New Haven under wire

Attention to detail pays off on Rick Abramson’s

impressive HO scale layout

1. A westbound EP-3 motor rolls pastthe wye at Devon, Conn., on RickAbramson’s HO New Haven layout.Coming down the west leg of the wyeis the Budd RDC-equipped train fromWaterbury. Rick, a former NH rail-roader, took pains to correctly modelthe railroad’s distinctive catenary.

By Rick Abramson • Photos by Lou Sassi

46 Model Railroader • modelrailroader.com

Growing up along the West End ofthe New York, New Haven & Hart-ford RR gave me a front-row seatfor one of the greatest shows on

rails. Running between New York Cityand New Haven, Conn., the NH’s WestEnd was the intensely busy quadruple-track heart of a great railroad. I got toknow the West End even better when Iembarked on a career with the NewHaven. My memories of the West Endcame flooding back when I started plan-ning my 12'-6" x 19'-6" HO scale layout.

I modeled the West End so I couldrun heavy electric locomotives (gener-ally known as “motors”) on frequentpassenger trains and only slightly less-frequent freights.

My decision meant that I had to facethe challenge of modeling the NewHaven’s distinctive catenary (the net-work of overhead electric and support-ing cables). Correctly modeling thissignature aspect of the West End wasmore difficult than I expected and morerewarding than I could have dreamed.

New Haven in a nutshellMy layout represents the New

Haven’s main line between Bridgeport

and Devon, Conn. While not a great dis-tance, this stretch of railroad incorpo-rated all the elements of the NH’s mainline – a major station (Bridgeport), thejunction of two heavy-duty sections ofrailroad (Devon), and a representationof typical New England industry.

Devon, 12 miles west of New Haven,is the location of a wye junction. Trainsto Maybrook run under catenary toTower SS-71 at Devon, then proceed upthe east leg of the wye to Derby Junction.The west leg of the wye linked trainsfrom Bridgeport to Waterbury, Conn.

In June 1997, I completed work onmy railroad room, then faced the chal-lenge of designing a track plan. I had toemploy selective compression to get allthose features I wanted into the avail-able space. The prototype electrifiedzone is a four-track main line. I was ableto use four tracks through Devon, but Ihad room for only two tracks along theremainder of the layout. I located TowerSS-71 at Devon at the front of the layoutwith both legs of the wye coming offtrack 3 – as on the prototype.

With the track plan complete, I hadmy friend John Grosner design andbuild the benchwork. We decided to set

� Layout at a glance

Name: New York, New Haven & Hartford RR

Scale: HO (1:87.1)Size: 12'-6" x 19'-6"Prototype: NH electrified zonePeriod: 1950s to 1960sLocale: southwestern ConnecticutLayout style: around-the-walls and

peninsulaLayout height: 49"Benchwork: Open gridRoadbed: HomasoteLength of mainline run: 65 feetTrack: code 100 flextrackTurnout minimum: no. 6Minimum radius: 36" (main line)Maximum grade: 2 percentScenery: Styrofoam and plaster gauzeBackdrop: printed sceneControl: cab control

2. Electric motor no. 322, one of twoEP-2s painted in the railroad’s distinc-tive “McGinnis” color scheme, is west-bound with a New Haven to New YorkCity express. The brass locomotive ismade by Railworks.

Trackplan

Turkey Brook Yard

Seaview Avenue

Tracks instreet

Derby station

Nathan Schwarz & Sons

Future Maybrook Yard

Kasey Tool & Die

90-degree crossing

Stone wall

Plate girder bridge

Future Bridgeport station

Anchor bridge AB-867

Naugatuck Avenue bridge

J. B. Elwood Coal

Pequonnock River

Grosner Milling Co.

Control panel

Column

Catenary towersBracket poles

SS-XX

SS-73 Woodmont

SS-55 Burr Road

Jenkins Valves and “Jenkins Curve”

SS-62 Central Avenue

SS-71 Devon

New York, New Haven & Hartford RRHO scale (1:87.1)Scale: 1⁄2" = 1'-0'12" grid

SS-199 Berkshire Junction

SS-B253 Derby Junction

2

1

5

4

56"53"

56"49"

49"

56"53"

56"52"

56"51"

56"51"

56"51"

56"50"

56"50"

56"52"

49"

106

7

3

Numbered arrows correspond to photo locations

BRIDGEPORT

Interlocking

Illustration by Robert Wegner


the track level at 49" above the floor –an ideal height for resting my elbowswhile installing the catenary.

I superelevated all the curves usingRichard Stoving’s stripwood techniquedetailed in the September 1997 issue ofModel Railroader. The superelevationmeant that the catenary had to bemoved off center to allow for the pan-tographs leaning over as the locomotiveswept around the curves. In some loca-tions, it took me four hours to installthree feet of catenary on a curve. String-ing catenary is not a project for a per-son who lacks patience!

The NH passes through Bridgeporton a massive embankment faced withcut stone. I made sure to include thisimportant railroad landmark on mylayout, but in doing so I had to gain 4"in elevation to cross above anothertrack. I used a gentle, steady grade somy engines wouldn’t stall – I love thedetail of brass locomotives, but theyaren’t exactly known for being heavy-haulers. To make the elevated main lineoperate smoothly required some fancyengineering and several strategicallyplaced A-Line weights in the locomo-tives, but it works!

I also modeled an area of street run-ning in Bridgeport to represent theSeaview Avenue line, an electrifiedindustrial railroad operated by the NHin the east end of the city. The wirecame down in the early 1950s and AlcoS-1 diesels took over.

