'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

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PacificCoastBorax99
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:03 pm

'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by PacificCoastBorax99 »

Howdy all! Boy it's certainly been a while, hasn't it? ;)

I've been a bit busy as of late, sharpening up my route-making skills and recreating a model railway layout I've found on the internet of the Tonopah & Tidewater/Bullfrog Goldfield/Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad route between Springdale and Goldfield, NV, originally created by a Nevin W.

Here's how the route looks as of now.

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Springdale, NV, with a mine and the mill for the Springdale Mining & Milling Co. just across the tracks from the depot.

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The Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad and Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad followed nearly the same route with one another going north to Goldfield from Beatty. However, when they merged in 1914, they had to abandon portions of their routes and knit the two halves of their routes together in order to save costs.

Parts of the original roadbeds have been included in the layout, as seen above, with the BGRR coming up from Springfield and going to the left, whereas the LV&T came up from the right and we follow their tracks now to Bonnie Claire and Goldfield.

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The town of Bonnie Claire, NV, with just three dilapidated buildings on Main Street, a old freight depot, a massive water tower and what I believe to be a mill on the north-east end.

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The tracks continue through the mountains past Bonnie Claire, snaking its way through a cut and over a trestle before passing another gold mine en route to Goldfield.

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As seen on the right, are the sidings of the Goldfield Consolidated Milling & Transportation Co., who own and operate a few mines along with a huge reduction sampling works and 100-stamp mill just outside of Goldfield (not enough room to picture it on the layout. :P). By 1916, the Tonopah & Goldfield should've been operating the GCMT's railroad track between the mine and mill. Speaking of the T&G, their tracks crosses over the LV&T further up the line in a diagonal direction (left to Tonopah, right to Goldfield).

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Here we are coming into Goldfield, with the LV&T locomotive facilities here, and a wye for turning around locomotives and cars.

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And finally, the LV&T yard and depot at Goldfield. Center building is the passenger depot, and the one on the left is for freight. On the far right is Main Street, where there are supposed to be some multiple-story buildings. I am hoping to use JointedRails's new downtown buildings they released for Christmas, but for the life of me I can't find them on their website. :P

Of course, since the Tonopah & Tidewater, Bullfrog Goldfield, Las Vegas & Tonopah and Tonopah & Goldfield Railroads are so neglected in the Trainz community and no one's really ever bothered to make proper rolling stock for them, I've had to improvise.

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These are reskins I've done of Bdeanel/Pencil42's V&T #27 to resemble Tonopah & Tidewater's Nos. 9 and 10, as they would've looked around the 1930's or 40's. In the 1910's however, they would've had white lining, which I plan to add on later. Bdaenal's 4-6-0 with the UP 4-4-2 Vanderbelt tender made a nice stand-in for Bullfrog-Goldfield Railroad #12.

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I've also done a few boxcars of the T&T, T&G, along with Santa Fe (1890's era), based off some of Pencil42's splendid-looking wooden boxcars, along with a flatcar and gondola for the Bullfrog Goldfield set to automatically number themselves after ones that were actually on the BG roster. Managed to find a list of what they had, they had a very small amount of rolling stock which can all easily be made for Trainz. ;)

Colorado71 and Shortline2 have also made some nice coaches which I've managed to reskin into T&T Combine #12 and Smoker Car #22.

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(The gondola prototype isn't accurate to the real ones... but at least it matches the one seen on the layout. I shall make a reskin with a suitable prototype later)
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(Right shape of windows, but its supposed to be 4-wheel trucked instead of 6-wheel trucked, that's because I have not yet been able to fit the right sort of trucks on the car at the moment. Will try to fix it later.)

Well, that's all I got for now. I will be adding on stuff here and there before it's final state. Of course, I will be releasing it when it's done, but I'm not sure about the rolling stock though, may have to get permission to do that and find a site to host them on. Anyways, hope you guys like it!

If you would like to compare with the real layout, go to this website:
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/32154
Pencil
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Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by Pencil »

That looks great! I picked up the Tonopah & Tidewater book last fall, and thought it would be a fun railroad to model (that and the Las Vegas and Tonopah). Parts of the LV&T are still visible on the road between Las Vegas and Goldfield...
PacificCoastBorax99
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:03 pm

Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by PacificCoastBorax99 »

Pencil wrote: Tue Jan 30, 2018 9:03 am That looks great! I picked up the Tonopah & Tidewater book last fall, and thought it would be a fun railroad to model (that and the Las Vegas and Tonopah). Parts of the LV&T are still visible on the road between Las Vegas and Goldfield...
I'll tell you what Pencil, the T&T is my absolute favorite desert railroad of all time. I myself have been dying to see the whole route created in Trainz, as much as I do of my hometown of Daggett.

I have an extensive research database on those railroads, including plenty of books, photos, maps and rolling stock rosters and scale drawings to make this possible, so if you ever find the time to start on such a project to make them in Trainz, do let me know!

