Bill and Tom's EXCELLENT ADVENTURE in Logging and Mining

[Doctor G]

Hello folks,

This is the start of a NEW thread here on the great Zealot website. It will feature the EXCELLENT ADVENTURES of Bill Nelson and Dr Tom as they create a massive logging and mining operation on the Clarksvile Tennessee "Queen City" model railroader's club layout.

These two schemers hatched a plot to expose their Dieselized bretheren to the wonders of a steam logging and coal mining "show" several years ago. They also wanted to tie up the mainline with real steam spittin geared and rod lokies and their consists travelling along at 15 MPH.So far so good in this devilish plot.

So follow along and add your comments to this new thread.

Now here are some pictures of what has been done so far. Here we see "J.E.Patterson" locomotives #43 and #32 at the engine facilities in the yard at Spittenchoo Tennessee.

We also have a shot showing off Bill Nelson's excellent bridge building and track laying skills as #32 trundles over the bridge at the Patterson Sawmill's log pond.

Hope you enjoy. Doc Tom

[sumpter250]

Looks like you're off to a good start! Nice work!

[Mountain Man]

Excellent beginning! And a great name - Spittenchoo!

[Bill Nelson]

In the C&S thread Tom said that I would provide Useful and Colorful Commentary, to the photos he is taking with his very nice Camera.

I get some OK photo's with mine, but mine is one one of my former co-workers found in a deal on line. I paid less than $50. for mine.


Now as for the commentary, well colorful commentary is what I do. Most folks just find it annoying, but if Tom finds it Useful, that's OK.


Our club evolved from a modular based Club when we were allowed the use of the space we are inhabiting, As we made that transition, I was absent for a couple years, due to family medical issues. When I returned after those issues had run their course, We had this big honking layout!


This layout presents several challenges . when we built this I wasn't there. (let be be clear about that - I could have made it worse, I'm confident about that. ) Dr. Tom was the only guy with big layout experience, and tom had built his big layout to the same standards his original tiny garage layout was built to.

To be a work of art, a layout must be designed from the start to represent a railroad, at a place and time. This one was built generic. No one will admit to designing this layout. The most likely suspects claim it wasn't designed, and it just happened. I don't believe that There is a track plan nicely drawn out in scale. It is very hard to draw a scale plan for an existing RR, and make it close. So I think it was designed, and the culprits are seeking anonymity .

In any case, when I returned to active membership (not realy acurate, cause before I didn't do squat, I just sat around BSing and getting in the way as folks messed up the modules) I got busy trying to fix stuff. we have a long loop that is on two levels. @ the far corner of the layout there is a helix that goes to the upper deck. Halfway over the far peninsula the track begins downgrade, and that long downgrade reaches all the way to the end of the near Peninsula, neat the waterfall (Tom started the waterfall scene, and I finished it.)


That grade was real gentle at the bottom, and very Steep @ the top. unless you had a very small train, or lots and lots of power, that loop was a one way . John Patterson and I decided it was intolerable, and we measured the whole grade, unscrewed the risers and repositioned or replaced them to even out the grade to around 4.3 percent.

Shortly afer we got that chore done John passed away. The John Edward Patterson Coal and Lumber Company was formed, as a memorial, consolodating all of the coal and lumber operations into one big operation. We had at the start a logging branch @ the end of the near peninsula, which Tom had set up, compleate with a small yard @ the junction of the logging branch and the RR proper. This, along with the narrow gauge interchange uses up all the realestate on the far side of the near peninsula.

John had been working on a coal mine on the near side of the near peninsula. He had a sidding for it but nothing else, so I did a bunch of scenery work there and kitbashed a mine from some old plastic buildings we had laying around. So on the near side of the far peninsula we are usinf about a quarter of the realestate. So the near peninsula is 5/8ths logging/minning.

The senery and track on the far side of the far peninsula , lower level, was really bad, as were the liftouts that allow access to the breaker box. Having that big log camp We figured we need a Sawmill. Railroad logging requires big sawmills. So we wanted to steal that whole side of the peninsula. We were able to do this because 1. it was ugly. 2 it didn't run. 3. No one would admit that they had designed it or built it. So, there for our taking was half of the far peninsula.

Now as Tom has said, our evil plan is to, by slow and steady work on the Coal and Lumber Co. to gobble up large portions of real estate, and to get it to the point, where when there are operating sessions, we own most of the car destinations!

Stealth and trickery is viatal to this plan, So I didn't want to get anyone ****ed off at me, so My plan for the sawmill started with fixing the acess to the far wall. where Eric has been happily working on the 2ndary yard there for years, even though you couln't get a train there, because of the bad lift outs, and the bad mainline where the sawmill would go.

So to secure the goodwill of our intended victims, I began the Sawmill project in a very roundabout fashion. The first step was a total rebuild of the liftouts. The liftouts had a fatal design flaw. the rail joints @ the gaps were on curves, and tight ones @ that. I altered the approach of the tracks, so the curves were much wider, and I snuck in short straight sections @ the gaps. At those straight sections, I cut up some Atlas re railers, and used those at the joints, so that the track on the liftouts is reliable, for the first time ever.

The next thing I did was to get the track on the upper deck of the far wall relaible, so that rail traffic was able to get over there via the upper liftout, and from there down the Helix to the far yard, where Eric has been working, no longer in compete issolation.


