MIGN Layout - Track Plan

[MIGN-Bill]

Here is a rough sketch of the track plan.
The layout is in the basement - around the walls type. Scenery is still minimal. I know that some of the locations are out of order from reality.

http://railroadfan.com/gallery/albums/u ... Layout.jpg

[AARR]

Looks like you'll have a lot of operating fun with your layout, Bill. Do you want your layout to kinda resemble prototype track and customers?

[MIGN-Bill]

Prototype Customers for sure - Prototype track when it works - but much lower priority.
I started with an operational theme and then tried to apply north of Cadillac to the theme and to the around the walls limitations. Actual industries are important (I have been mocking them up from pics accumulated over the years) - but many are located in the wrong towns.

[AARR]

What years are you modeling again?

[MIGN-Bill]

Late 70's to present - I have MIGN GP7/9's (Athearn) and TSBY GP35's (Athearn) so I go back and forth and mix from time to time.

[AARR]

During MIGN era there were quite a few small customers that dotted the line from Cadillac to Petoskey.

MIGN had only one customer in Traverse City until they took over Chessie's track. They delivered a carload of feed once a week to that customer.

During ferry service years, MIGN operated a pair of trains from Cadillac to Petoskey. While they were scheduled to depart their terminals, meet and swap crews, and return to their home terminals, it didn't always work that way. Sometimes they'd run a train in one direction, rest 8 hours, then run the train back. Or they may send another crew (the whole 130 miles) and bring the train back.

After the natural gas plant opened around 1978ish, they also operated a night turn from Cadillac to Kalkaska and back. For a while the gas was trucked to a loading platform at Walton Jct and loaded into rail cars there. Later, they built a relatively long spur to the plant where they could load as many as 10 cars at a time. This business never took off like they thought and at its peak loaded around 8-10 cars per week. Most years it loaded half that number which were shipped to the refinery in Alma.

A lot of well drilling materials were delivered to Kalakska in particular but also a few other loacations up and down the line. Inbound clay, frac sand, methanol, and pipe formed most of the traffic.

When TSBY took over in 1984 until TSBY sold to Mr. Shepherd and partners in 1992 traffic switched to truck so by early 1990's there were only a handful of customers left between Cadillac and Petoskey and another handful on the Traverse City branch.

Dundee (or Holnam) cement built a terminal in Elmira in the early 1990's which produced 1,000 cars a year for a few years but trucks grabbed some of the business reducing rail traffic to about half that by around 2000.

Integrity Iron started rail service in the early 2000's and for a few years was shipping 10-20 cars per week. But they were bought out by Rifkin (in Saginaw) and they switched to trucking to their Saginaw yard where the load into railcars there.

Anyway, there's a few tidbits that I hope helps.

[TrainWatcher]

I see in your photo you plan to do Mackinac City, with the Chief Wanatam. Great area. I hope you can do that slip some justice. Were you going to add the RF16's?

[odave]

Can you use the center of the basement at all? You could lengthen your mainline run by adding a peninsula or two.

Wish I had your space

[Dan M]

I was wondering the same thing about the middle of the basement too; nice around the wall design. Is the 22" radius minimum on the mainline or just the layout in general. I have used that small of radius on one of my earlier layouts and found out to be a bit troublesome if you back a longer string of cars around it, especially any 85' cars. I safely backed a string of 20 cars on level track on a 28" radius with easements, but still had some issues when I through the 85 footers in.

For the Chief, do you plan on doing a scratch built model? Looks great.

Dan

[MIGN-Bill]

Don - Thanks for sharing how the line was actually used - it adds life to the layout. I have not heard of Integrity Iron and the Natural Gas Plant - I will have to do some research on these.

Trainwatcher - I was not planning on the sharknoses - I am working on GP35's and GP-9's for now, though it would be a good idea to add one for some variety.

Odave/Dan - There is a staircase and utilities in the middle of the room (9'x14') and the rest of the space is rec area for the family. With more space, I would have added the branch to Traverse City. But there is plenty of railroad as it is.

Yes I plan on scratchbuilding the Chief - I will probably mock it up first to see how I like the operation with it, but I have accumulated a lot of pics that should allow me to make an adequate model. There is an utility closet to the left of the staging area on the plan - when I add the Chief, staging south of Cadillac will be in the closet and the Chief will be the end of the line - hopefully there will be room for a continuous run connection.

Pics coming soon.

[AARR]

Don - Thanks for sharing how the line was actually used - it adds life to the layout. I have not heard of Integrity Iron and the Natural Gas Plant - I will have to do some research on these.

Integrity Iron and Metal is located on the west side of Boardman Lake near Airport Road. Kellogg's Building Supplies and Sara Lee are in the same area.

The NG plant is about a mile or two south of Kalkaska. It sits about 1/2 mile to the east of the main line. It's reached by a long spur and splits into two tracks that can each hold 5 LPG cars for loading.

[MIGN-Bill]

Al -

Each square represents 12" - The layout is HO and is 52'X28' overall.

The narrow shelf is 19" deep and is typical everywhere except Cadillac which is 48" deep and Petoskey which is 24" deep.

The curves on the track plan are not to scale - I free handed them in with an arc command in the PDF software. Generally the curves at the corners of the layout are 22" minimum radius with generous easements into the curves. 50 foot is the maximum length freight car I plan on using and so far has not been a problem on the curves.

Mainline turnouts into passing sidings and yard are #6 (Atlas code 83) and spurs are #4's to save space (probably would not do that again - too tight, too many derailments). Most turnouts will be manual, probably Caboose industries ground throws.

[KC]

MIGN-Bill,

Any plans on water, rivers on your layout, nothing shown on the trackplan.
There is a large bridge just south of Walton Jct over the Manistee River.
Also ROW runs along side Fife Lake.
Plus there are small trestles, one in Kalkaska, north of Boyne Falls and Petoskey come to mind right now.

Might make nice scenery details.

Kelly

[MIGN-Bill]

Kelly - I have 2 areas of water planned.

I have modeled a trestle over a "river" based on an old pic found surfing the web that shows MIGN 1501 crossing with a N&W covered hopper behind - I still haven't poured the Woodland Scenic water yet, but I was pretty happy with how the trestle turned out. It is between Kalkaska and Walton Junction on the Layout.

The second area would be Lake Michigan for Chief Wawatum - this is not modeled yet.

I may add a creek or two between towns as time goes on. Fife Lake would have made for some dramatic scenery - but it did not seem to fit with limited distance between towns.

Bill