Historical Sources of Information - NE Ohio

One of the tremendous resources offered by the Internet is the wide variety of historical information that it contains.  From searching for historical photos of a building, to finding old fire insurance maps showing building and property layouts to listings of businesses in city directories, the possibilities seem to be endless.  I would like to share with you a website that I found while searching for historical maps of the downtown Cleveland area.   Stephen Titchenal maintains a website which provides high-resolution digital images of historic maps and documents, many of which also can be seen in places such as the Cleveland Public Library. The website has a lot to offer anyone interested in the history of Cleveland and northeastern Ohio, as well as Ohio railroading in general. Included in the website are many straight line track diagrams (Grade Profiles), locomotive, car, and building diagrams, railroad property/valuation maps, timetables, historical topographic maps, and a small assortment of pictures (taken from the Cleveland Press and Cleveland State University collections). Most of the items found on his site will be helpful in understanding and modeling specific railroad lines in and around Cleveland, as well as northeastern Ohio. For example, he has posted timetables (both employee as well as passenger) for various railroads including the New York Central, Pennsylvania, and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie. Track diagrams include the Baltimore & Ohio, CCC&StL system track chart, Conrail, N&W, Nickel Plate, Penn Central, PRR, and W&LE.

The site also offers such unique items as the 1884 coal field maps of Ohio, the New York Central System ICC Valuation Map Indexes as well as valuation maps of the NKP.  Many of the digital images on the site have high resolution versions, however you will need to download and install a free DjVu browser plug-in. DjVu provides greater detail and faster viewing than typical web-based images.

The website can be found at: http://www.railsandtrails.com/default.htm

Adding the Unimin Mine (Nephton, Ontario) - Part 1

Geology 101 vs Model Railroading

I needed to take a break from the efforts of wiring, track work, etc on the paper mill modules before I tackled wiring the last island of the layout, so I decided to take a few days off and begin building my background for the Unimin mine area.  Unimin does open pit mining at its Blue Mountain facility, and while trying to model the open pit is impossible, I opted to model just a small portion of the mine, in the area where the mine trucks would be coming up and out from the mine.  While the area I have for the mine is fairly small and compressed, I really just wanted to give a sense of the mining operation and show trucks coming to the processing buildings.  As of summer 2015, the Blue Mountain open pit mine has been mined down to the 8th bench level, and mine officials project that there is at least another 25 years of ore remaining.

Blue Mountain Mine - Unimin

Initial base layer at the end of the new Unimin island of the layout

Now as someone who has a degree in Geology, I wanted the mine walls to show a level of creditability and really capture a rock face like you would see in an open pit.  Fortunately I was able to get some photos of the Blue Mountain pit and use them as a general guide.  However, I knew that I would be restricted in what I could model by both the areal size and vertical depth of the mine.  So my mine had to bend the physical reality a huge amount and have the haul road coming from only two bench levels, and telling visitors that the mine actually extends out into the aisle way.

So the first step involved cutting and attaching the base to the existing foam board. While I started with a 2" thick layer, I opted to cut that in half in order to have a rough surface.  The roadway cut into a 2" block also seemed to be out of perspective, so out came the cross saw and I carefully cut it in half.  Once this was done and glued to the base, it was time to start cutting the back pieces of foam to shape, gluing them together and then gluing them to the mine floor.  I tried to keep the same hillside profile by tracing the largest piece onto the smaller piece and then free handing the contour approximately 1" below the traced line.

