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Bridgton & Saco River RR

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Bridgton & Saco River RR

Category Archives: Layout Design

Railway Radii

08 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design, Reference, Right of Way

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Digging for information continues, and I have had my head buried in many old documents of late, a year’s worth of newspapers in the last three weeks actually, and that will continue for some time.

A few weeks back, at Terry Smith’s prompting, I dug out my copy of the 1888 Scientific America article on the B&SR and referenced a change in my layout design with respect to superelevation of the rails. At the same time I located a later article pertaining to the use of narrow gauge railroads on the front lines during war time. The B&SR was once again referenced.

Like the first (1888 Sci Am), the 1920 Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers article references tight radii, at least per standard gauge standards. Scientific America mentions a radius of 20 degrees and the ASCE article states, on page 664, a radius of 36 degrees was in use on the alignment, in addition to the 20 degree, as well as an average speed of greater than 20 MPH.

The 36 degree curvatures has not, to date, matched any markings on the Valuation maps or the Harrison surveys, so I am thinking that this may have been the radius of the curve (or curves) into the Forest Mills facility. I am not sure if this spur constitutes “the alignment,” as the author states, if such references the main line only. The Harrison survey includes radii of less than 20 degrees, including a 23 degree radius as part of the Y compound curvature departing Bridgton yard and 25 degrees in the proposed village yard.

Looking at the Valuation map V2-1 and map obtained from the Registry of Deeds, the radius of the ROW preceding the Forest Mills spur is about 14.5 degrees and, if the map is even close to being accurate, the radius departing the main line is sharp. Quite frankly, it looks tighter than 36 degrees, however I have not pulled out the drafting equipment yet to approximate the radius.

For those still pondering the question of how tight of a radius is OK for a 2-footer, the following real world examples may help, with approximate scale radii, keeping in mind that the tightest verified radius on the main line was 23 degrees:

  • 16 deg = 358 ft = 89″ (O) = 49″ (HO)
  • 20 deg = 286 ft = 72″ (O) = 40″ (HO)
  • 23 deg = 249 ft = 62″ (O) = 34″ (HO)
  • 25 deg = 229 ft = 57″ (O) = 32″ (HO)
  • 36 deg = 159 ft = 40″ (O) = 22″ (HO)

There is anecdotal information that locomotive #7 had to back into the Harrison corn shop spur due to the tightness of the curvature. Whatever radii you choose for your line, make sure you don’t have to run Billerica and Bedford cab-forward, unless that’s your preferred style.

Forest Mills Spur Referenced

09 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design, Reference

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Earlier today a deed within the Cumberland Real Property Records was located which happens to reference the Forest Mills spur, mentioned in a previous post. The property transfer from Sarah Harmon to the B&SR defines the lot, in part, through:

Commence at an iron pipe driven on the Easterly line of said Company’s said location and nearly opposite to where the side track leading to the Forest Mills Company’s coal yard leaves the main track…

The 1910 transfer, dated two years or so prior to the map discovered recently, is retained in the Registry’s Book 867, page 326.

With this further definition that the spur existed and led to a coal yard for the Forest Mills Woolen factory, I will be revising my track plan to include the additional track.

Superelevation

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design, Reference, Right of Way

≈ 1 Comment

In the course of other on-going research, Terry Smith reminded me of the February 11, 1888 Scientific American article written about the Bridgton and Saco. I had been remiss in reviewing my copy of this publication prior to giving my MARPM presentation this year, as it would have allowed me to provide better information on the use of superelevation on the railroad.

For those researching designs and information for their own layouts, superelevation is the practice of making the outer rail higher than the inner rail, within a curve, in order to decrease or eliminate the lateral (outward) pressure on the rails and to avoid the danger of derailment. This can be accomplished with a very simple mathematical equation, which I provide an example of below.

Within the presentation, I had commented that I would build my layout using 45 MPH as the railroad’s design speed, with this number being drawn from a comment Ernest Ward made within his biography “My First Sixty Years in Harrison, ME” (pg 16):

Fastest speed recorded, Number 5 with two passenger cars – three and one-fourth miles in four minutes.

