I’ve been doing taxidermy on the side for about a decade now and really enjoy. I took a break over the weekend from layout construction to finish an antelope mount for my sister. It was her first antelope and she took it back in October of 2019. I mounted it back in late September, but the head has just been sitting in my shop since, waiting to be finished.
After several months of designing different layouts in AnyRail, I finally settled on a plan and prototype that should keep me busy for a while. My final choice is the Central Montana Railroad, which is a Class III shortline based out of Denton, MT. The CMR's tracks start at the BNSF interchange in Moccasin, MT and then proceed to the NW going through Denton and ending in Geraldine. The railroad used to move a large amount of grain, until their operations were brought to a standstill when the massive trestle over the Judith River was damaged in the 2012 spring floods. The trestle has been repaired but most of the grain traffic has disappeared. Currently, the CMR's operation's center around storing cars. I spend alot of time in that part of the state and there is a large number of tank cars currently waiting for a rise in oil prices before returning to service. Because of the a washout in Arrow Creek Gorge in 2006, the line has effectively ended at Coffee Creek, MT, with trains no longer serving Geraldine.
I plan to stick fairly close to the prototype when building and operating the railroad, and it will be set in present day (2021). However, I will deviate from prototype practices in several ways. First, even though it's 2021, the elevators in Denton are still going to ship grain. Second, I'm pretending that the tracks are still in service to Geraldine (represented in Staging), and the CMR will service a mythical unit grain elevator there. Third, the gravel shipper near Ware, MT is still served by rail.
My last and furthest stretch of the imagination is that the CMR's trackage (which is former Milw. Road) extends past Geraldine and continues into Great Falls (the tracks were pulled up in the 80's). This will allow me to use my large collection of BNSF engines from time to time. The line would serve as a backup to the BNSF Laurel Subdivision.
The main operations of the CMR will center around Denton, MT. I figure I will use two crews to work the railroad. The first crew will take loaded/empty cars back to Moccasin for interchange with the BNSF and switch the Montana Gravel Spur. The second crew will be responsible for switching out the industries in Denton. I will run an extra for the unit train service to Geraldine.
Not sure if anyone who reads this really cares but I’m back after a long hunting season here in Montana. Back in April I drew a limited-entry bull tag in the Missouri River Breaks. Having never set foot in the unit I spent most of the 6 week bow season out there learning the unit. It was a lot of fun and I had numerous close encounters with bulls.
Come the start of rifle season things changed drastically. Tow massive snowstorms pushed the vast majority of elk to private land. I spent 3 solid weeks in the unit and never got within shooting distance of a decent bull. I eventually found a rancher who was willing to let me explore his place. My dad and I spent several days stomping around his land and eventually found a nice bull on Veterans Day. He is an ancient warrior. Not sure how old he is, but I sent a tooth to a lab for aging and my guess is he’s is 12+. Most of his points are broken from fighting and he has mass for days. Just an awesome looking bull to finish an amazing elk season.
The BNSF Fort Benton Subdivision is a small 50 mile (approximate) branchline that runs from Great Falls, MT to Fort Benton, MT. Up until the late 1970's the line ran from Great Falls to Havre. However, do to unstable soils along the Missouri River, the tracks were pulled up just outside of Fort Benton. Nowadays, the line no longer runs into Fort Benton. It stops at the last of three unit-train grain elevators just a few miles south of Fort Benton.
My plan includes the small town of Carter, MT and two of it's grain elevators. I left off the unit train loader at Carter. Once through Carter, trains proceed to the 750,000 bushel EGT Terminal Loader. After EGT there is a small privately owned elevator at Tunis, before the train arrives in Fort Benton. My rendition of Fort Benton includes two grain elevator's, a co-op fertilizer dealer, and a team track/ramp. A reverse loop and 9 total staging tracks are hidden below the main layout and are accessed by a helix in the bottom right hand corner of the plan. Staging represents Great Falls, MT.
Several types of operations are included with this plan. Unit grain trains would be needed at the EGT Terminal Loader. The loader can handle up to 22 covered hoppers and three modern locomotives. Unit trains would begin in staging and then proceed up the helix to Carter and then onto the Terminal Loader track. After the unit train is loaded, the engines would cut off from the head end and recouple to the end of the train to take it back down to staging. The other type of operation of the layout would be a local freight, which would also start in Staging. The local would then proceed to Carter where it would switch the two grain elevators. After that the local would run to Fort Benton and switch the four industries there, before returning to staging. On the return trip the small elevator would be switched at Tunis. If I just want to run continuous trains, I have included a track that goes behind the helix and reconnects at Carter. Although not prototypical, I could use this to represent trains running to Havre, MT. Although the tracks to Havre were pulled up 40 years ago, in my fantasy world the tracks still exist and sometimes serve as a secondary line to reach the Northern Transcon.
I really like this tackplan because it includes my favorite modeling interests; BNSF, grain service, and rural Montana. However, one of the drawbacks for me is that there is very little scenery or topographic relief along, except where the line drops down into For Benton. If you've ever driven the highway that parallels the tracks you'll know what I mean. It's so flat up there, a person can watch their dog run away! The one drawback is that the trackplan does not have any engine service facilities, which is one of my favorites things to model.
With the arrival of our newborn, my time in the layout room has been fairly limited. However, I have been able to weather some cars that I ...
