Laying out Roswell

 

Modeling the AT&SF - D&RGW Joint Line through Colorado Springs from Milepost 70 to Milepost 80 circa 1978-1979

- ~ -

Post 19: Progress Update Part 2, Laying out Roswell

 - ~ -

 

BN Bicentennial SD40-2 1876 leads a Colorado & Southern freight south through Roswell in 1976. Note the slight 

difference in elevation among the tracks here. The train is on the D&RGW mainline "high iron", while the Rock Island 

side tracks within the wye are down in the weeds with far less ballast. These subtle height differences can be modeled 

by either cookie-cutting the layout deck or using different thicknesses of cork or homasote roadbed.

( Robert Harmen photo. Click on images to enlarge, open in a new window to zoom in)

With the benchwork installed between Russina and Colorado Springs Yard I could do a full size mock up of the last major location depicted on the layout that I have yet to deal with in detail. But first we have to get to Roswell. 

It's just over a mile and a half from the south switch in Russina to the north wye connection in Roswell, but only about 54 inches on the layout. That's short, as in "engine in one town, caboose still in the last town" short, but these are not towns, or even stations, just named locations on the railroad. The short distance doesn't matter much for through trains since you're attention is most likely on the head end power and the signals, and the switch jobs that work these "tracks between stations" are very short—an engine, 3-4 cars, and a caboose, so there really won't be any overlap to worry about. 

 (Frank Keller photo)

 

With Cheyenne Mountain dominating the view, heading south out of Russina the mainline crosses a short ballasted deck girder bridge across Douglas Creek draw immediately after the switch, and then runs through open country for about a mile. The top of the bridge abutments and the hand railings are all that are visible in this photo. The track curves left in the far distance at center, and at center left the Fillmore Street bridge can just be made out. Roswell is about half mile beyond the overpass.

 

 (Robert Harmen, 1975)

Here's the view north from Fillmore Street. As I said, it's mostly just open running. BN U30C 5819 at the head of a PSCX coal train bound for the Public Service of Colorado's Comanche Plant south of Pueblo is about to pass under the overpass. I thought about including a bit of the trailer park at the left edge of the scene as it appears in most photos taken here, but there just wasn't room for it.

 

And here is the Fillmore Street overpass, a utilitarian steel I-beam span supported by H-column piles. Should be easy enough to recreate using Evergreen styrene shapes.

On the layout this is the mainline emerging from under Fillmore Street right into Roswell, with C&C Sand against the wall.

 - ~ -

Roswell is...., no not the fabled UFO crash site in New Mexico, but rather where the Rock Island came in from Limon out on the high plains to the east and then turned south to run right beside the Rio Grande for the last two miles into Colorado Springs proper.

This was as far west as the Rock Island's Chicago, Kansas & Nebraska extension reached in Colorado in 1888.  Why Colorado Springs and not of Denver? Track Gauge. The Rock Island was seeking a through route for traffic to and from California, and the Colorado Midland, being built to standard 4'-8 1/2" instead of Colorado "standard" 3-feet , offered the only practical interchange partner through the Rockies, and the Midland headed west from, you guessed it, Colorado Springs. The Rock Island did get to Denver, but to do so it negotiated a trackage rights agreement to run its trains up the dual-gauged D&RG mainline. That practice very soon diminished when the RI negotiated trackage rights over the UP's Kansas Pacific from Limon directly into Denver in 1889, although occasional RI detours up the Joint Line took place as late as 1978.

As the literal end of the line, Roswell originally featured a freight yard, wye, turntable, 16-stall stone round house and shop, trestle coaling dock, and other locomotive and car servicing facilities squeezed in between the D&RG mainline and Monument Creek. 

The collapse of the Colorado Midland during and immediately following World War I forever sealed the Rock's Springs route as a low density branch line with limited through traffic, and by my modeling era the only vestiges left of the facilities at Roswell were the wye and four stalls of the truncated roundhouse, although it was no longer used by the railroad, making both signature features of Roswell. 

 

(USGS modified)

A functioning wye is not strictly needed to operate the layout, but the north leg of the wye was still connected to the Rio Grande mainline in my modeling era, so it will come in very handy for turning trains and locomotives when restaging the railroad between operating sessions.

Modeling the vestigial roundhouse presents a problem, though, as a full scale version would overwhelm my highly compressed version of the wye, plus orienting it is a challenge as I had to alter the geometry of the wye itself. Placing it as seen from the Rio Garande mainline just doesn't make sense, so I will have to compromise quite a bit here.

Roswell is a natural fit in the corner where the east leg and the Rock Island main can pierce the backdrop and continue as a staging track outside the layout room, plus, it allows me to fit some active customers on the layout for the daily Rock Island local turn job to switch.

Over the years there were several rail customers clustered around the wye at Roswell, including a railroad-owned stockyard, three petroleum distributor "jobbers", a steel fabricator and contractor, and the large warehouse and materials storage yard of the City of Colorado Springs.

 

Aerials views of of the Rock Island wye in Roswell looking north in 1964 (top), and looking west in 1968 (bottom)

(both Pike's Peak Library)

The stockyard and oil jobbers were gone by the late '70s modeling era. Landscaping material firm C&C Sand was a real business occupying the site of the old stockyards, I've just invoked modelers' license to make it a rail-served customer, presuming the RI was willing to cut a shallow pit under the old north leg of the wye for unloading open hopper car loads of decorative scoria and pumice rock, white quartz stone chips, pea gravel, and the like. The firm can also receive boxcar loads of brick and patio pavers on pallets, and use a portable ramp and front end loader to unload decorative redwood and cedar bark and colored wood chip mulch from end-door woodchip gondolas. That actually happened on another spur in the Springs down in the Drennan industrial park.