This equates to 48 MPH, therefore the use of 45 MPH. What is missing from the statement is where this show of speed occurred. It is unlikely that this was an average speed on the line, or even over the majority of the line. It is more likely this was exhibited on a (relatively) straight portion of the line.

The extra bit of information I was reminded of when reviewing the Scientific American (Vol. 58) article was in relation to an actual exhibition of the railroad’s capabilities to visitors from Central and South America:

The visitors were disembarked at the beginning of the 16 deg. curve, and, despite their fears and misgivings when Mansfield, who chaperoned the party, told them the train should round that sharp arc at a speed of 25 miles an hour, the thing was done before their very eyes.

The equation to calculate superelevation, from my 1908 reference book on railroad engineering is:

e = (G’ * v^2) / (g * R)

where,

  • e = superelevation, in feet;
  • G’ = horizontal distance between the rail head centers, in feet;
  • R = radius of curvature, in feet;
  • v = velocity of train, in feet per second;
  • g = acceleration due to gravity (32.174 ft/s^2)

The distance between the rails for a two footer is 24 inches, and the rail head width for 30 lb ASCE rail is 1 11/16 inches, per LB Foster. This sets G’ equal to 2.14 feet. The radius of curvature given in the Scientific America demonstration is 16 degrees, or 358 feet radius, using R = 5,730/D, a fairly accurate conversion equation. The velocity of the train George Mansfield had run by was 25 MPH, or 36.7 ft/s.

We mix all of these numbers up in the equation and get a superelevation, in feet:

.25 ft = [2.14 ft * (36.7 ft/s)^2] / (32.174 ft/s^2 * 358 ft)

The rails on this particular curve referenced likely had 3 inches of superelevation, resulting in a “lean” into the curve of approximately seven degrees. This would equate to 1/16 inch rail elevation for those of us modeling in O scale, and 0.034 inches for those practicing the HO arts. Not too shabby.

Within my MARPM presentation, I used scale radii (48″, 60″, 72″, etc.) converted to real world curvatures (a 72″ scale radius equals a real world 20 degree curve). In light of this “new” information, I will recalculate my curvature elevations using a 25 or 30 MPH design speed, rather than the “more modelgenic” numbers I had created using a 45 MPH design speed.

Forest Mills Service

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design, Reference, Right of Way

≈ 3 Comments

The Forest Mills Company was a good customer of the railroad; taking receipt of coal and exporting “any or all products of wool or cotton or both in the town of Bridgton,” according to the 1768-1968 Bridgton history book.

As the facility grew, additional energy was needed to supplement that which was coming from the Eighth and Ninth power sites, on which the Mills were situated. A siding and coal trestle were stated to have been built to deliver the fuel around 1900 (Jones, 55) to “facilitate the unloading of coal and other factory supplies.”

Forest Mills Siding & Trestle (National Archives)

Forest Mills Siding & Trestle (National Archives at College Park, MD)

Jones mentions (pg 67) 1,200 tons of coal were delivered to the Company in 1905. As the Company shed the wood working leases at the very end of the 1800’s, it is possible, likely, that all of this coal was destined for the woolen mills located at the corners of Kansas, Mill (also Kansas, current day) and Oak streets.

The railroad used half as much coal as the Mill did within the 1905 year to power five locomotives, running six days a week. I am not sure if the Mill ran six or seven days a week, but they did run eleven hours a day, according to the 1880 insurance map documents in the American Textile History Museum’s collection.

So how much is 1,200 tons? Assuming Bituminous coal has an average bulk density of 50 lb/cu ft (it runs from 42 to 57 lb/cu ft), it was 48,000 cubic feet (1,778 cu yd), or the equivalent of 127 modern day triaxle dump trucks (@ 14 cu yd/full capacity) making a visit throughout the year.

14 cu yd Triaxle Dump Truck

14 cu yd Triaxle Dump Truck

So one of those problems I have been struggling with has been the distance from the Mills which the sidings were built. Taking a moment to reference Google Maps and plot out a path to Mill #2, which had the boilers, was approximately 2,000 feet from the coal trestle. There has been much stated about shoveling coal from a standard gauge car to two or three narrow gauge “gondolas” right beside it, but who wants to drag that much coal 0.4 miles from the trestle to the Mill?

