Spokane Yard - And the Value of Aerial Photos for Layout Planning

One of the major focus areas of my Plummer-Spokane layout concept is the MILW yard in Spokane.  Named Fancher Yard, it resides on the East side of Spokane WA.  The modeled yard will likely reside on the lower level of the layout and will become a major focal point for layout operations.  Here a series of MILW jobs will originate and terminate.  It is where trains will be broken down and put together.

In order to first learn about the physical layout of the yard, I noted a 1967 aerial photo shot from an airplane at an oblique angle published in the Milwaukee Railroader in 2003.  This photo did not show the entire yard but was my first look at how it looked at a date close to the 1970s.  I then learned more by looking at the yard in Google Earth.  Google Earth images are usually snapped fairly recently (ie current), but they offer a historical mode by making a selection in the lower left corner.  At present, Google offers a photo of the former MILW yard taken in the 1990s.  At that time, the Milwaukee Road was long gone and the yard had been modified by Union Pacific, who now uses the yard as the primary manifest switching yard in Spokane.  Contrarily, in 1973 UP operated a larger yard that was located just 30 feet South of the MILW yard.

I learned about the MILW yard from three primary sources:
1. Aerial Photos.  Last year, I purchased a series of aerial photos showing various towns in Washington State, focused on the branch to Metaline Falls.  I also bought a few showing Fancher Yard and the industries that surround it.  From these photos, I have learned a great deal about a little-known part of the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension - especially how tracks were laid out and what tracks were in service at the time the photo was snapped.  They are also useful for seeing what types of cars were spotted at industries, and what railroad-related structures were in place for a designated modeling period.

These aerial photos were purchased from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).  Many states offer these sorts of photos for sale if you dig for them - Google or Bing is your friend so try a search today.  The State of Washington's photos are typical of what I have purchased from other states: high resolution digital scans of old large format images photographed from airplanes flying at approximately 10,000 feet, and shooting straight down.  Usually, the states offer multiple years of images to choose from depending on how frequently they flew photography routes.  I have found that larger cities were surveyed more often than rural areas.  I have also found that photo fidelity - which really means sharpness - usually increases with the age of photos, due to the equipment and film originally used.  Here is a cropped shot of the MILW yard in Spokane from 1972.  Note how empty the yard is of cars.

2.  Photos taken from the yard.  I have uncovered some photos from the yard taken by several different photographers.  Dan Holbrook's yard photo showing 3 SW1200s outside the engine house was in an earlier post.  Friend Brian Rutherford visited Spokane Yard in 1975 as a teen and he, his father, and his brother snapped a half a film roll of equipment in the yard - mostly cars and locomotives - and a few "scenes" including the MILW freight house.  Here is a shot of Brian checking out SW1200 627 while it is switching at the Western end of the yard. 

In the background is the indoor arena structure located by the baseball stadium, both of which are still standing (and judging by Google earth imagery, quite prosperous).  If the photographer turned around 180 degrees and pressed the shutter, he would have photographed freight cars lined up at the carshop at the Union Pacific yard located immediately South of the MILW yard.

I also suggest Jerry Quinn's photo CDs for low resolution scans from his camera and others from the region - his website is http://www.signalsigns.com/ and you can buy CDs organized by railroad and/or geography.

3.  First hand accounts.  I have queried many MILW railfans, Spokane railfans, and former employees to learn how MILW operated Spokane, when and what work each job performed, about customers and industries, and about transfer operations.  Randall Felton, who worked the extra board at Malden and was mentioned in my last post, worked in the yard and has provided answers to many of my questions regarding on duty times and job details related to day to day operations.  Jay Lentzner also provided many details about the establishment of the auto unloading ramp and adjacent parking lot, as well as some good information about who switched which mill at Couer D'Alene.  Additionally, Rob Leachman continues to be a great resource for my continuing questions about MILW and UP operations, as well as sounding board for my findings.

