The Vision

 

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

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Post 26: The Vision

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  (Very large image, open in a new window to enlarge)

We had visitors coming.

And naturally, as they know that I am building a model railroad in the basement they wanted to see the trains.

Well, that's a problem. A recurring one, since I don't actually have track down yet and can't run trains for them.

So I did what I usually do, I put some structure mock-ups out where they belong and placed a few locomotives and cars where they might commonly be seen working. Gotta show them something, after all.

I had a bit of a head start as a fellow modeler stopped in yesterday to take a quick look at progress on the layout before we headed off to an ops session on another modeler's layout, so the layout room was already more or less presentable.

This time was different, though. The whole south end of the layout sort of came alive as a unified whole for the first time, from the Cimarron overpass at the south end of Springs Yard right across the room through Kelker-Drennan to the Santa Fe bridge across Sand Creek atop the swing gate.

It was almost magical to see how far I've come and how close I am to realizing my dream of bringing the Joint Line alive in my basement.

That's why I spend so much time mocking things up full size. To work out the vision in three dimensions and figure out how best to build it. And to keep myself motivated and moving forward.

And isn't that the whole point?

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Using the Corner

 

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

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Post 25: Using the Corner

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Although I was pleased when I completed the last bit of mainline benchwork that now connects Kelker-Drennan to the swing gate (see the bottom of Filling in the Gaps), I also couldn't help feeling something was missing here. Frankly, scenically this is the weakest section of the layout. Although the prototype main line does curve through here on its approach to the Santa Fe bridge over Sand Creek, which will be modeled atop the swing gate, on the layout this section is more just a utilitarian connection from A to B, constrained by the available space and track geometry, with the mainline pushed right up against the wall because it has to be. As I said, I will attempt to downplay the main through here by placing a berm and vegetation between it and the Army's line to Fort Carson and live with it.

But that still leaves a fair size empty space to deal with back in the corner at the south end of the Drennan Industrial Park beyond the LPG dealer. I suppose I could have coved the corner here and built up a low bluff with scrub woods to create a scenic transition, but that wouldn't really feel right for the location, which is more open. In later times a spur track was extended back there to serve Columbine Steel, along with a rather large Strescon precast facility, and the Rock & Rail unit aggregate train operation, but they were all well beyond my modeling era, plus I didn't want to squeeze something into a space that wasn't big enough to fit more than a caricature. Besides, any track extending back into the corner would be a real stretch to reach. No more of that, thanks.

But there was an industry typical of the area that would fit both the place and space quite nicely, even if it was not rail served. As I mentioned in my post on laying out Kelker-Drennan, the industrial park at the south edge of Colorado Springs sits atop a large deposit of alluvial sand and gravel that has been developed by extractive and construction operations. Over time it has been filled up with scrap yards, sand and aggregate pits, concrete batch plants, a precast concrete operation, asphalt plants, and the like.

That last industry would make good use of the empty corner with a business that is typical of the Kelker-Drennan industrial area. In fact, today there are two hot-mix asphalt plants in the neighborhood. Kiewit Western is located diagonally across the mainline from Western Scrap Metal, which is represented on the layout, while Martin Marietta is located just a little bit further south. Both are large current-day operations with modern, high capacity plants and sprawling yards for material piles, yet neither of them justify direct rail service. (Very few asphalt plants do.)

What I envision would be a much smaller operation, however. This quick and dirty low-res Photoshop mock-up will give you some idea of what I was thinking.

I'm not actually positive that there even was an asphalt plant present in my modeling era or not, as there is a gap in my collection of aerial photos and satellite views of the area, but I'm not sure that there wasn't one either. For sure it would not look out of place or time on the layout as asphalt plants are not just widespread, they are downright ubiquitous, since paving asphalt is in demand locally just about everywhere for use as a roadway, parking lot, work area and runway surface, and it all periodically needs to be renewed.

Asphalt plants come in several types and sizes, ranging from small portable drum plants with all components mounted on semi-trailer chassis or skids so that they can easily be relocated from one work site to another as needed, through older batch plants with fixed elevated mixing towers, more modern continuous-production drum plants, right up to really large concerns with multiple mixing plants on the same site, as I learned when I took a deep dive research side trip into asphalt mixing plants.

Oh, oh, there he goes down another distracting rabbit hole when he should be getting on with the real work of putting down track. I won't bore you with my findings on prototype asphalt plants here, but for those who are interested in learning more here are three useful references for further reading with good photos and diagrams:

Asphalt Production, a Power Point slide deck pdf

Hot-Mix Asphalt Plant Operations, an FAA/US Army Corps of Engineers pdf

Energy Efficiency and Cost Saving Opportunities for Asphalt Mixture Production, an Energy Star pdf

You can also check out the websites of some of the asphalt plant manufacturers for high quality photos of their equipment. Some good ones I looked at were Almix, Astec, CWMF, Gencor, and Tarmac International. Most of their products are physically very similar (no doubt they would beg to disagree), with paint scheme and logos being the main visual difference for us modelers.

