The Upper Level: The Plan for Plummer

In the most recent blog, I outlined the plan to build Spokane's MILW yard in my basement, along a 26 foot wall.  The yard will be a significant part of the lower level and a key operational focus area for the layout.  The lower level will also include several industry spurs around the yard, as well as the junction point of Dishman where both routes will enter the helix to go to different places.  The helix and the lower level concept will be covered in more detail in a future installment. 

That leaves this question open: what will be on the upper level?

A Key Location on the MILW Transcon
The upper level will be focused on one key scene: Plummer ID.  Located on the famed MILW Pacific Extension, Plummer was one of a few operational points on the long mainline to the West coast.  Plummer is the junction point between the mainline and a "branch" to Spokane.  Operationally, it was the place where road trains setout and picked up cars bound for Spokane industries, the branches radiating from Spokane, and interchange cars.  Plummer was also site for a small group of sorting tracks, and also home to a few industries on both MILW and UP.  Recall that UP ran a daily local from Spokane to Kellogg ID, passing through Plummer.  You can learn more about how Plummer fits into the other towns by clicking here.  Most interestingly, Plummer is located on a wye between the branch to Spokane and the transcontinental mainline, while at the same time is the location where the UP branchline to Wallace splits away.  This makes Plummer a confluence of four different physical lines (in 1973), plus it is home to a yard, passing siding, and several industries.  Plummer was also an active train order station for the MILW, so it was home to an agent-operator 24-7.

What I find most fascinating about Plummer is how MILW handled car movements to Spokane.  The cars that the road trains setout had to somehow get to Spokane.  The mechanism to move these cars to Spokane was a daily local train, number 63/64, nicknamed the "Plummer Turn."  Although this train was in the timetable, on most days it appears that this train ran extra from Spokane to Plummer and return, typically at night.   A few more details, and an image of the turn on the road between Plummer and Spokane can be seen by clicking here.  The Plummer Turn arrived at Plummer with cars destined to the mainline.  These cars were blocked before the train departure from Spokane, and the local had to setout the blocks at predetermined places in Plummer, which in classic MILW fashion meant "anyplace where they fit."  Then, the local picked up all of the mainline train setouts so the cars could be brought to Spokane in a mine-run style where they were later switched. 

At the same time, the MILW turn local also had a few industries to work in town.  Moves had to be planned out due to limited real estate.  Due to the somewhat complex track arrangement at the location of the wye, turning the train around and performing the air test, all the while potentially needing to keep the mainline track clear, meant that the layout potential "play value" for the local at Plummer is fairly high.

As if that is not enough, the large UP local train from Spokane to Kellogg ID ran through Plummer before re-entering UP Wallace Branch rails there (simulated by staging parallel to the MILW East staging in my plan).  The UP local train also served an active lumber mill customer and a fuel distributor in Plummer proper along its former line toward Tekoa.  This line was abandoned in 1957 and the rail was torn up to the West of the aforementioned lumber mill.  So, for operational interest, the UP train also occupied MILW's rail real estate in the vicinity of the Plummer wye when it was in town.  Interestingly, the MILW had a telephone pole shipper located right on the UP line - not on a spur - which meant that if the MILW had a car spotted there, UP needed to move the car to access the lumber mill and/or the fuel distributor.

To familiarize yourself with the region, here are the relevant lines for the layout:

Click to enlarge

Here is an aerial view of the Plummer wye area from 1967, available from Ted Schnepf of Rails Unlimited - click here for a link to his store full of MILW images, and books and models from various roads.  I have added notes to this image to identify ownership.
 

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Here is an aerial view of the Plummer yard area from 1967, available from Ted Schnepf of Rails Unlimited - click here for a link to his store full of MILW images, and books and models from various roads.  I have added notes to this image to identify ownership.  Note the UP trackage at right. 

Click to enlarge

A Peek at Plummer Operations
The wye at Plummer is one of the most iconic locations on the entire Pacific extension.  While it was in "the gap" between the two electrified districts of the west, it was a place where most trains stopped to work, which meant that many railfans stopped there as well to shoot the trains.  One of the coolest photographic stories told at Plummer is available in Fred Hyde's "The Milwaukee Road," published by Hyrail Productions (Dale Sanders of CTCBoard fame) in 1990.  On pages 140-141, photographer Ed Austin recorded a 3 train meet at Plummer in 1973.  The sequence went like this:
1.  Transcontinental train #266 arrives in Plummer
2.  Train #266 sets out and picks up cars to/from Spokane in the siding
3.  At some point during this operation, the Plummer turn arrives from Spokane and waits on the wye
4.  Train #266 departs Plummer (and the Plummer turn provides a roll-by)

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 5.  As train #266's caboose departs, the UP Kellogg-Spokane local returning to Spokane arrives on the UP Wallace branch, and holds clear of the crossover (the MILW train is occupying the route to Spokane so it could not physically proceed)

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6.  The Plummer Turn pulls onto the MILW mainline (slowly following train 266's caboose)
7.  The Plummer Turn backs into the siding to setout cars from Spokane, and pickup cars to Spokane
8.  The UP Kellogg-Spokane Local leaves its train on the wye and with the road power goes around the other leg of the wye to retrieve local cars at one of the industries.  At this point all three legs of the wye are being utilized!

