Modelling
By
Chris Gilbert
With
a lot of help from
Ben
Greuel, Brian Pawlowski and Bob Menzies
After many years of toying with the idea of
building a proto-freelance layout based on the Wisconsin Central, I’ve finally
come across an real area that is shouting out to be
modelled. As I find switching one of the
most interesting and rewarding parts of model railroading, this should make up
the bulk of my layout’s operation. The
area I’ve settled on is the Menasha yard and industries, which is on the WC’s
The yard, which sees a number of trains each
day pass by to places like Hilbert and
The room available for the layout is tight so
I’ve had to make a few alterations to make the track-plan fit. The western part
of the wye has been removed while the eastern part has been reinstated. The SCA
mill has been moved closer to the yard at and the line to
Before we get started on the detail, a quick note on this
web site:
All links are coloured yellow
and underlined
like this.
They will take you away from this site so please click Back on your web browser to return to this page. To be truthful I couldn’t be bothered setting
up another fancy web site for Yahoo to mess up, I just wanted somewhere to keep
all the information I’m gathering on the area.
Click
here to see
Menasha industry map diagram by Ben Greuel
Click here to see the latest
Industries and freight cars seen on the Banta
line, Menasha
SCA Menasha Mill (5 spots)
SCA Menasha Mill photo by Ben Greuel
SCA Menasha Mill receives boxcars of many designs and
road names plus the odd tank cars. It
seems to depend on which area of the country they receive pulp from at the time
as to which boxcars are seen there. Cars
from Railbox, CP family and CSX have been spotted there recently. Most are used to haul in scrap but ex SOO
plug door cars are used to haul away finished product. The plant also receives chlorine tank
cars. Loaded cars of raw material for
the SCA mill waiting unloading are often left spotted in the yard at Menasha. The QGRY boxcar in the photo is more
than lightly filled with a type of pulp, while the WCCL
car may have recycled paper in it. The WCCL car could well
have come from Paper Valley Recyclers, Forest Island Pulp
and Paper (a pulp and recycled paper broker located in
Plug door cars like these ex SOO, WC 26000 series 7post boxcars and 28000 series, which are available
from SOO
LINE Historical Society and Modellers Choice. To model the chlorine tank car, the closest would be the Atlas 17360 gal tank cars painted grey with the black stripe lettered for HOCX.
BRX Warehouse
Very
occasionally receives WC
27000 series boxcars. This warehouse doesn't get used all that often and the
siding is mainly used for holding spare loaded hopper cars for Sonoco Plastics
Intertape Polymer Group
Intertape Polymer Group photo by Ben Greuel
Receives
covered hoppers (1 spot) and tank cars (3 spots).
The tank cars seen here in the yard are filled with a sort
of glue while the hoppers have something in the line of a corn starch type
material for bonding. Again loaded spare cars for Intertape Polymer are kept in
the yard
at Menasha. The covered
hoppers are presureaid hoppers like this atlas car (Walthers Part # 150-15091,). Tank cars are of the 50' variety usually in black paint.
An Atlas 17360 gal tank car painted black would
do.
Menasha Laminating Plant (2 spots)
Menasha Laminating Plant photo by Ben Greuel
The company manufactures laminated paperboard products used in
furniture, liquid packaging, tote bins, slip sheets and roll protection.
The same type of
boxcars as SCA Menasha Mill mostly, WC
26000 series 7post boxcars
Sonoco Plastics (2 spots)
Sonoco Plastics photo by Ben Greuel
Sonoco
Plastics receives big National Steel Car Plastic Pellet hoppers which were
built especially for hauling plastic pellets from manufacturers to moulding
plants. Cars that are waiting to be spotted at Sonoco Plastics are kept on the
siding by the BRX
warehouse. As seen in this photo of car PSPX
2432, this is owned by Phillips Petroleum Co. These model cars are available from Walthers
Paper Valley Recyclers photo by Ben Greuel
Receive
WC’s sliding door variety of boxcar such as WC 28000 series ACF cars similar to this Atlas ACF 50' Precision Design Ribside Box Car. (Walthers Part # 150-1350) the bottom sill is off but the car is close. Also Branchline Berwick cars in the 47000 series can also show up here.
