Adventures in choosing a prototype locale

Having formally arrived, in the Spring of 2011, at the decision to model the Chickamauga Creek area of Chattanooga, Tennessee along the CSX Atlanta-to-Nashville main line, I can say, in retrospect, it was NOT an easy decision. In fact, it was a bit of a journey to this destination; a complicated means to a fitting end, if you will.

The journey began in mid-2007, when I began construction of the modules that serve as the framework for the CSX Chickamauga. At that time I had been amassing a collection of HO scale equipment after re-entry to the hobby from a brief hiatus, ending in Summer of 2004. Due to my employment during that era, I was able to build quite a roster of the latest offerings from Atlas, Athearn, Intermountain, and Walthers; roughly 300 cars and some 40 locomotives. I knew from the beginning I would want to model early CSX, since that’s what I grew up railfanning, and therefore holds sentimentality for me. So roadname and era was not an issue, fortunately.  I quickly began buying up any models that caught my eye and could be found on CSX in the mid 1980’s to early 1990’s. I also bought quite a few models appropriate for early Norfolk Southern, with the intent of someday modeling interchange traffic.

Having all this nice equipment, with no place to run and enjoy it, was quite frustrating. Around mid-2007, I began investigating whether or not I could shoehorn a layout into my office/den. A 13 x 15 foot room containing at least one window or door on each wall, a small corner closet, and not to mention my desk, entertainment center, and bookcase, would yield a decent 10 x 15 foot space for a switching layout, provided I built it high enough to clear the top of my bookcase. Not a problem, since I tend to like high layout benchwork anyway. But the question was, could I live with only a point-to-point layout with no continuous run? Shortly after completing the rough carpentry on the modules, I decided I couldn’t. Furthermore, dust abatement was/is an issue in my 1907 restored home with central HVAC. These two issues led to over a year of stalling on the project.

Fast forward to September 2008, when I finally got frustrated enough with not being able to run my trains that I decided to bite the bullet and live with not having a continuous run. As for the household dust problem, it occurred to me that I could build a modular shadowbox to fit over the modules. This would kill several birds with one stone; it would (1) keep dust off of the scenery, (2) provide a great framework for good lighting (the room lighting in my office is rather anemic), (3) double as a shelf to store all of my locomotives and rolling stock and their respective packaging when not in use, and (4) serve as a visual “picture frame” for the layout, drawing visitors’ eyes into the scene. So I jumped back into the project full speed ahead and by January 2009 I had the three modules installed in my office. It was then that I stumbled headlong into a big problem.

 “Uhmm, ok. Now what area do I model?”

All of my past layouts had always used freelanced, “imaginary” settings somewhere in the southeastern United States.  I knew that this time around, with all my prototypical equipment that I had invested much money and effort into closely modeling early CSX, that I wanted to be equally prototypical with modeling a real-life setting. And there is where the madness began…

Initially, since a considerable part of my fleet is comprised of cars that would serve paper traffic--pulpwood cars, woodchip cars, tank cars, 50 and 60 foot boxcars, etc.-- I decided to model the local Bowater Southern paper mill in Charleston, Tennessee. I’ve always had a fascination with the rail activity surrounding paper mills, and this one was no exception, being served by both CSX and NS. But a funny thing happened right around the time I moved the finished modules into my office….I encountered a big shakeup in my professional life, which led to a laborer job at that exact paper mill. My experience there quickly soured me on the thoughts of ever modeling it. (Would YOU want to model the place YOU work at? I didn’t think so….)  So, back to square one in terms of modeling a specific locale.

I have always wanted to model the “New Line”, i.e. the CSX main from Atlanta to Cincinnati by way of Knoxville, Tennessee and Etowah, Tennessee. I even got so far as drafting up a GREAT track plan representing downtown Knoxville in XtrkCAD. But, two big problems with that line: (1) sparse online industry, a big negative since I enjoy running local trains and switching cars the most, and (2) it hosts an endless parade of coal trains, mostly comprised of a car that nobody currently makes in HO scale, the Trinity RD-2 hopper. I knew from experience (my previous layout was set in a fictional West Virginia locale) that coal trains can quickly get boring, and I wanted to do something different. So, strike off the “New Line”, and with it, the downtown Knoxville plan.