Approximate locations of Forest Mill #2 and trestle, siding (Google Maps)

Approximate locations of Forest Mill #2 and trestle, siding (Google Maps)

Well, the answer may have materialized during my searches yesterday. I was searching for a copy of the original Harrison extension map referenced by Bill Jensen in his “Harrison Interlude” article (Short & Narrow Rails #15) within the Maine Registry of Deeds and, not only did I come away with a digital copy of that map, I also located a Forest Mills map.

Likely generated when the Forest Mills facilities were shuttered and put up for sale in 1911, per the 1768-1968 Bridgton history, the deed map of that year shows a rail line extending from just westward of the trestle and siding to Mill #2 along the ~100 ft wide sliver of property Forest Mills retained when it sold the areas around the complex for residential and other business.

Forest Mills 1912 Deed (higher resolution map available from ME Registry of Deeds)

Forest Mills 1912 Deed (higher resolution map available from ME Registry of Deeds)

I am on the hunt for some corroboration. The Sanborn insurance maps from 1907 and 1914 do not show this spur, but the insurance maps are known to be incorrect in some details. The 1916 valuation map shows the siding and trestle, and the Forest Mills property intersecting the ROW, so the spur may have been removed prior to 1916, possibly shortly after the deed was created as the railroad no longer had a reason to maintain the switch and spur.

It also may not have been included on the valuation map because it is entirely on Forest Mills property, with the exception of the switch, of course, but this is unlikely. USGS topographical maps covering the Harrison extension area, the Norway 15 minute quadrangle, are only available for 1896 and 1949, missing the period I’m after (he Quads do show the railroad on other maps, so if you are curious, the collection is available for review here).

The Forest Mills facilities were acquired by and served the American Woolen Company around 1918 per the June 1919  copy of “United States Investor” and produced cassimere (old spelling of cashmere), which is mentioned in their 1921 publication, possibly a company annual report of sorts. They may not have needed the energy coal supplied and could get by with just water power in producing the lighter weight material, also a reason to have pulled up the tracks, if they still existed, or not have them relaid.

I don’t have all of the answers, but this map gives me more sound information on moving that much coal to the Mill, and this is prompting me to change my track plan. I like the notion of another company-specific spur on the narrow gauge. The Hall & Hamblin grist mill, later Ingalls & Morrison feed mill, in the Bridgton yard had its own spur to provide coal service, so why not the woolen mills?

Now how did Pondicherry get their 2,200 tons of coal…

Have a good new year, everyone.

Camper’s Wonderland

26 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design

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Beside the logging activities located around the Perley’s Mills station I want to model at least one of the regional camps boys/girls camps. Ward wrote about the children who came to Bridgton and the surrounding areas to attend summer camp and placing one in proximity to the station will prompt passenger stops through the end of September as the campers exited the area at the end of summer and started preparations for the new school year.

I have photos of a few of the Bridgton and North Bridgton camps, but I was on the hunt for a camp in the Perley’s hamlet area. A Google search for local camps turned up a digital copy of the 1910 Maine Register Or State Year-book and Legislative Manual. On page 676 it cites two summer camps local to the station & the Denmark area: Wyonegonic (girls), Wiona (boys), listing Chas. E. Cobb as the proprietor. The boys camp is about 5 miles North of the girls’, on the East side of Moose Pond, so the Southerly camp, ~4.5 miles from the station, is the likely modeling candidate.

The first girls camp in the area offered a 1 month stay at a boys camp in 1892. According to Maine History Online, “Many early camps were based on the idea that overcoming the ills of contemporary society (urban and industrial problems) required helping youths experience a more “primitive life.”

“Wyo,” established in 1902, consisted of three camp sites and was one of three girls-only camps in the region that year. The photos I have or have reviewed show the girls learning horseback riding, first aid, archery, swimming and boating. With the logging going on at the time, I wonder if there were any lessons taught about deforestation around the camps. Per a reference below, tents were not replaced by cabins until 1929.