After consulting additional sources, I have been able to understand the function of the ancillary yard tracks, and have enlarged and labeled the aerial photos to better explain what was what in the yard.  The images are shown here:

If anyone has any comments or corrections about the above I'd love to hear them. I am especially interested in knowing whether the tracks labeled "B&B" that have boxcars spotted to them are really company materials tracks.

For purposes of layout design, this yard is fairly straightforward.  It is small and relatively modelable.  Since every photo I have seen of this yard shows the long yard tracks at 20% full at most, my thinking is to reduce the number of yard tracks by 2, main tracks by 1, and RIP tracks by 1 for a total of 4.  Operationally, removing one yard sorting track will work fine since the yard is almost always very empty.  In terms of blocking, there were 6 primary blocks made, but the long tracks allow multiple blocks to be made within a track.  The other removed yard track is for auto unloading, but there are two prototypical tracks for that so I compressed to one since I don't lose anything operationally from that decision.  Finally, I removed one of the 3 total mainline "arrival/departure" tracks since two seem sufficient for such a small facility and for the irregular arrivals of the "longer" inbound local trains.  By selectively compressing 4 tracks out of 16, the yard can easily be placed in the basement up against a wall and allow reach in for the average operator's arm without it being uncomfortable.  The current design has the yard approximately 3 feet wide at the widest point.  If I were to model it track for track, the width would get worse, plus, the yard ladder simply would not fit without having to pinwheel the yard lead switches.  

Of course, placing this yard on the longest wall of the basement without a curve in the middle is best for authenticity, and since I have 26 feet of uninterrupted long wall space in my basement, this yard can be placed nicely on that wall.  With this choice, the yard becomes the primary design element for the layout on that given level.  The tricky part is whether to orient it with the engine terminal located on the aisle in the front, or on the wall in the back.  What I learned after several design iterations was that the yard itself works reasonably well either way.  The troubling part is how the industries around the yard lay out and how to make them work, especially the Lake Street spur.   To get the switches designed facing the right directions, Lake Street spur works best as a peninsula in the middle of the room.  Lake Street spur is a industry spur that is located off of the main track and will be better explained in a future update.

At this point, I believe that the yard works best with the engine terminal on the aisle side.  The yard lead will be up against the wall in a corner but I can easily cutaway the fascia here - as shown below - to make reach of these tracks very easy.  With the engine terminal in the aisle, this means North is at the aisle.  Conversely, UP trains will be visibly staged against the wall to the "South" of the MILW yard, and will be oriented like the prototype.  Here, UP trains will be lined up for operating sessions since they are part of the operation, especially the UP Kellogg Local which will switch Plummer, and the UP to MILW transfer, which will deliver autoracks and other interchange traffic to the MILW yard.  I have been told by Jay that MILW probably delivered to the UP, while Randall told me he saw UP delivering autoracks to the MILW.  So the precedent is for delivering cars in both directions.

Here is a brief snapshot of the yard fitted to my space - along the long west wall.  It retains the feel of the prototype well, with only a few tracks removed for compression reasons.

- Click to enlarge -

I have oriented the yard above properly above so that East is right and West is left.  I know that MILW switched the yard from the East side, which is the right hand corner of the plan above and where the cutaway is located for easy aisle access.  The yard lead is on a 30" radius curve and a 90 degree turn, necessary to fit the layout space.  The long car storage track is located in the foreground and is not parallel to the yard lead since the real one is not, but it is angled so that reaching yard tracks to uncouple cars will not be problematic.  The gaps in the yard tracks to the center-left are for the car RIP tracks, and there is a 1 track auto unloading track which you can compare to the prototype aerial images above.  Finally, at the railroad west side of the yard - or left side of the design above - is a pinwheel of the first two lead tracks.  While I did not want to pinwheel any tracks, doing so on this side of the yard is necessary since otherwise the ladder will make the two engine terminal tracks - which are the shortest tracks by the aisle - overly small.  They already are a bit small in length but it is a compromise to maintain the feel and integrity of the real yard.  As always with any layout plan, an extra foot or two of space would be better!

Anyway, that is an overview of the yard as it relates to configuring it for the layout.  More to come in future installments!