Wooden Rail Project

[ZapperJet]

Hi all,

I thought I'd start a thread for my ongoing wood rail project. Basically, my idea is to make locos, stock, trackage, trestle, and trackside objects for a wooden rail service, used in logging of course.

First off, I've gotten a wood rail loco in Trainz. It's based off the Madera Sugarpine 0-4-0T Geared locomotive, and adapted with spoked, wide rimmed wheels. Gear ratio is 4:1.

Render:



in Trainz:





I'm planning on making a #2 locomotive with a greenish tint. After that, I'll make some trackage and trestle-age.

Cheerio,
John

[Pencil]

Sounds like a neat project, John!

[stealthsteam]

This looks buteful John!

Brandon

[nwhitney]

Nice little loco. Looking foward to what you come up with.
Norm

[Col Hogan]

Cheerio John

Looks very nice and would probably accomodate those small mines too.
Oh, and BTW, is "trestle-age" what I think it is ? lolol (roflmao)

(don't tell anyone I just said that . . . )
Ken

[thegrindre]

Hmmm, we have foliage, track-age so why not trestle-age. LOLOLOL

[ZapperJet]

Hi guys,

Here's a mini update. Rick reminded me that I needed to make some pole road trackage, here's a preview:



Cheerio,
John

[nwhitney]

Looks good.

[thegrindre]

OOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Yeah, John. That's cooool.

Rick

[Col Hogan]

Those poles have to be some very special hardwood. Seems to me the weight
of the locos and cars would keep them cracked. I'm curious what the process
was to make them straight and how they attached to the ties. HHmmmmmmm.

Ken

[thegrindre]

Well, Ken, not all pole roads used ties. A little Internet research will show that stakes were used to keep them in line and not all were perfectly straight either.
All but the smallest of engines ran on them but mostly horse drawn 'locos' were used.

Have fun,

[thegrindre]

Thought I might add these two shot for those of you who may be interested. You can find lots more on the Internet.

poleroad.jpg (59.85 KiB) Viewed 65133 times

PoleRoad2.jpg (101.35 KiB) Viewed 65130 times

[ZapperJet]

Also be aware that they crawled along at a VERY slow pace. The idea for a pole road (not a squared wooden railroad) was that one was able to actually get the logs to the milling site, not to get them there quickly. Often pole roads functioned without rolling stock, save for the engine, and would drag the logs along the ground in between the poles. (The pole road engines were very regularly made from donkey engines with added driver sets, often driven by a chain and sprocket system) The logs would be carried a relatively short distance to an area known as "the landing". This section functioned similar to a coal transfer station by having the log road next to and above a steel road or squared wood road, onto which the logs could be rolled off onto disconnect cars to be hauled away on a much longer stretch.

Cheerio,
John