Wyonegonic Girls Camp, 1902 ad (copyright expired)

Wyonegonic Girls Camp, 1902 ad (copyright expired)

A relatively recent article about Wyo states that transportation to the camp in the early years was by barge, yet one a few years later cited the use of the railroad. Without another camp identified in close proximity to Perley’s, and since this is about building a scale railroad, I will lean towards the article which references the RR and pull one of the Wyo girl’s camp sites within reasonable distance of the station for modelgenic purposes.

Wyonegonic is an active camp today, operating from June until August, and continues to be a popular destination. Deposits for attendance are required by November 1st of the preceding year.

Logging Design Element

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design

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In a previous post, the freight records from 1908 were presented. Within I commented that Perley’s Mills would be a location on the future layout, with the possibility of excluding Sandy Creek to give Perley’s the space is deserves.

Although Perley’s is not a large station, it is the area surrounding which warrants space. The 270+ tons of export recorded leaving this area is mostly sawed logs, collected at “runways” nearby. Although other sources have commented that this is a winter activity, records from March indicate logging occurred well into Spring at the very least.

1916 Valuation Map, Perley's Mills (National Archives and Records Administration)

1916 Valuation Map, Perley’s Mills (National Archives and Records Administration; copyright expired)

Documents at the Bridgton Historical Society show tens of thousands of feet of logs, of various species, collected and delivered to the Hiram sawmill owned by A. & P. B. Young near Bridgton Junction. The records also show the owners of the property on which the logging was occurring. When combined with property ownership markings on the 1916 Valuation Maps the logging locations can be established.

A&PB Young Logging Record (Cropped from BHS resource)

A&PB Young Logging Record (Cropped from BHS resource)

As this image from 1939 shows, hauling lumber from the Bridgton area continued for decades. With logging being a prominent industry of the time, I will be researching the equipment used during this time to better represent the scene. A “galamander” or two (see pg. 20 of “Bridgton” by Ned Allen) will need to be placed near the Bridgton lumber mills, as they brought the logs in while the railroad shipped out the cut lumber.

Copies of the Bridgton and Saco River RR valuation maps can be obtained directly from the National Archives. Visitors may obtain free digital scans, however there is a limit on the number of large format scans the cartography department will make for a given person each day. I had to make three visits in order to obtain copies of all. For those unable to visit, paid services are available to have copies made and delivered to yourself. Contact the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD, directly for more information.

The Visitor Experience

30 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by Rick in Layout Design

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What might one see as they ascend the staircase to the attic layout? What might give a visitor a good frame of reference that they are being transported back more than 100 years to 1907. What is going to indicate they are in Maine, rather than Maryland?

The plans for the walls of the stairwell is not too different than what others have done, and that is to line it with period paraphernalia. I plan to draw from my collection of photographs, post cards, texts and newspaper and select a few great examples of the time, place and lifestyle and have those enlarged and mounted to the wall. Joining them will be my collection of B&SR prints Bill Shelley had commissioned as part of the “Return of the Rails” campaign to bring the narrow gauge equipment to Bridgton. Interspersed will be various artifacts, such as a North Bridgton pennant and a slice of 30 lb rail I have buried in a box somewhere…I need to dig that out in the not too distant future.

Once in the layout room, I am contemplating a “pine fresh” smell, hopefully without the use of pine shaped car fresheners, and ambient sounds keyed to the day/night room lighting.

A final thought with respect to the life style and work of the area, I plan to build interiors for several of the buildings which abut the layout edge, showing the woolen looms, woodworking and canning processes of the day. Inclusion of the building interiors affords additional research avenues.

Signature Elements

28 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by Rick in Layout Design, Operations

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Furthering the Concept Phase, I generated a list of the signature elements I would like to have on the layout. The first elements, logically, were the yards, plus the locomotive watering hole:

  • MeC interchange & station
  • Bridgton yard & station
  • Harrison yard & station
  • Water stop at Hancock Lake

Following these, I wanted places for the freight carried on the line to originate and terminate:

  • Lumber & woolen mills
  • Timber harvesting
  • Canneries
  • Other industries (the catch-all for future needs)

I couldn’t forget about the people, whether it be those riding the rails or those living, working and visiting the area, a way to express the life of the are is desired, as well as the environment:

  • Forests, lakes, greenery & space
  • Camps, Farming, Cattle, Orchards
  • Steamboat landing
  • Bridgton town
  • Harrison village

Finally, within the villiage, I wish to include a model of my G. G. Grandfather’s house, which wasn’t too far from the line.