We'll just look at what I've come up with for a solution on the layout. Those who are only mildly interested can just read on and look at the pictures here.

Below are two typical small, compact counter-flow drum plants with three silos similar to what I'm thinking. 

 

The down on view is neat as it clearly shows a cramped older plant that has been added to over time. Note the original horizontal liquid asphalt storage tank in a concrete containment revetment, and the newer vertical tanks in their own steel revetment. Other views show that it has two original silos with a third added silo of slightly larger diameter. 

And here's a schematic illustration of a typical plant with the major components identified. 

The individual components can be arranged in different layouts to facilitate material flow and space constraints, but a T configuration is common, as seen in the two photos. Add an LPG tank or a heavy pipe stand if the plant is fired by gas.

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Walthers makes a kit for a small asphalt plant with two storage silos. It represents a very basic continuous-production, parallel-flow drum hot-mix plant, which have been around since the early 1970s, so it should fit my era.  Figuring it would probably do the trick for what is essentially non-rail scenery, I picked one up. Well, that was the plan anyway.

Now, I give Walthers full credit for developing the "industry suite" concept of model product and marketing, combining a freight car(s), a structure kit(s), and a family of related vehicle, detail and scenery items all geared to modeling an identifiable typical industry. Their Black Gold Asphalt Plant (933-3085) is a case in point. The problem is their structure kits can be hit and miss in terms of execution. Sometimes the need to simplify and compress a large industry into a layout size footprint just stretches plausibility too far—even to the point of caricature. And sometimes the quality just isn't there, with grossly over thick molded parts and details. 

I found that their asphalt plant kit suffers from both problems to some extent. While the bag house and the hot exhaust and dust duct work were perfectly acceptable, I found the steel support structure for the tall storage silos to be grossly rendered, even for background scenery purposes. And the drum mixer-heater was ridiculously under size, tiny even.

Clearly I would not be satisfied building the kit as is, so I looked to see if I could turn this sow's ear into at least a simulated leather purse.

I figure I can use the baghouse and duct work, aggregate feed bins, and conveyors more or less as is, along with the drum support base, trunnion rollers and some other parts. I've already cut some Plastruct 1 1/8 and 1 1/4 inch ABS tubing to fashion a more plausible drum mixer-heater and rings. And I will be modeling a slightly different counter-flow drum with the ducting at the opposite end.

The kit's horizontal insulated warm liquid asphalt storage tank is fine, but I prefer a pair of vertical tanks, which I cut from the same ABS tubing. (The fine-tooth finishing blade on my chop saw worked just fine as long as I didn't bring it down too fast.)

The hot-mix storage silos are another matter. As I said, the kit's steel silo support structure is totally unacceptable, so I purchased the appropriate sizes of Evergreen styrene H and I shapes to scratch build a replacement support structure. The kit's silos themselves are formed of six separate segments that you stack and glue together, which does simulate the insulation jacketing used on some prototype silos, but I want to model a three-silo plant, so rather than buy another kit full of parts that I won't use I cut three identical lengths from a piece of nominal 1 1/4 inch ABS plumbing pipe that I had on hand that turned out to be only .o15" fatter than the stock Walthers parts.

The kit includes an enclosed vertical bucket elevator to charge the silos, but I preferred a more visually interesting enclosed slat conveyor inclined at 45°. The Model Mechanic used to list a 3D printed one on Shapeways, but it should be easy enough to scratch build one from sheet and strip styrene. The kit does not include a truck scale, usually located in the loading lane beneath the silos. It should be easy enough to fabricate one from .060" styrene sheet. Small hopper silos for the collected dust and additives, stairs and catwalks, the gas blower, wiring for the drum motors, and piping for the liquid asphalt will round out the plant.

Most plants are painted utilitarian light grey or tan, but I did find some that were light blue and even black. Perhaps the sharpest looking ones are made by Astec, wearing basic tan with dark chocolate brown lower sections (the better to hide spilled asphalt), with a red-orange separation stripe.

A finer looking support structure, three silos, the sloped conveyor, and a new mixer drum should insure that my model plant will look quite different from the stock Walthers kit.