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9.  The UP Kellogg-Spokane Local finishes its work in Plummer, does an air test, and leaves
10.  The MILW job finishes its block swapping and any switching, and leaves town.  Most UP-MILW interchange occurred in Spokane.

Thanks to this sort of interesting operations that can consume 2-3 operators on a proposed layout, Plummer seems to me to be a natural place to model even as a standalone layout design element.  It has many sweeping curves which make it fit well into a basement of any size, including mine.  Because of its popularity with MILW fans, it might offer more of a modeling challenge if it does not lay out in a physically accurate way, but after months of design this plan does it justice.

Plummer's operation is very believable; MILW operated it almost like a freelance or proto-freelance model railroad would operate it.  After all, most railroads, even in the 1970s and prior, would have engineered a train(s) to run directly to and from Spokane yard from another yard at a nearby crew change point, such as Avery and/or Othello.  Instead, MILW road crews left cars in the small yard at Plummer, as well as right in the passing siding.  This of course has its pluses and minuses for the layout plan.  On the minus side, transcontinental trains do not meet here.  This could be interesting operationally, but two trains meeting on a train order railroad that hosts approximately eight total through trains per day is not nearly as interesting to me as road trains working, a local switching cars and making car connections to another yard, and maximizing the play value of the cars.  After all, cars and their movement between trains holds a strong interest for me thanks to my backgound at a Class 1 trying to remove such "inefficiencies."  

The fact that MILW used the siding for car storage has been deemed operationally interesting to me, but these operations are compounded by another physical reality: the MILW mainline and siding are on a 1.0% continuous grade through Plummer!  This must have meant that alot of handbrakes were set on cars and switching was a bit tricky, especially with slow loading GE U25/28Bs that were common on road trains in the gap in 1973, as well as on the Plummer Turn.  I need to confirm my hunch with Randy and anyone else who operated it.  Guys?

Translating the Prototype to My Basement
After several months of iterations, the design for Plummer now lays out pretty nicely on the upper level of my basement space.  To get to Plummer from the lower level, trains will arrive via the helix which originates at Dishman.  As you come out of the helix, you enter the visible part of the railroad: the Plummer wye area, with the depot in the middle.  From there, the route from Dishman sweeps around the large curve at Plummer, just like the prototype.  It will wrap around the outside of the helix, which makes great use of the helix space (and coincidentally a similar subject was discussed in the 2013 issue of Model Railroad Planning after Matt Sugerman and I hashed out this concept).  The crossover is in place to the MILW mainline headed East.  The other track is the UP branch to Kellogg, just like in the prototype.  These two tracks go to staging right away at roughly 56 inches.

Going around the other leg of the wye, the MILW Plummer siding track starts, and there is a connection from the MILW wye tracks to the UP industry lead as mentioned above.  The entire wye lays out just like the prototype, as you can see.

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From there, the siding and mainline wrap to the North wall in a directionally-correct curve.  Then, situated above the Spokane yard (on the lower level) will be the yard and industry tracks of Plummer.  My plan is to construct a hollow wall behind the Plummer upper level yard and industry tracks since that scene does not need to be more than 22 or so inches deep, and frankly with the layout height it will not be reachable if it is that deep.  But in order to make standing at the fascia practical, I have to bring it out from the wall since the Spokane yard below is at 30 inches wide.  This footprint means that the upper level benchwork needs to be that wide as well.

After all of the Plummer industry tracks, heading railroad west, the MILW mainline will disappear naturally behind the highway 95 overpass.  The Sorrento tunnel is on the other side of that overpass in real life and would make a great ending point for the scenery of the upper level and the transition to staging, but in order to make the model curve broader and the Plummer yard longer, I am foregoing that detail.  This was a compromise I felt worth making.

The entire upper level of Plummer will be built on a constant 1% grade as it wraps around the room in a counter-clockwise fashion.  This allows the layout to emulate the ruling grade of the prototype.  It also allows me to stack the mainline staging which is important because I want the train lengths to be up to 24 feet or so.  With open autoracks, Vert-a-pacs, and trailer flats as key players in my through road train consists (as well as play value when they transfer to the Plummer Turn for their ride to Spokane), operating behind 3-4 unit sets of power as large as SD40-2s, I want my mainline train sizes to better resemble the ~4500 foot MILW mainline trains from that era.  If I tried to make the upper level a continuous loop, the mainline train size would need to drop to ~16 feet in order to fit into a double-ended staging yard, or I would have to reduce the amount of visible layout because the mainline loop size would be constrained by the basement dimensions.  To me, the win-win combination of train length and following the prototype grade was an easy decision versus the convenience of a continuous-run upper level.