The joy of design for me comes from the challenge of fitting as much as possible into a space, without damaging the functionality and maintainability, or in our case, operating the layout. We will see how things pan out.

Transport by Rail

26 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by Rick in Historical, Layout Design, Operations, Reference

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Within my Conceptual Design phase, the focus was on defining what the railroad did, which would impact my scale representation and how it operates. From the Concept Design phase would evolve a set of requirements, which most refer to Givens & Druthers.

After attempting to create a Less than Carload (LCL) card system three or four years ago now, the question of what I was transporting kept surfacing. The card system plan was set aside and, as we had recently moved to the Baltimore area, I started rummaging though boxes for my books. Over time the following list was generated:

  • Inbound
    • Passengers & Baggage
    • Mail & Express
    • Feeds
    • Coal & Kerosene
    • Cotton
    • Machinery
    • Personal goods
  • Outbound
    • Passengers & Baggage
    • Mail & Express
    • Woolens
    • Furniture
    • Lumber
    • Apples
    • Canned Corn
    • Firewood
    • Barrels
    • Dairy

The items on this list were extracted from the contents of the following sources:

“The Bridgton & Harrison as I Remember It”
Dick Andrews
Extra Narrow Gauge Junction
Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette
July/Aug 1980.

“My First Sixty Years in Harrison, Maine”
Ernest E. Ward
1966
Cardinal Printing Co., Denmark, Maine

“The Story of North Bridgton, Maine”
Guy M. Monk
1958
Self-published

“Two Feet to the Lakes”
Robert C. Jones
1993
Pacific Fast Mail, Edmonds, Washington

Design Assumptions

24 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by Rick in Layout Design, Operations

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After a brief overview of the Maine narrow gauge railroads to start off the September Mid-Atlantic RPM clinic, I presented my Design Assumptions. This section started with assumptions I made about the railroad quite some time ago, those I generated within the first few years of selecting the B&SR to model and after obtaining copies of the requisite books, including Moody’s “The Maine Two Footers” (original version) and “Busted and Still Running” by Meade. In a rather familiar fashion, most of the publications in my collection at that time focused on the yards and the state of the railroad in its demise. These books and acquired materials formed most of the impressions of the line. This is typical, in my opinion, of most publications until recently.

The general assumption I could walk away with from these sources was that everything else between this yard and the next was not that important and probably considered boring by railfans and modelers, and the stops on the line were for passengers and mail only. As my interest changed to operations, the stuff in between mattered more. Research beyond the books was needed. The later addition, and significant exception in my opinion, was Jones’ “Two Feet to the Lakes.” Luckily my grandparents had obtained a few copies, and had them signed by Robert, of which I received one. This reference started to open up the rest of the line and give me subjects to search out.

Along the operations interest, I had also assumed that the B&SR handled only Less than Carload (LCL) freight. Some of this research has been presented thus far, in the Freight Logs, and I will expand more on this topic in later posts.

Other assumptions I jumped to, based upon the way things were done on the Maine Central, was that the B&SR operated on Time Table and Train Order (TT&TO) procedures through out its existence and operated by other “current” railroad practices. The B&SR did operate under TT&TO after the MEC bought the line, it did not outside of that ownership. While Ernest Ward does expressly state that the RR did not use TOs during his time on the line, I am assuming the paperwork (TO below) was eliminated when the town reacquired ownership from the MEC.

B&SR Train Order, Courtesy Bridgton Historical Society

B&SR Train Order, Courtesy Bridgton Historical Society

Regarding the operations, as mentioned in a previous post, I had assumed the bells and whistles were as we know them today, but research has shown otherwise. The State of Maine laws provide interesting insight into how railroading in the state evolved.

One final assumption is Sanborn Fire Insurance maps are correct. The simple answer is that they are not, which others have likewise commented on, and should be taken with a pinch of salt and checked against photographic evidence. More on this later.

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