This way, when I tore up the mainline in front of the Sawmill, in order to rebuild it, I wasn't Isolating Eric, I was actually supporting Eric, by drasticly improving the mainline to and from the far yard.

Durring our Open house, when I wasn't helping visitors run trains. I worked up on the top deck of the far wall, where I installed the Altimont Mine, using #6 switches, and big long tracks to handle big long strings of coal cars. the rest of that upper shelf we are going to set up as a company town; thus nailing down half of the realestate on the far wall.

On Wednsday night I got the bridedeck for the passing sidding in @ Patterson, where the sawmill and the headquarters of the whole operation will be built. there is a mid size coal mine there also, and we may have the company town creep around the liftout and into the lower level of the far wall. Doing that we can visually co opt the far yard which is sandwiched between the coal and lumber operations @ Patterson, and the Altimont Mine, just up the helix from it.

Since there is no other industry anywhere near the far yard It will make a natural staging area for the big operations @ Altimont and Patterson. THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD!

So the next step is the saw mill complex, which is going to be represented on flats, up against the backdrop , as we have considerable lenght but a very shallow area to work in. In all my work, I have been trying to make the track as good or better than the best trackwork on the system. When it gets to the sawmill I'm going to try to make it the best looking as well. I'm going to hand lay the track in code 100, and in code 83 (I'm staying with the fat rail profiles for better conductivity- I pay for the good looking track on my own RR with poorer operation every time I run my trains).

Also with simplicity of operation in mind we are going to keep the track plan simple (you don't know how hard this is for Tom and I), and use nothing smaller than a #6 switch. Due to the limited space we have we are going to run the log car storage track after the log dump, through the backdrop, so we can stow big honking logtrains in there. Like wise, the boxcars will wander off into the drying stacks, through the backdrop, so we can fit a lot of them in there.

While I'm working on the track for the saw mill, Tom's mission is to establish a second logging camp on the upper deck of the near side of the far peninsula, wich will use that Surry Parker Skidder/loader I was building for the C&S (see your unique logging equipment thread nearby). That project stalled on the news of the C&S's closure, but it is close to done.

When Tom gets that done, there will be very little of the main body of the layout that isn't dominated by the Coal/Lumber operations. And the next largest industry is the Copper smelting industry, with it's mine, and the narrowgauge that supports it (I'm sorely tempted to put a narrow gauge log camp, and a reload operation in.


So, since the club was built generic, with no coherent theme, Tom and I, by having a theme, and working harder, faster than the other guys, under the cover of a memorial to a deseased member' who would have heartily joined in the effort, were he still with us, we are approaching our goal. The mainline RR, as it exists now, has only one obvious purpose, and that is to support the J.E.Patterson Coal and Lumber co.

Tom and I used to be fish out of water there This has been fun!
Bill Nelson

[Doctor G]

Great job Bill of showing how a dedicated group of revolutionaries can do some big things at a RR club.......hmmmm reminds me of a certain little country in North Eastern Europe a while back.

Long live the logging and mining revolution.

Doc Tom

[Doctor G]

Thought I would send out a few more shots taken the other night at the choo choo club "work"....errr BS session.

First picture is that of Number 32 having an RC Cola and a Moon Pie (lunch) at the coal dock in Spittenchoo, Tennessee.

Second picture is Number 32 coming off the grade to camp 1 with a logging load.

Third picture is Boss Hawg's "tabacky" barn. Seems he's got everyone in Spittenchoo spitting and chewing so much that he was able to buy himself a nice black import car with no roof. Cows in these parts are just not that interested in these weird machines though.

Enjoy............ Doc Tom

[Mountain Man]

They use steroids on the cows in those parts? That sucker is the size of a locomotive!

[Sawdust]

I think that's Paul Bunyans's bull.Got rid of the blue & painted himself to look like a Jersey.

[Doctor G]

Originally Posted by Sawdust

I think that's Paul Bunyans's bull.Got rid of the blue & painted himself to look like a Jersey.

Yep, here's cousin Bessie from down the road. She is utterly beautiful.
Veternarian Doc Tom

[steamhead]

Logging is back...!!!!

Looking forward to more adventures out of the Tennesse mountains....!!!

[ytter_man]

The bridge deck makes me a tad envious!

Heck, the whole thing. Glad to see your tear down going to good use.

[Doctor G]

Thanks Steamhead and ytterman for the nice comments.

Fellow Tennessee logging nut Bill Nelson has a real talent with building HO scale bridges. His works of art are all over the Clarksville Model RR Club layout.

Look at this next picture with the seamless transition from Atlas Code 100 flex track to beautiful hand laid track on the bridge proper. All done by Bill's skilled hand

Doc Tom

[Doctor G]

By the way this is the mess Bill had to contend with before straightening everything out and getting our guys on the right track. His commentary above gives you some of the flavor of our definitely laid back bunch.

Dr Tom

[Mountain Man]

Originally Posted by Doctor G

Yep, here's cousin Bessie from down the road. She is utterly beautiful.
Veternarian Doc Tom

She also apparently changes her colors at will, since that isn't the same cow.

[Bill Nelson]

Originally Posted by Mountain Man

She also apparently changes her colors at will, since that isn't the same cow.

Definately not the same cow.

Bill Nelson,

Back from looting my Dad,s house in Mississippi