Missouri Pacific Railroad's Bagnell Branch
|
|
||
|
Welcome to my HO scale layout of Missouri Pacific's Bagnell Branch. The layout represents the summer
of 1954 in the central Missouri Ozarks. This is my fourth layout. The first, like most of us,
was a Lionel train set with the track screwed down to a 4' x 8' piece of plywood when I was 10 or 11 years old.
It was painted grass green with a watchman that came out when the train came by (which was pretty often).
No switches, just hours of fun watching it go around in circles. My two brothers and I would over fill the
liquid smoke, filling the room with small clouds - much to our mother's dismay.
My second and third layouts were based on the Mopac's White River Division. The prototype railroad
had five tunnels and fifty-two bridges and tons of scenery. These never got beyond the 'Plywood Pacific' stages
(due to two moves from St. Louis to Omaha) I did learn how to gather prototype information from Sanborn maps, ICC
evaluation maps, gathering photos and site visits.
After not having scenery on the previous layouts, I decided this next one would. My
kids, now adults, had never really seen a 'real' model railroad - just trains traveling over gray homasote and plywood.
I had my second chance with the grandkids; complete a model railroad like my kids had seen in the
magazines all these years. This layout would be smaller (not my initial choice but Mrs. D had strung
barbwire between me and the finished basement) so I regrouped and 'claimed' the furnace room as my layout room.
I decided to model a branchline with a turn-around local and make the track plan 'point to
point'. Crews operating the train had to figure out their switch moves in advance of leaving the
origin yard. A branchline operations was attractive in that it provided a chance to model my favorite
railroad and to operate a relaxed 'backwoods' atmosphere.
One summer my father and I traveled the former Bagnell Branch and photographed and measured
the 1881 depot at Olean and 1912 depot at Lohmann. The feed mills at Lohmann, Olean and Russellville
were intact as well as a couple of railroad bridges. Since the line was abandoned in 1961 it wasn't too hard to follow
the old right-of-way. My wife's family farm was 9 miles from Eldon so I was in the area during
summers on family reunions and float trips down the Osage River. These trips gave me many of the ideas for trying to
capture the the beautiful Ozark scenery that would be incorporated on the layout.
Needless to say I was hooked as you can see from the following pages.
Charlie Duckworth
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