So how might the plant look in the corner on the layout? Here you go, all mocked up:

 

In the foreground is the line to Fort Carson. The red & white pickup is crossing the mainline on Las Vegas Street, with the entrance into Summit Asphalt behind it. Maybe put just the front facade of the office right against the wall, or just keep it as is and leave it to the imagination? Does it look cramped and forced to you, or will it look believable, like it fits the location and era, distracting you as the mainline sneaks out of the scene? 

Let me know what you think.

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Entering Colorado Springs

 

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

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Post 20: Progress Update Part 3, Entering Colorado Springs at last

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It's two miles of wide open running again south of Roswell with not much to mock-up, so we'll wrap up with photos of the prototype trains that are my inspiration for modeling the Joint Line through the Springs.

(Robert Harmen 1973)

The crew on board this Rock Island consist have just left Roswell and are in the final stretch of their run to downtown Colorado Springs, and from the looks of it the rear end crew is still rolling through the wye. Train length alone suggests that this is not the daily turn job, Train 51, rather almost certainly a detour train bound for Denver, but there are a couple other clues: the four unit lash-up instead of the normal two, with clear evidence that lead unit U25B 233 has bucked some heavy drifts on the way west, and the presence of at least four piggyback flats. Trains 50/51 did sometimes handle a pig flat carrying reefer trailers for dressed meat out of Knuckles Packing down in Pueblo, but they were usually set out at a TOFC ramp east of Roswell, with the trailers driven up and loaded there.

The north leg of the wye was a pretty sharp curve, and doubtless had not seen a lot of recent maintenance, making it risky to use it to turn the train northwards. The safer bet was to run the train south into Springs Yard, run the power and caboose around the train, and then head north up the Joint Line, likely with a Rio Grande pilot, if not a full Rio Grande crew.

 

 That's more like it for a typical Train 50, although maybe still a tad long. Here we see what is just out of the frame to the left in the top view, the side-by-side wood pile trestles that cross Mesa Creek, with the CTC signals governing the north end of Colorado Springs siding just beyond. Rio Grande bridge 73.30 has a ballasted deck, while Rock Island bridge 6080 has an open deck. I wish I had good photos of the bridges themselves, but they were replaced by a fill and culvert in the md-1980s when the siding was extended north. At least I have the D&RGW standard plans, so models of them will bridge the gully on the layout. I had to shorten the siding as there was not enough tangent track to fit the switch here, so the signals will be further south around the bend.

 
Santa Fe GP20 3103 was bound for Pikeview, running long hood first up the Rock Island past the D&RGW siding pot signal in 1978.

And in 1976 D&RGW SD40T-2 5360 was just a couple hundred feet south heading down the Rio Grande main with a coal train. Yes, that is the Rock Island mainline down in the weeds there. The white sign signifies that the junction with the Rio Grande is one mile south of this point.

(Robert Harmen 1976)

 

(Larry Green 1980)

BN U30C 2917 was northbound at the same curve in 1980, with the JCT sign poking in at far left.

(Colorado DOT 1960)

This 1960 aerial view north shows I-25 under construction, with the Rio Grande and Rock Island tracks, Monument Valley Park, and Monument Creek to the right. As I said, more open running.

 

D&RGW 137 was at the crossovers just north of the bridge over Monument Creek. The double pot signal governs the siding, while the single pot at right governs the Rock Island connection to the Rio Grande. This was the very end of the Rock Island mainline, and there was a phone box for the RI crew to call the Joint Line Dispatcher for the signal to enter the siding. Again, note the subtle track elevation differences, and the track hardware.

Here is my 1985 view of the crossovers, with the switch to the Rock Island main still in place. I don't have room for three tracks here, and I only need the northbound crossover, so this will be the north end of the siding on the layout. Trains setting out and picking up in Springs Yard will have to use the Rock Island main for headroom instead of the siding.

These two views show the extensive mature trees of Monument Valley Park along the tracks that I simulated in the teaser photo of my mock-up of this location.

 And finally, the Rio Grande crosses Monument Creek on this skewed four-span, ballasted double-track deck-girder bridge. I only have room for three spans on the layout, but it should still make for a picturesque signature entrance into Springs Yard.

 The yard tracks begin splitting off the main and siding immediately off the bridge and then they all duck under an overpass across the yard throat. See my post on Springs Yard.

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OK, that's it for the 2025 Year End update—I just squeaked it in under the wire. Time to get back to work now, as there's still a bit more benchwork to build, and then lots of track to lay and wire up. I'll post again when I have some real progress to show, unless I take a side trip into something interesting along the way to share with you.

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Laying out Roswell

 

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

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Post 19: Progress Update Part 2, Laying out Roswell

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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.

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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 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.

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 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.

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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 solo 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 trestles, 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.

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