Adding 3-D relief/base to the rock wall

Now comes the fun part, getting all those rock castings that I have made to fit into the designated spots, giving the impression of a hillside which has been actively mined yet still follows the fractures and joint patterns of the local igneous rocks of the mine.  While you can use large commercial castings, I prefer to cast rocks using a combination of commercially available molds and home made castings followed by large amounts of breaking castings into small pieces as well as cutting castings into small rock junks.  One of the keys to success is having enough rock castings available to you, as invariably you will find that your running out of castings or need a coasting that you already used for a certain space.  While casting is a relatively slow process, I have found that setting a number of "wet" castings onto a cookie sheet and baking them in the oven for about 60-90 minutes will greatly speed up the process. A "wet" casting is one where the casting has gone through the initial setup and can be removed from the mold, however, is far to wet to accept hot glue to place it on the layout. Of course, if you're going to dry castings in an oven, best to lay the "wet" castings on a piece of aluminum foil rather than upset your spouse by placing them directly onto the cookie sheet.

Fitting them against the hillside is done by the trial and error method.

Rock castings applied with hot glue

Before I actually glue them in place, I test fit them and then lay them aside until enough of the hillside is ready for gluing. Once the pieces are in place, you'll notice that you may have large gaps or cracks present.  The cracks may or may not require attention, as remember that rocks naturally have cracks or joints present as they have been altered by weathering and other processes.  Filling large gaps is easy enough, I simply mix some hydrocal into a fairly stiff mix (e.g. consistency like toothpaste) and force it into the spaces with my modeling or sculpting knife.  In many areas, I'll simply use my fingers to force the hydrocal into the gaps, making sure to get as little on the mold and obscure any details.  Since the molds are also made with hydrocal, there is no real difference in the coloring or how well the material will take the stain that we're going to use.  If you made your castings from plaster of paris, I'd suggest using the same materials too achieve that consistency.  One word of caution...try mixing small amounts of hydrocal, as the material sets fairly quickly (even when mixed with cold water) and working it into the gaps in a series of steps.  Too much materials mixed together will dry quickly, leaving you with firm hydrocal, which just has to be used as rock talus or thrown out.  For the area you see before you, I mixed 4 separate portions and applied them in small areas. After drying overnight, I'll come back with a knife and carve some additional fractures or alter the rock face to make it more blocky, giving the appearance of rock that has been blasted away or removed.

Upper rock face completed

Final result before adding the lower level and coloring the castings

The final step will be to add some additional Sculptamold to the top of the hillside, and add some tinting or coloring to the castings (to be covered in the next entry).

More Changes to the KLR

With the Fall/Winter months upon us, it's time to retreat to the basement again and begin work on the KLR.  Over the summer months and after the ONR convention open house, I sat down again and sketched a few changes for areas or trackage that I wasn't happy with.  This was to become my work list for the fall season as time permitted.  Look for details regarding these changes in blogs to come.

The first two items to change on the layout was the position and buildings of the Unimin mine at Nephton/Blue Mountain.  I had a chance to tour the open pit mine and talk with some of the employees this summer, which really helped me understand the traffic pattern and rail operations for the mine, as well as get some shots of buildings that I was missing.  The new photos really helped with the layout of the buildings and track, as my previous trip to the mine some 10 years ago made me realize that I truly didn't understand how some of the loading of ore was accomplished.

During this time, I also came to realize that the layout needed a small staging yard.  While I used to have a yard in a previous version of the KLR, I abandoned it in favor of a larger paper mill complex and a forest products business.  Probably a mistake in judgement but its done and there was no way I was going to get rid of my paper mill.  So a new "island" was born, which features the Unimin mine on one side of the divide and a small yard on the other side.  Eventually the end of the yard will be connected to a removable bridge, which will allow traffic to enter from the lumber storage business module, as well as allow two way traffic in and out of the yard.

As of late December, the new staging yard is in, basically wired and has been tested by running several trains.  Most of the trackage for the Unimin complex is also installed, although I have fallen behind with my wiring. Hopefully this gets done during the holiday season.

The next change was the total removal of the Cherny farm module, as well as a future hydroelectric dam module that I was thinking of building.  All of the pieces of the farm have been relocated to some space that became available with the movement of the Unimin mine buildings.  All that's ;eft is to re-scenic the area with grasses, trees, fences, etc.  Hopefully a job that can be done in an evening or two.