Groan. It was looking like I was going to have to freelance again. Perish the thought. It was Spring 2009, and there I was, nearly 2 years into a layout project and I still hadn’t even decided for certain what area to model. How depressing. Right around this time I was experimenting with an idea I had concerning animation; I wanted to build an operating auger loader to actually deposit live loads into waiting hopper cars. Several dozen hours of testing and experimentation proved that the idea was feasible, but given the operating dynamics of the loader, it is not suited to loading long trains. Not a big deal, since my layout is only 10 x 15 feet and thus couldn’t contain a long 25-30 car drag anyway.  As if I needed another reason, that ruled out modeling coal trains even further. Alright, so what industry can I model that would make use of relatively short trains and a working loader? Not coal, not woodchips…. Let’s see….I’ve got it… A QUARRY!

So there I was, with grand plans to build a working auger loader. I quickly discovered that such an idea would basically require designing and building the entire layout around the idea of the loader if I was going to be prototypical about it.

Which naturally led to more stalling.

   

I spent the next year-and-a-half caught between trying to find a quarry served by CSX and trying to accept the possibility of freelancing my locale. (All was not lost, since I had temporary track laid out on my modules during this time and ran trains frequently).  I must’ve looked at every rail-served quarry in the southeastern United States via Google Earth and Bing Maps. You see, I had a rather lengthy list of “druthers”, as the late great John Armstrong would say, as far as picking a location to model goes….It had to be a quarry located on CSX trackage, preferably a mainline, preferably with rural scenery, and near a Norfolk Southern interchange. I wanted to model at least one major road crossing with signals, one significant waterway, and enough industry outside of the quarry to make switching truly interesting and use a wider variety of my rolling stock. Preferably not located too far from my home, so I could visit and research it in person without needing to buy a plane ticket. Also it was preferable that it be located in former L&N territory, since I have several pieces of pre-CSX L&N rolling stock that I run occasionally. Last, but certainly not least, it had to be easily adaptable to my modules, without excessive flipping or compression.

First I looked at Kennesaw, Georgia:

Former L&N territory? Check.

Rail served quarry on CSX? Check.

Rural scenery? Sort of.

Various outside industry? Not really.

Nearby NS interchange? Nope.

Body of water? Negative.

Darn. Three negatives. On to the next one. Junction City, Georgia; huge quarry out in the woods served by both CSX and NS, very impressive, but its crossroads-style X-shape proved nearly impossible to adapt to my L-shaped arrangement of modules. NEXT! Tate, Georgia: famous marble quarry. Former L&N territory but no longer served by CSX after 1987. I’d have to stretch plausibility quite a bit, plus the lay of the land (steep grades) would be difficult to do on my modules.  Try again. Newnan, Georgia…served by NS only. Darn again. Same goes for Franklin Industrial Minerals near Crab Orchard, Tennessee. It actually has its own railroad connecting with NS.

I looked at quarries located in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, only to dismiss them one after one, for various reasons. Funny that I never ran across the one I ended up modeling while doing my Bing Map/Google Earth travels. One reason may be that it is rather small as quarries go, another reason is that it is no longer rail served, actually I’m only about 80 percent sure it ever had rail service. Oh well, it does on my layout anyway.

Fast forward to Fall 2010, when a trip to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum revealed to me the nearby industrial park, smack-dab on the CSX main, in former L&N territory, on the banks of Chickamauga Creek, with numerous road crossings, several ancillary industries, and wouldn’t you know it, it would drop right onto my modules with a spacious 4:1 compression ratio! And the nearby branch line to Tyner, Tennessee once served as an interchange between CSX and NS. And all located less than an hour’s drive from my home! Perfect!  I quickly refined a track plan using AnyRail software and had track laid out temporarily by the time Christmas 2010 rolled around. I ultimately waited until Spring 2011 to commence with permanent track installation, as I wanted to be absolutely sure that my track plan was operationally satisfying before I cast it in stone (pun intended). It had been three-and-a-half years, and dozens of hours of research and track planning, but finally I felt comfortable with the prototype I had chosen.

So there you have it, I guess the moral of the story is: DON’T GIVE UP WHEN SEARCHING FOR A PROTOTYPE LOCATION TO MODEL. If you search long enough, you are bound to find something that is manageable without introducing too many compromises on yourself.