Thursday, March 9, 2017

Found: Elizabeth Valley Railroad trackplan!

Back in the January 1962 issue of Model Trains, E. L. Moore noted in the introduction to his article, Let's Build a Mountain, that he "had well over a hundred letters requesting track plans of my 4 x 6-foot railroad as a result of photographs published in Model Trains..." It turns out that one of those letters came from a reader of this blog who asked Mr. Moore for a track plan back in 1961. And if postmarks are anything to go by, Mr. Moore mailed back a reply on 15 April '61 with a postcard - carefully sealed in an envelope - of the track plan on one side, and a handwritten note on the other.
It reads,

Here you are tho you may need a magnifying glass. Radius, elevation, wiring connections, sections all marked, if you can find em. 
Good luck, 
signed E L Moore

If you've been following this blog for awhile, well, you know I've been trying to figure out the Elizabeth Valley Railroad track plan for a good long time. Previous instalments in the journey are here, here,  here, and here. There are a number of corrections I need to make based on this amazing discovery that was generously shared with me by a reader. Thank-you very much!

4 comments:

  1. You win on the guess-the-layout-plan. Neither of us saw the switch on the low right. Too bad he didn't detail it further; I'm still at a loss as to what he fit into the lower left corner. I put the log cabin blacksmith there on my layout, but I suspect it was just empty rock outcroppings at best. There was room for something, though.

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    1. I was never certain about what the track plan looked like in the lower right, and I was surprised to see the switch and stub siding. I agree, the lower left was likely landscape without buildings.

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  2. Fantastic! That switch on the lower right is quite a puzzler.

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    1. You're right. It's just a stub siding and for a long time I thought it connected somehow to the loops. Well, mystery solved thanks to a generous reader. Next step is to update my track plan drawings and see what if any changes there will be to the wiring.

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