How to hang 11,000 volts in mid-airThe catenary is the most visible and

intricate part of my layout. The NH useda distinctive design that included lattice-work catenary towers (toy-maker A.C.Gilbert patterned his Erector sets afterthem) and the railroad’s own catenarywire system. Fortunately, my task wasmade easier thanks to the efforts of DonSilberbauer of Model Memories. Hiscompany makes accurate NH-style cate-nary bridges and left-handed electric-zone semaphores, both NH trademarks.

Before beginning work on the wire, Itook numerous photographs of the pro-totype catenary system, including themassive anchor/sectionalizing bridgethat spans the tracks at Devon.

Anchor bridges are huge structuresthat serve two functions. As the nameindicates, this is where the catenary isanchored. Major electrical isolation of

the catenary into sections is located atthe anchor bridges. The NH, along withgenerating its own power, purchasedcommercial power from ConsolidatedEdison and Connecticut Light & Power.The dense array of oil-filled circuitbreakers, bus wires, and transformerson the anchor bridges served to isolatethe different power feeds.

Getting measurements of the bridgepresented an unusual problem. With11,000 volts feeding it, you don’t wantto get “up-close and personal” with ananchor bridge! I took a series of refer-ence photographs from a safe distance.

With the prints in front of me, I kit-bashed my anchor bridge using partsfrom a Plasticville signal bridge, CentralValley styrene girders, and Plastruct

3. Open-platform m.u. cars, nearingthe end of their service life, pass overthe teeming streets of Bridgeport,Conn. The Alco S-1 is working theSeaview Avenue local freight.

4. The anchor bridge at Devon is a NewHaven electrification landmark. Workingfrom photographs of the real bridge,Rick modeled the array of circuit break-ers, bus wires, and transformers.

shapes. The circuit breakers are bySelly. It took about two weeks of detail-oriented work to build the model, but itwas worth it. Following the prototype, II installed my anchor bridge at Devon.

Final modifications To test the catenary, I mounted a

pantograph on a boxcar and pushed it

slowly with a diesel. I wanted to makesure the wire was positioned correctlybefore running locomotives – the pan-tographs cost $30 each and I didn’twant to break too many of them!

I planned to electrify the wire to sup-ply power to the locomotives. Then Inoticed that none of the pantographs isinsulated from the carbodies on my

brass electrics. With eight mountingpoints per locomotive, times 15 models,I decided to nix this plan.

Once the layout was in regular opera-tion, I found that the overhead wirecauses wear on the pantograph shoes. Toeliminate this problem, I cut exposed35mm slide film to fit the shoes andcemented it to them. Works fine.

08/04 • Model Railroader 49


It’s unusual to see a model railroadwhere electrics run with pantographs incontact with the catenary. Getting tothis point was time-consuming, but Ithink it was well worth the effort.

Operating the layoutMy railroad has DC cab control with

four cabs. Figuring out how to wire twowyes, multiple turnouts and crossovers,and four cabs, any one of which had tobe able to control trains anywhere onthe layout, was tricky. Fortunately, I wasable to call on my friends Ken Williamsand Scott Russell – wiring wizards!

A dispatcher directs the individualtrain crews during operating sessions.Yards are located in Bridgeport andDerby Junction.

6. The year is 1950, and switcher 0212is working industrial tracks in Bridge-port. Above, on the cut-stone embank-ment, an EP-2 is taking a Boston-bound express past Tower SS-55.

5. This overall view of Rick Abram-son’s HO New Haven layout shows thetower at Devon and the wye thatextends into the center of the roughlyoval track arrangement.

08/04 • Model Railroader 51

Trains entering the main from eitherBridgeport Yard or Seaview Avenuemust secure permission from the dis-patcher. The local way freights have tobe sandwiched between the mainlineexpresses and road freights. As on thereal railroad, there are engine restric-tions to consider and plenty of linesideindustries to switch. Switching instruc-tions are given to crews before an oper-ating session.

Engines and rolling stockWhile I have models of all New Haven

motors, both freight and passenger, I useonly those that fit the period representedin a given operating session. For themost part, this is the mid-1950s throughthe end of 1968. My electric locomotivemodels are brass imports from Rail-works and Overland.

Engines for the non-electrified zonerange from General Electric 44-tonnersand U25Bs to Alco RS-1s, RS-2s, andRS-3s. The “Naugy,” as employees called

the train to Waterbury, is handled byLife-Like RDCs. The NH and the Penn-sylvania RR operated joint passengerservice via the Hell Gate Bridge routefrom Boston to Washington, D.C., so Ihave a roster of PRR equipment too.

End of the New HavenThe NYNH&H was merged into the

Penn Central on January 1, 1969. I hatedto see my favorite railroad disappear.The real NH may be gone, but thanks tomy layout I can relive the good old daysand again enjoy the big motors of theNew York, New Haven & Hartford. MR

�

Rick, a former New Haven railroader,has always been fascinated by theNH, specifically the NH’s electriczone. Rick serves on the board ofdirectors of the NHRR Historical &Technical Association and is head ofthe association’s technical commit-tee. He currently works as a dis-patcher for the Housatonic RR. Rickand his wife Christine reside in Con-necticut – near the former NH main.

Meet Rick Abramson

7. An EP-3, one of 10 built by GeneralElectric in 1931, leans into a curveapproaching Tower SS-55. The brasslocomotive is by Overland Models.

More on our Web siteRick Abramson shares his favorite tech-niques for creating realistic catenary. Readhis exclusive online article at our Web sitewww.modelrailroader.com

© 2019 Kalmbach Media Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.ModelRailroader.com

New Haven under wire - Trains

Documents

Transcript of New Haven under wire - Trains