shortliner Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 Picked up Continental Modeller this morning, and the first article is Joachin, Virginia (previewed on last months free DVD) - a coal hauling road. Yesterday I followed a link to the new Modell Railroade 4-part build of their new Railroad model - which happens to be a Virginian coal hauling road! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 I hope the MR project hasn't taken wind from Peter North's layout, and am looking forward to seeing it at Nottingham in March. But should this co-encidence continue, maybe we'll get an Interurban fruit hauler in March's Model Railroader..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 I was both amazed and delighted to see Kalmbach choose such an obscure prototype to model. The Virginian was a remarkable railroad, built to do precisely one thing: move coal from Virginia and West Virginia to the port of Norfolk at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. BIG steam, long coal drags on a line that was mountainous on the west end and flatter than a billiard table on the east end. Built late (relatively speaking) and thus built to very high engineering standards, very much like the Clinchfield. It was famous for its Triplex engine (a bust), its electrification over the Blue Ridge (very successful) and for two classes of steam. The AGs were essentially copies of the C&O Allegheny engines (the 2-6+6-6 beasts) and for the class AE 2-10+10-2 Mallets. The AEs were true Mallets with high and low pressure cylinders. When built at Alco in New York they were shipped disassembled, with the low pressure cylinders in gondolas. You see, the low pressure cylinders were 48" - yes, four feet - in bore, and when mounted to the locomotives wouldn't clear on the route from Alco to the Virginian. When starting in simple mode, they made 176,000 pounds of tractive effort; in compound that fell off to a mere 147,200 lbs! They weren't fast but they'd pull pretty much anything at 15 mph...a true drag freight era locomotive. When the N&W took over the Virginian in 1960, most of the east end of the railroad was abandoned - it went from no place to no where by way of nothing. But the west end remained in service, with the empties heading west on the stiffer grades of the older N&W line, and loads east on the better built Virginian. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pointstaken Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Craig, Interesting information about the articulated locos. Thanks for that. My mental image of the Virginian is of the 1948 Motor-generator electrics in Lewis's "Handbook of American Locomotives" (1953 I believe). Dennis Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Craig, Does the railroad museum still exist at Roanoke? If I remember (from the early 90's) an example of one of the Virginian electric locos there? I may be mistaken 'cos I did not have a lot of time. I do remember something. I met up with the SVP and General Counsel of a major record company in Roanoke. Here's a man with a house in London, another at the foot of the Matterhorn, boys at school at Harrow, collects (real) Taxi Cabs and commutes to work in a Silver Cloud. Looking for lunch in Roanoke we ended up a something called something to do with "sizzler". Standing in line with him and (equally expensive) Wife with a plastic tray loading up on food was interesting (actually they enjoyed it). He was like a little kid at the Museum because they also had a small collection of Cabs plus a GG1 which he literally climbed all over. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Pete, yes the museum's still in Roanoke. The electric is one of the EL-C class, the class that was sold on to the New Haven where they were called EF-4s...NH into Penn Central and on into Conrail where they were called E-33s. And for no good reason, a note of regional pronounciation. "NORFOLK" in the southeastern Virginia (aka Southside Virginia)/northeastern North Carolina area is not pronounced "NOR-folk". Instead, it's properly pronounced NAW-fuk. The accent from that area is fairly inscrutable to visitors - I literally had to translate for a visitor from Iowa one day when he was talking to a Southsider. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 And for no good reason, a note of regional pronounciation. "NORFOLK" in the southeastern Virginia (aka Southside Virginia)/northeastern North Carolina area is not pronounced "NOR-folk". Instead, it's properly pronounced NAW-fuk. The accent from that area is fairly inscrutable to visitors - I literally had to translate for a visitor from Iowa one day when he was talking to a Southsider. Interesting, and remarkably like the local pronunciation of the name of the UK county as it happens (though that might be rendered NAR-fuk I suppose)... Adam Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I hope the MR project hasn't taken wind from Peter North's layout, and am looking forward to seeing it at Nottingham in March. But should this co-encidence continue, maybe we'll get an Interurban fruit hauler in March's Model Railroader..... Well as the Photographer for CM hasn't been in touch with me yet, there's no danger of a Soo Line Stabling Yard appearing in MR any time soon..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Well as the Photographer for CM hasn't been in touch with me yet, there's no danger of a Soo Line Stabling Yard appearing in MR any time soon..... CM will try to oblige and get a layout to tie-in with a show appearance (Joachin) is at St. Albans, and luckily CM accepted my own photos. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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