04-11-2012, 08:40 PM
Gerd I think you said in a previous post that you were not trying to be an exact copy of the real railroad but I thought I would throw this out there anyway 
. To more closely match the real routes of the Southern and the GCRR the fiddle yard should be Bryson City, the passing siding that says BC yard is where Topton belongs, the Nantahala Valley/Gorge is in the right place and Robbinsville is in the right place and Murphy belongs where Topton is now. The Southern worked from Bryson City west to Murphy on the night shift and from Bryson City east to Waynesville on the day shift so even thought it was the Murphy branch which was from Asheville west to Murphy the area you picked never had the cars in the train from Bryson City to Asheville. What this means is you are actually pretty close on the size of your trains. The Southern normally had about 5-10 cars when it left Bryson City and the GCRR usually only had 1-3 cars. Motive power for the Southern was usually a matched set of 2 Geeps and either the 3 truck shay or a SW-12 for the GCRR. The Southern had a baywindow caboose with no cupula (because of the tunnel at Marble maybe) and the GCRR had a traditional style wood caboose. From the late 40's on most of the traffic for the Southern was pulpwood. In the last years of the branch they had several pulpwood yards, a feed customer and two pallet companys and one furniture company. That said only the pulpwood yards were regular customers with the pallet companies and the feed company being on again and off again and the furniture company maybe once a month or so.
. To more closely match the real routes of the Southern and the GCRR the fiddle yard should be Bryson City, the passing siding that says BC yard is where Topton belongs, the Nantahala Valley/Gorge is in the right place and Robbinsville is in the right place and Murphy belongs where Topton is now. The Southern worked from Bryson City west to Murphy on the night shift and from Bryson City east to Waynesville on the day shift so even thought it was the Murphy branch which was from Asheville west to Murphy the area you picked never had the cars in the train from Bryson City to Asheville. What this means is you are actually pretty close on the size of your trains. The Southern normally had about 5-10 cars when it left Bryson City and the GCRR usually only had 1-3 cars. Motive power for the Southern was usually a matched set of 2 Geeps and either the 3 truck shay or a SW-12 for the GCRR. The Southern had a baywindow caboose with no cupula (because of the tunnel at Marble maybe) and the GCRR had a traditional style wood caboose. From the late 40's on most of the traffic for the Southern was pulpwood. In the last years of the branch they had several pulpwood yards, a feed customer and two pallet companys and one furniture company. That said only the pulpwood yards were regular customers with the pallet companies and the feed company being on again and off again and the furniture company maybe once a month or so.
Mike
Sent from my pocket calculator using two tin cans and a string
Sent from my pocket calculator using two tin cans and a string