Photos:
Right to left: Basic Branchville grid benchwork completed. Laying spline subroadbed into Branchville.
Right to left: Neil nails up the last benchwork connection in Branchville. The completed benchwork. Ray and Dave hang the grids for Branchville.
Prototype: Branchville was an interesting
town where a lot was going on. there was a junction where the Housatonic
mainline met the
Ridgefield branch, two train-length sidings, a small engine service area
including a turntable (to service Ridgefield branch trains), a team track and
freight house and several large industries including a mining supply company, a
carriage maker, and the Bridgeport Wood Finishing Company. The Ridgefield
branch will peel off and function as a live interchange for freight and
passenger traffic as it did in the real world.
On the Model: The scene is actually laid out on the layout in reverse, as in real life the Ridgefield branch came off the main to the west, and here we're breaking it off to the east. This is purely due to the way we were able to set off the tracks to Ridgefield into the staging area, which gives us a live interchange up the branch where we can run passenger and freight trains. However, operationally I don't think the scene suffers for it. We were able to get a large part of the scene directly from the 1915 New Haven valuation maps, so it is actually pretty accurate - except that it's backwards.
Branchville
is about halfway around the railroad, and will have a train-length siding (two,
actually) and be a pretty busy place. It's the only long siding between
Winnipauk and Danbury, so it is doubly important for it to work as a place to
meet trains. They will have to work around the branchline trains coming
and going, however.
Go Back to the The Layout Plan