I struggled with what part of this layout to build first, but I have been cautioned by many accomplished layout pros to construct the helix first so I can build it somewhat freely and not be forced into having the track enter and exit the various previously-built levels at a precise height.  So I have heeded that advice and have started at the "lowest" point of the layout plan, which is the lowest level staging yard (representing the Metaline Falls and Couer D'Alene branches - more on that in another post).  I have also completed the transition to the helix, and am now building the helix.  As of Thanksgiving my son and I are running our Walthers Amtrak F40PH-led test train up almost one full turn now, and his (and my) excitement is building as the track is glued down at each quarter turn.

Pictures to come soon. 

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!

Multiple Threads

After work, family, and other life obligations, finding time for model railroad building - and the research required to model things accurately - is really tough.  Luckily, I have carved time for a little of each, and quite a few people have asked what I've been up to.  I appreciate the interest in MILW and related operations in this little part of the vast Pacific Extension, and/or in any layout work that ensues from the research efforts.

This brings me to a short update on the status of three primary "threads":

Thread 1: Research.  Research has continued on many aspects of the MILW (and UP and BN) operations in Eastern Washington and the Panhandle of ID, specifically as it all relates to the MILW in and around Plummer, Spokane, and the lines radiating from Spokane.  First, I have taken a significant detour into Huetter / Post Falls / Couer D'Alene operations.  I have learned alot from a few people who are smart about the area, including Jim Davis and Bruce Kelly.  I have not been able to fully understand how switching was handled in Couer D'Alene during daylight hours, especially since it was served by 3 rail carriers at approximately the same time.  While this will undoubtedly make a cool model rail subject, I am still left with quite a few questions, notably what track was in service in 1973 or so and which railroads physically switched which industries.  Based on documents, it is clear that reciprocal switching rules were in effect, but that does not answer the more layout-oriented question of who did what.

I also researched the principle shipping points on the MILW branch to Metaline Falls.  This was mostly accomplished by using aerial photos procured through the State of Washington.  These photos have been really helpful since you can see which industries were in service at the time the photo was snapped, how many and what type of cars were spotted, and which buildings were standing.  This is especially useful on a more than 100 mile branchline headed into a part of WA that was very infrequently photographed - especially the rail operations there!

I also have researched the industries in and around the MILW yard in Spokane as best I can, and have come up with some great new material that will be covered in a future posting since it deserves more attention and photos.  Understanding these are important for layout planning since these are the sources for cars on the layout, as well as a potential "job" during an operating session if some of the layout is devoted to it.

Finally, after many long bouts of searching, I finally found someone who worked for MILW in Spokane!  Thanks to Facebook and Rob Leachman, I have been introduced to two brothers who used to work for the MILW, not out of Spokane but out of Malden.  Brothers Randall and Dan Felton worked the extra board at Malden and therefore worked a variety of jobs, making them knowledgeable on the big picture of eastern Washington operations in the gap.  Thanks guys, and Rob, for your help!

Thread 2: Layout design.  After spending a few intense weeks working on layout design, I have a plan that has fleshed out my current interests, while also fitting quite efficiently into the basement with curves going the right way, yard ladders actually fitting in the space, decent aisle space where it is most needed, and no obstructions like duckunders.  The geography is focused on the mainline connection at Plummer, MILW yard in Spokane, and industries near the yard.  By including these geographic landmarks, I get slivers of 4 rail operations I really like: "road trains," blocking and block swaps, yard switching, industry switching, and interchange operations between rail carriers - all without deviating from the prototype, without creating extra or fictional operations, or requiring a gigantic basement.  The plan and further descriptions will be included in a future post since it is still being adjusted and tweaked, but for now the layout design works very nicely for my 14x26 basement with Plummer Jct and Plummer on a mainline loop on the upper level, and a lower level composed of Dishman, Spokane yard, and Spokane industries on the Northeast and West sides of the MILW yard.  Of course, both levels will be connected with the obligatory layout design vehicle - the helix.

During the past few months I have doodled other combinations of real estate.  I had considered flipping Plummer and Spokane so Spokane yard was on the upper level.  That was decided against since the mainline "loop" in an around the walls fashion on a lower level required a duckunder or "bridge." Also, I believe yard operations conducted on a lower level using chairs on rollers makes more sense than a layout at 41 inches, meaning Spokane can successfully reside on the lower level.  I also considered Spokane yard on one level, with Metaline Falls and Usk, plus Couer D'Alene as vignettes on the opposite level, but decided against it for more play value in terms of "jobs" with the Spokane/Plummer concept.  Additionally the current concept better meets another one of my wants which is equipment variety, and having a place for that equipment to go. 

More on this soon.

Thread 3.  Layout room prep.  Even without having a firm plan for the layout, I have been trying hard to prepare for building.  I sold off a handful of models online and to friends to generate cash for lumber.  I have moved the hot water heater to a place that makes more sense for the house and a layout, while also moving water lines away from the layout space and to create shorter runs and faster hot water in the house.  Excess wire and old(!) gas lines were removed from the ceiling that were installed when my home was constructed.

Most importantly, I have studs up on 3 walls and am ready for benchwork on those walls!