 

A panorama of C&C Sand in Roswell with the Rio Grande mainline in the foreground. This set of photos is from 1985, after the CTC siding had been extended north using the old Rock Island right of way. The C&C sales office and shop is at the left, A&P Steel is at the right, with the old Rock roundhouse at the edge of the frame behind the BN boxcar carbody shed.

 

Here is the C&C office and equipment shop that looked for all the world like a Pikestuff kit, and the model that I have started using Pikestuff parts.

 

Steel fabricator and erecting contractor A&P Steel used a spur off the north leg of the wye as a team track to unload steel from gondolas and flat cars. It featured the company name as a roof-top sign on the building facing Interstate 25. I plan to try half inch felt letter board letters to replicate the sign letters, which were red and I suspect illuminated. 

Colorado and Eastern NW2 403 was switching three CWP gondolas on the north leg of the former Rock Island wye in 1983, with the red A&P STEEL sign letters directly above the unit. In the distance at left is A&P's main building, and behind it their elevated craneway, neither of which will fit on the layout.

Here's the location mocked up on the layout, with hopper loads of decorative scoria spotted over the pit on the north wye leg, and gons spotted on the side spur for A&P.

At right within the wye is the old Rock Island roundhouse, which presently hosts the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum, but it was being used by a building or painting contractor in my modeling era.

My mockup model of the roundhouse is reduced from 4-stalls to 3 and is built slightly under scale so as not to overwhelm the wye. Here is the scene looking through the viewport through the backdrop. Rather than use a simple but difficult to disguise hole through the backdrop I elected to end it short and leave the entire corner open. This will allow crews to operate in Roswell from either inside or outside the layout room, or both when there is a two-person crew. It will also provide much better access for maintenance.

And not only did this avoid dealing with fitting the backdrop around the awkward plumbing, it opens up more modeling opportunities.

 - ~ -

 A view east up the Rock Island main as it left Roswell and began climbing out of 

Monument Creek valley, with Cascade Avenue and Nevada Avenue overpasses in the distance.

Immediately beyond the east wye switch the Rock crossed Monument Creek on a 2-span deck girder bridge, and a bit further east up the grade out of town there was once a short spur serving a couple more oil jobbers and an insulation company. Just a short way further the RI main ducked under first Cascade Ave, then Nevada Ave, and then the old Santa Fe mainline in quick succession. Just beyond is the first spur curving north to the industrial area that I covered in a post on Pikeview and another on the RI industrial park lead. Not all of these features along the way will fit, of course, I'll give priority to the bridge over the creek, one of the street overpasses, and the old ATSF bridge abutments.

 - ~ -

On the way south out of Roswell is the City warehouse and material storage yard, which was served by its own spur. Built in 1960 atop the old freight yard, the warehouse received boxcars at the three dock doors, while the extensive materials storage yard saw gondolas, flats and depressed flats spotted for unloading power poles, reels of transmission cable, small and large transformers, sewer pipe, and everything from cast iron man hole covers and hydrants, to street and traffic lights, to parking, water and electric meters.

Rock Island GP38-2 4334 is in charge of eastbound train 50 into Roswell in 1979 (running compass north here). The City warehouse is at left, with the Rio Grande mainline at right.

Immediately south of the City warehouse both the Rock Island and Rio Grande crossed over Fontanero Street on parallel bridges, and then a short ways further south both ran over parallel pile trestles across Mesa Creek. The gap on the layout will be used for the more interesting creek gully and bridges, but that can wait until Part 3.

We'll close with one last view of Roswell as depicted on the layout.

The City warehouse was a very long building, even this truncated modified Walthers kit used as a 3D flat is over 3 feet long.

Rock Island U25B 230 and GP40 385 are switching the City spur off the main, having left the balance of their train blocking the main track. Meanwhile Santa Fe GP9 2923, attempting to run around them, waits in the short siding to enter the main and proceed to Colorado Springs yard.

Wait a minute, what's the Santa Fe doing running on the Rock Island? What's going on here?

Remember, when the Santa Fe main line through Colorado Springs was pulled up in 1974 an isolated stretch of the old ATSF main on the north side of town was kept in place to service a handful of active customers, with the Santa Fe obtaining rights to use the Rock Island main track and an industrial spur to reach it.

The Rock Island's Springs branch was dark territory, meaning it was operated without signals using Time Table and Train Order rules, but the Rock through Roswell itself was governed by Rule 93 Yard Limits, meaning trains and engines may use the Main Track (Yard Limits only apply to the Main Track) without protecting against following movements, expecting to encounter other trains or engines using the Main Track, and thus must operate at Restricted Speed, able to stop within half the range of vision, typically not to exceed 20 mph. Yard Limits is basically analogous to visual flight rules, with crews working out how to keep out of each other's way, execute a meet, and pass each other without Dispatcher supervision or train meet orders.

We see that happening here. Rock Island train 51, the westbound half of the turn, is switching the City warehouse on its way into the Springs, leaving it's un-flagged train on the main. Meanwhile, the Santa Fe local switcher is returning from working their isolated Pikeview track. No worries, as soon as the RI power clears the main to reach in to pull the empty boxcar the RI ground man will align the switches so that the Santa Fe job can continue on its way back to the Springs.

Cooperation between two crews working for two different railroads, with the Dispatcher none the wiser.

Next post we'll look at the final home stretch of the new benchwork as the tracks continue beside Interstate 25 and then enter Colorado Springs.

 - ~ -