Oh, and if you also have Facebook, I run a group dedicated to the history of the Death Valley and Tonopah region railroads, "Railroads of Death Valley". We have all sorts of stuff on there for those railroads which will be more than useful for resource material, and I am currently in the making of some research files to go on there. We also have some bits on other connecting Nevada railroads, perhaps you would like to share with us some of your input on the Virginia & Truckee and the Carson & Colorado? ;)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RailroadsofDeathValley
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rogueranger1993
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Location: southwestern Utah

Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by rogueranger1993 »

Very nice, will love to see this once it's done. I've been working on a fictional route of my own in Trainz 12 to get back into the seat after nearly two years of inactivity on my end - spurred on by my acquisition of a copy of TANE Platinum Edition during a Christmas sale for just $25! I'm a bit unsatisfied with it though (I made some mixed decisions that I'm not pleased with early on, and it's bit me in the ass :oops: ), so while I may post some screenies here I'll probably move on to building something else in TANE soon :roll: . Right now, my main issue is trying to figure out the issue I keep having downloading speedtrees made by Mcguirel into TANE for the DurangotosilvertonTANE route by Sek_Hakuna :evil: ... once I get that sorted out, I hope to find game settings more ideal than the stock ones and start working on the railroad again! :D
Life is what happens when you're making other plans...
Trainboi
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Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by Trainboi »

I've been more than a bit absent from this forum, but one thing in particular caught my eye, specifically the BG #12 skin. Everthing else looks good as a rule, but there are a couple problems with #12's skin and lining. As delivered she would've been painted olive green and aluminum, and given how short her running life was and how poor the BGRR was, I suspect she never received a completely new coat. The dome lining should also be thinner, and although I'm sympathetic to the fact that the model there doesn't have a wood cab and so you can't do the cab lining correctly, there should be silver edging around the windows, doors, side panel and door panel (where the fillets on the wood cab are). You can pretty clearly make out the lining around the door and on the back of the side panel in this photo:
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PacificCoastBorax99
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Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:03 pm

Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by PacificCoastBorax99 »

Trainboi wrote: Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:12 pm I've been more than a bit absent from this forum, but one thing in particular caught my eye, specifically the BG #12 skin. Everthing else looks good as a rule, but there are a couple problems with #12's skin and lining. As delivered she would've been painted olive green and aluminum, and given how short her running life was and how poor the BGRR was, I suspect she never received a completely new coat. The dome lining should also be thinner, and although I'm sympathetic to the fact that the model there doesn't have a wood cab and so you can't do the cab lining correctly, there should be silver edging around the windows, doors, side panel and door panel (where the fillets on the wood cab are). You can pretty clearly make out the lining around the door and on the back of the side panel in this photo:
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Really? I've got the original specifications and builder's photos for BGRR #11 and #12 (originally built as #13 and #14 respectively), and on the spec sheets it clearly says the engines were originally painted in a black coat with no striping. No color style is applied to the sheet, as with the rest of the T&T engines, which I can confirm to this point that engines Nos. 4 through 10 were all painted in the style #291 olive green and aluminum livery.

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From the extensive studies I've done on the liveries for the T&T, Bullfrog-Goldfield and DVRR locomotives for a research file I've done recently, I can say for certain there has been at least two liveries applied to the BG engines. The first one, of course, was the one Baldwin painted them in before sending them over to Nevada as seen in the builder's photo of #13, but later on they seem to have been painted all black, with white rims around the wheels and possibly a white or silver smokebox around the time the T&T merged with the BG. The same seems to have been applied to T&T engines as well, but they may have had black smokeboxes instead of silver.

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This side view picture of BG #12's cab shows her in her modified livery, as is the same one that you showed in the picture you linked me, but with all due respect, I don't see any silver lining on the sides on the cab like you describe.

If you would like to look at my livery research, you can download it in the link below.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/1ufkxk735 ... veries.pdf

Anyways, for anyone that is interested, I have decided to release the T&T "Nevada Section" layout I made after a few modifications. Download it in the following link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/d64odr0le ... ection.cdp

Rolling stock might come later once I get the appropriate permissions from their original content creators to release them.

Hope you guys enjoy the route! ... as well as this little sneak peek of what might be coming later on. ;)

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Cheers!
Nic
Trainboi
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Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by Trainboi »

I stand corrected on the color issue, but the cab lining is pretty plain in the photo you linked as far as I can see. You'll note the four light-colored stripes around the cab panel, as well as thinner light stripes edging the window sills. I can see why you wouldn't have seen it very visibly on the original picture I showed, but the up-close photo of the cab makes them very clear.
PacificCoastBorax99
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Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by PacificCoastBorax99 »

Trainboi wrote: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:17 am I stand corrected on the color issue, but the cab lining is pretty plain in the photo you linked as far as I can see. You'll note the four light-colored stripes around the cab panel, as well as thinner light stripes edging the window sills. I can see why you wouldn't have seen it very visibly on the original picture I showed, but the up-close photo of the cab makes them very clear.
Late reply, but I honestly was thinking those might be reflection of sunlight on the smoothed edges of the cab-sid planking. Kinda odd for them to paint those lines unconnected on the side of the cab like that, in my opinion... I'll see about updating the model with the white lining if I get some spare time.
PacificCoastBorax99
Posts: 23
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2015 3:03 pm

Re: 'T&T All the Way' to Goldfield, NV (1916) - A HO Scale Trainz Layout

Post by PacificCoastBorax99 »

Double-post, but I just thought I'd let you guys know I've gotten permission from Pencil42 and Colorado71 to release some rolling stock from them I've reskinned to go with this route, they are a T&T boxcar and combine coach #12, the T&G boxcar, BGRR flatcar and gondola.

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Download them all in the link below:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AWpKP ... VItV1ZTJUz
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