non-working items.

However it might, might I say, be possible to unscrew the top platform of the bridge from the legs and flip around one of the plugs that hold a signal head. If that can be done without breaking any wires, we might be in business.

Thank you for encouraging me to take a closer look. I'll let you know how it turns out.

George

[G3750]

Updated 8/11/2020:

For the moment, I have paused all scenery work east of the Stone Arch; I expect to resume that next month. Currently, I am working on the area around the Steubenville PRR station.

Activities of note:

• Correct placement of the passenger siding, mainline, and turnouts. I am marking these on the bench work for later permanent installation.
• Correct placement of track feeder wires and signals. Likewise, these are marked for permanent installation later.
• Investigating the number and types of houses that will be needed in the area above the station. These will be HO scale, in order to force the perspective of the viewer. In many cases, I will be looking at cutting some of these structures in half and using both halves. The area will be a mix of houses and vegetation / trees.
• I've also ordered the O72 curved sections I will need for the rest of the layout.

George

[G3750]

Updated 9/3/2020:

No, this forum is not dead. Sorry, I haven't been posting much since school started again. It's been a crazy semester and we're only 3 weeks into it!

Latest and greatest:

• Locations of track around the Steubenville PRR station have been finalized, more or less. I'm still waiting on my order of track from Ross Custom Switches to put these pieces in place.
• I've been working on the conduit hangers that will be installed across the face (and length) of the stone arch. These are very delicate wires bent into the shape of a "U" that will hold a 1/4" conduit (1 s'). The wires are mounted into 1/16 "C" channel and then glued to 1/8" angle, painted, and given Tichy NBWs. There will be 12 of these. What a fiddly effort!
• I acquired more ore cars. I am now up to 28. (Yeah, I am ashamed. Well, a little. ) That's why I need another 3rd Rail Decapod. I've got to move these heavy cars to the steel mill. Doubling heading I1s is the answer!
• Finished up some stuff for Rufus.

George

[G3750]

Updated 9/7/2020:

Worked on the track at the west end of the bridge and got it installed permanently (I hope). There is a very mild curve there that I tried to make using 3 slightly bent pieces of straight track. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do it properly. It didn't look very good, so I took it up and used a small cut section of O-128 between two sections of straight track. I ran the Decapod over it at speed (at least as fast as a Decapod might expect to go) as an experiment. I had to shim sections of adjoining track to get them to the right levels, but it turned out OK. I also ran the Decapod in reverse over the track section as well. I think we are good to go!

Next step is to get the passenger siding down permanently. After that I will move a bit farther west, installing the Wye (Switch #37. Then we will turn our attention to the eastern shore, hanging the conduit, cutting and placing the slight curves there, and installing the track feeders.

George

[rogruth]

George,
I can't cite a source right now ( memory not good on all things ) but I think the I1 was capable of the PRR usual freight speed limit of 50 MPH
but was usually restricted to 30 MPH. I don't think I ever saw them going over 30 and I usually saw them along the Ohio River on a water level route.

[G3750]

George,
I can't cite a source right now ( memory not good on all things ) but I think the I1 was capable of the PRR usual freight speed limit of 50 MPH
but was usually restricted to 30 MPH. I don't think I ever saw them going over 30 and I usually saw them along the Ohio River on a water level route.

Yeah, I think I'm OK with the I1. I figured a 3rd Rail engine would be sensitive to trouble spots. I not really worried about how the Williams locomotives (K4s, L1s) might handle less than superb trackwork, but I wanted to get it right. No point in creating a built-in problem this early on. Maybe I'll get the Lionel M1 out - it's my most finicky runner.