These cars are loaded here with scrap paper and
go to a lot of the local mills, including the SCA mill. The recycling
firm now has a two track covered area for loading the up to six boxcars, side
by side. Empty
cars awaiting loading at Paper Valley Recycling are kept on the wye near to SCA mill
Banta Corp. (6 spots)
Banta Corp photo by Ben Greuel
Normally
receive printing
paper, in cleaner looking cars, mostly with plug doors like the 26000, 27000
series or a Berwick
47000 series car.
Noffke Lumber (off-line)
Noffke Lumber photo by Ben Greuel
I was not sure about including Noffke Lumber in
the list of industries switched from Menasha yard but after an e-mail from
Brian Pawlowski all is now clear. Brian wrote “The switch into Noffke faces
north toward Menasha, thus the switch job, Y1863, would likely leave his train
of Menasha cars on the Fox River Bridge (over the Menasha fork of the river to
avoid blocking grade crossings on the island by Menasha Utilities), cross the
short swing bridge, back into Noffke to make a spot or pick-up from their short
spur, then retrace his way back to grab the Menasha cars left behind on the
bridge, and proceed onto Menasha Yard.” From the my point of view
this helps complicate the moves in and around the Menasha yard tracks so to
speak, “since the Noffke Lumber car would be in the way, as the switcher worked
the local industries.” I suppose it’s
just like having a 72” caboose in the train.
As Brian puts it “Bottom-line: Noffke Lumber
related cars have justification to come into Menasha yard, then leave again the
same day/operating session when the switch job returns that car to Neenah for
forwarding. It gives an option for a Walthers centerbeam flat car, just about
any double-door boxcar (I've observed single door Berwicks here too - blue car
with white MSDR reporting marks - Mississippi Delta Railroad), or even the new TBOX 60 ft cars which are commonly
used in the US for shipping finished lumber to dealers or just about any other
Athearn-Genesis 60 ft double door box for the same purpose.”
Car Forwarding
Here's
how it used to work, in the good old WC days, the customer would call or fax the local customer service rep with their
requirements. He or she would then make
out a pickup order which would then be added to the computer and then forward
to the train crew as a switch-list.
If this customer was a paper mill, the service rep would call the crew
on duty and they may well go pick-up the car right away if it was hot i.e.
urgent... As the whole area I’m modelling was within yard limits, under WC
non-union rules everyone did everything if needed.
At
the moment I’m trying to work out a way of generating a switch-list. More on this later.
Motive power seen on
the Banta line, Menasha
It
seems that most types of Wisconsin Central’s four axel motive power have been,
seen on these tracks at sometime or other. They include units from
SW1500
units may well have been seen around on the weekends as they took care
of some of the local jobs when they were done in the yard, but the Menasha
switch job historically rated a single road switcher locomotive. WC
switched this yard with a GP40 during the summer of 2004 and GP35m's were often
used in earlier times. The area probably also saw the six motor 581-590 series SDL39's
It
is highly doubtful that the SD35
#2500 was ever sent down this way. By the time the line
to
Ready-to-run Motive
power available in HO
Atlas
currently offers a ready to run WC 3000 series GP40 and the sole WC SD35 in
their range, while both the Kato and Life-Like’s Proto 2000 range carries a
SD45’s. A GP9m 1501-08 series geep is available from Walthers.
In
the past P2K produced a WC 700 series GP30 where as Athearn offered SW1500’s
and F45’s in WC colours.
To model the remaining types would require a little
work but mainly repainting
1200
series SW1200’s and 2250 series GP30’s could use P2K models as a start. The 700
series and 2550 series GP35’s plus the 4000 series GP35m’s could be modelled
from Athearn’s new GP35. While the 2000 series ex ACR GP38-2’s may cause more
of a problem, the biggest challenge is the SDL39. Kaslo
Shops Distributing of
(Mine
has been on order for at least a year now)
Again
many thanks must go to Ben Greuel, Brian Pawlowski, Bob Menzies and all the guys on
the
wc2scale · Wisconsin Central Modeling Forum
Many of the links take you to the following sites
