The Madisonville Sub: July 2022

Memphis Junction

While the L&N has a small yard at Memphis Junction, all the industries near the junction are on the Madisonville Sub and serviced by the Southern. In order to reach the Sherman Williams paint factory at Memphis Junction, a section of street running is required. Here, Southern GP38-2 #5011 is shoving a couple of box car into the plant. While this section of the layout is operational, it still needs ballast, ground cover, vegetation, and other details.

Three down and one to go. Berry Global, the last rail served industry to be built, will eventually fill the space to the left of the covered hoppers. Berry Global receives plastic pellets for the manufacture of plastic packaging. Kurt Boyd has volunteered to build the structure. It was designed to occupy a odd shape that wraps around the outside of a corner on the left. Sherman Williams is on the right.

Cookeville Junction, TN

Cookeville Junction is a new addition to the layout. It will be added to the upper level of the layout just outside the entrance to the upper staging level. It will accomplish two things. First it well create a scene in a area that was originally supposed to be out of view and second, it with will create a crew change point were trains are turned over to or received from the staging track manager (probably me during an operating session). This will alleviate the need for a train crew, who may or may not be familiar with the mostly hidden staging yard, from having to deal with a lot of hidden track.

I decided that two American Model Builders laser kits might work for Cookeville Junction: Kit #709 Yard Office and Kit #713 Railroad Rooming House. Rather than spend the money for the two kits, only to find out they weren't quite rights, I built a couple of mockups from styrene. I pulled the dimensions off the AMB website and went to work. Here are the finished products. I spent two hours of my time and $2 worth of styrene to build them.

Here are the mockups sitting on the layout. A couple of more auxiliary building should fill out the scene. As a result of this test, the kits have been ordered and received. Theoretically, the actural junction is just out of view to the left (staging). Cookeville Junction is where the Sparta and Rockwood branches divert from the mainline.

Palmer, TN

Preliminary planning is also going on for the town of Palmer. Another friend, Randy Anderson, is helping me here. Randy has planned a bunch of structures for the small company town and I have build a few more mockups to represent those structures.

Here is a picture of Palmer. It sits directly above the helix on the upper level.

The mockup at the lower left represents the Boone warehouse kit from Rail Scale Models. The prototype for this simple warehouse was in North Carolina, While I like to support the manufactures, this kit costs $72.50 plus shipping. Based upon it's simplicity I may decide to build it from scratch.

The mockup in the upper left, partially hidden by the tipple, is the NP Easton Hotel from Builders in Scale. While this kit is relatively expensive, $165, the quality, attention to detail and complexity make it well worth the cost.

The mockup on the upper right represents the Gomez general store. The prototype for this building still stands in Pagosa Junction, CO. I picked up one of these former Grandt Line kits off ebay. It is my understanding that this kit is currently available from San Juan Details at a cost of $38.00.

The fourth mockup, on the lower right, represents the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company company store in Palmer TN. Clint Crow has volunteered to design and create his exquisite hand crafted hydrocal casting necessary to build this structure.

Other Projects

About two years ago, I came across a nifty Southern Caboose on ebay for about $65. Yes it was cheap but it was also missing the underframe and trucks. I bought it and stowed it away with all my other "future" projects. Last week, while looking for a structure, I stumbled accross the caboose and finally got around to taking a good look at it. Other than the missing underframe, it was in perfect condition so while I had it in hand, I decided to build it a new underframe out of styrene.

The basic floor/underframe was cut from .080 styrene

My research indicated there were several hundred cabooses in this class built over time and that all were gone by 1962. Based upon the only two prototype photos I came accross, the cars were built with truss rod underframes. I decided that my model would represent a rebuild, with a new underframe, that lasted into my modeling timeframe, the mid 1970's. This caboose will be perfect for the local serving the mines around Palmer and Coalmont.

The center sill and bolsters were also built from styrene. The coupler assemblies are scale size Kadee's

Unfortunately, while I did find a nice set of Kadee caboose trucks in my "stash", I couldn't find any AB brake sets so here it sits. It should probably have a tool box too. This caboose is going to be painted a shade of oxide red which is appropriate for the period 1962-69.