George

[G3750]

Updated 9/9/2020:

Two steps forward, one step back. Last night I came to some conclusions:

• The "Spirit of St. Louis" might need an E or F type diesel (A-A set) to pull it. That would be the correct motive power for the era. My preference is the tuscan PRR color scheme. I am casually searching for a set.
• The engine pocket siding near the Steubenville station is too short to hold the correct A-A set. Honestly, I'd love to use a set of passenger sharks (BP20) from Weaver, but I don't own one and am unlikely to acquire one. And they would take a lot of real estate.
• While actually acquiring a set of E or F units is still up in the air, I am going to plan for the future by reluctantly taking up the length of straight track between Switch #42 and Switch #41. That means lengthening the straight track east of Switch #42. It's a PITA but it needs to be done.

Oh, well.

George

[chuck]

PRR operated FP-7's post 1952. They were 4 feet longer than a standard F unit but considerably shorter than the E's (71'). An AA consist would be 108' vrs 142'. Scale E's will come out to 3'. You MIGHT be able to find some RailKing E's that would total out to about 30". I don't know if they made any in PRR livery. Sharks are about the same length as the FP's.

[G3750]

PRR operated FP-7's post 1952. They were 4 feet longer than a standard F unit but considerably shorter than the E's (71'). An AA consist would be 108' vrs 142'. Scale E's will come out to 3'. You MIGHT be able to find some RailKing E's that would total out to about 30". I don't know if they made any in PRR livery. Sharks are about the same length as the FP's.

Thanks Chuck!

A fellow SPF advised me that the Lionel PRR E7 A-A set would be appropriate, but the price is a bit salty.

There’s no way I can run a Railking locomotive in this situation. DCS has no place on the Panhandle and I won’t operate in conventional mode.

George

[chuck]

There’s no way I can run a Railking locomotive in this situation. DCS has no place on the Panhandle and I won’t operate in conventional mode.

Pity. They are fairly nice selective compression locomotives. They could be converted to TMCC but that's additional time and expense.

Just looking for ways to save you from ripping up track. If you don't mind them being "inaccurate" you can save about 2" using plain F units.

Good luck!!!!!

[G3750]

There’s no way I can run a Railking locomotive in this situation. DCS has no place on the Panhandle and I won’t operate in conventional mode.

Pity. They are fairly nice selective compression locomotives. They could be converted to TMCC but that's additional time and expense.

Just looking for ways to save you from ripping up track. If you don't mind them being "inaccurate" you can save about 2" using plain F units.

Good luck!!!!!

Chuck, I very much appreciate your efforts to help and to keep me from re-doing some track, but it’s far better to do this now. I have determined that moving the station and engine pocket 6-7” west will buy sufficient space.

Thanks,

George

[G3750]

Updated 9/13/2020:

So I'm about to rip up the track I laid last week when a thought occurred to me. Just how big will the Steubenville Station be? Will it fit in the allocated space? What will it look like? So I went to the trouble of playing around with Visio and generating what I thought would be a realistically proportional footprint. The real station was enormous. I don't have plans and dimensions, but it was huge.

I created the footprint and cut it out. It turned out to be 9.5" x 4.5". Uh, really? To represent a station that large?

I don't think so. I re-examined the area and made a few executive decisions.

• Baker's Market, which in the real world was on the west side of 6th Street, is moving to the other side of the street.
• The space it occupied will be used to give the station a larger, more prototypical look.
• All of 6th Street will be moved downward to create more space for the station.
• The station will end up around 30-32" long. Much better!

Mistake avoided!

George

[rogruth]

I don't know the true size but those figures seem reasonable.
Is there any indication of the station on the PRR track plan of the area? Doubtful.

[chuck]

Real trains are real big! Our commuter station back in Pearl River was small but still had a platform that was almost 400' long. When the train stopped to allow passenger on/off the locomotive and 1/2 of the lead car were "parked" in the intersection just beyond the station and the trailing car was 3/4 of the way short of the platform. Mainline stations often had station platforms of a 1/4 mile in length to accommodate 11-13 car passenger trains.

Glad to hear you "prototyped" before building. Kind of the measure twice cut once school of operating. Unless you have a pole barn lying around or an abandoned movie theater to build a layout in you have to compromise. If you have enough of the main elements to bring about recognition you can scale/shift around to get it to work.

Good luck!