Build Thread: San Antonio de Bexar Railroad Company

[Steam is King]

Welcome to the inaugural post to the inception of the San Antonio de Bexar Railroad Company. Founded circa 1900, this railroad, under the parentage of the Saint Louis & San Francisco Railway, also known as the FRISCO, will service San Antonio and the surrounding area, acting as an interchange between the FRISCO and the Union Pacific Railroads.

The CEO has begun to generate stock in the public interest as the railroad prepares to start laying track in order to begin serving the good people of San Antonio and Texas. Already, the railroad has secured several good quality steam locomotives of the 4-6-0, 0-8-0, 2-8-0, 2-8-2 and 4-8-2 varieties to handle the loads.



Welcome aboard as you'll see the railroad grow into a prosperous enterprise.

[Steam is King]

Using Anyrail v4.0, I have started designing the engine shop area for the SABRR. The area will include a 9 stall roundhouse, service shops, sanding towers, coal towers, oil filling stations, water towers, caboose tracks, MOW tracks, wash down tracks and scales. This will be the first module and will be 4x8 reduced down to 30"x8. I will start posting up the preliminary track plans shortly.

[Doneldon]

Steamer-

That's some good looking artwork.  Are you going to use the Frisco shield motif on your rolling stock or a bear?  "Bear" is how they pronounce "Behar" down there.

                                                                                                   -- D

[Steam is King]

Steamer-

That's some good looking artwork.  Are you going to use the Frisco shield motif on your rolling stock or a bear?  "Bear" is how they pronounce "Behar" down there.

                                                                                                  -- D

Hey Don,

I will be using the Frisco shield motif. I created that myself. It will be on all rolling stock. The official markings will be SAB with the coon skin emblem. There are several slogans I am designing for the line. They center around the Alamo and Texas. They are:

1. The Alamo Line
2. The Route of the Alamo
3. The Lone Star Route
4. The Texas Shortline

and

5. If you have to ship it...Ship it on the SAB

The line is pronounced with the Spanish lingo: San Antonio de Bexar, Bexar having the the "x" pronounced as "ay", so Bay-har. That is the way it is supposed to be pronounced but we Texans messed it up by saying BEAR.

The steam engines will have gold trim around the tender sides and the engine number in the center. The railroad name: SABRR will be under the cab windows of the locomotives on each side of the engines. I will try to have the coonskin plates put under the headlights on the smokebox front or replace the circular shield with the coonskin on units whose headlights are high.

I will soon take pictures of my locomotive fleets prior to the paint shops. All are Bachmann steamers and I have one Proto 2000 0-8-0.

I plan on having Accurail make a set of USRA Box Cars, Hoppers and gondola's with the SABRR scheme. I'll post up pics of those designs when ready.

Thanks again!

Manny

[Steam is King]

I just made up a mock up of a DS Boxcar from Accurail. Please share your thoughts.



I'd like to have a white star on the door above the latch, or the Texas State flag on the side underneath Route of the Alamo.

[Steam is King]

Mock up of a 2-8-0...

[J3a-614]

Wonderful classic look overall; my slogan choices would be "The Alomo Line" or "The Lone Star Route."  Wouldn't use "The Route of the Alomo"--unless you had a passenger train with that name!  (Excuse to buy passenger equipment.)

The Frisco is definitely what you are patterning you road after, and it shows in the herald and also in the lettering practices of your equipment, including the steam engines.  Of course, this is a computer-generated mockup we are looking at, but I would assume you plan to refine this, which would include gold numbers and letters instead of the white on the mockup. 

Have you considered adding Bachmann 2-10-0s to your roster?  The Frisco had a number of them, and several survive today.  One of them was in running condition at a museum near Chicago some years ago. 

Also, for a road in Texas, you may want to consider converting some if not all of your steamers to oil firing.

Some links you may already have:

http://www.frisco.org/

Older version of the above site:

http://www.frisco.org/fmig/fmig.htm

Layout site from above:

http://www.frisco.org/fmig/fmiglay.htm

Steam era layout from the above:

http://www.frisco.org/msw/msw.htm

Hope you enjoy these!

[RAM]

The Frisco only used gold and tender trim on the passenger locomotives.  If you see a picture of a Frisco 4-6-2 with white letters and a doghouse on the tender. It is not a passenger locomotive. Yes the Frisco used some light 4-6-2s as fright locomotives.

[J3a-614]

You're right about the freight engine lettering scheme; your answer tickled some brain cells, and I remembered the Decapod in the museum at Union was lettered in white, and of course the 4-8-2 No. 1522 had all those nice gold stripes. . .

If you've had the chance to look up anything much of my past posts, you'll know I'm primarily a Chesapeake & Ohio fan, so I can't claim too much knowledge of other roads, but I'm still very glad to see someone take up modeling the steam era.  The diesel era, at least after 1964 or so--oh, so much was gone, I wonder what the attraction is. . .even though I know a lot of people do like it.

[Doneldon]

Steamer-

You sure do nice work.  I like the back story you are developing for your railroad and the attention you are paying to having a consistent look which will add greatly to your fictional line's credibility.  Don't worry about RAM's comment about the scary engines; steam engines are only scary if you are right next to a real one and you're a little kid.  Besides, I'm guessing you'll be using freight locos, not fright locos.
                                                                                                                                                           -- D

[Steam is King]

A friend recommended Anyrail track software to me, so I downloaded the trial version and gave it a shot. I reached the maximum of 50 track pieces per the trial allowance, so I'll need to get the full version.



I've been working on the engine facilities to start with. There are two roundhouse sections and several park tracks available. The turntable is Walthers 130 ft unit. I intend on running one 2-8-8-2, so I need the ability to turn that monster. Otherwise, the 90 would have been fine.

The three tracks at the top are the engine shop. Anyrail doesn't have the building loaded in its trial version.

The two tracks just before are the sanding pits. In the area just east of the turntable and south of the sanding pits will be the coaling station and the water towers.

I may do some rearranging as having a huge coaling tower up front may block and take away from the rest of the module. The module is 36x96 at this point, and will be 40" off the ground, as per NMRA standards.

If you have any suggestions, comments, ideas or anything else, please post up. I like constructive criticism and I enjoy hearing others ideas.

Thanks!

Manny

[Steam is King]

Steamer-

You sure do nice work.  I like the back story you are developing for your railroad and the attention you are paying to having a consistent look which will add greatly to your fictional line's credibility.  Don't worry about RAM's comment about the scary engines; steam engines are only scary if you are right next to a real one and you're a little kid.  Besides, I'm guessing you'll be using freight locos, not fright locos.
                                                                                                                                                           -- D

Hey Don,

Thanks to you and all for the ideas and the compliments. Most of the locomotives on the SABRR will be freight, however I do intend on running a short passenger and some mixed consists. Most will be the Frisco white lettering, while one or two will have the gold and red Doric Striping.

As for the line's slogan, I'm liking the "The Lone Star Route" for freight service. "The Route of the Alamo" may be switched to the passenger line and each passenger car named after heroes of the Alamo. I also like the "The Alamo Line". I'm going to play with all of them.

I'll post up new artwork on the DS and I'm also going to do a 6 side outside braced.

Thanks again!

Manny

[J3a-614]

This one's actually for Donaldon:

Your comment about how a steam engine is "scary" only if you are a kid reminded me of a story a young father told me.

He had taken his boy, at the time about 5 years old, to a drag race.  The boy didn't like the race at all, apparently being upset by the cars themselves.  He asked his father, "Daddy, why do those cars sound so angry?"

This same boy had no problems at all a month or two later during a visit to the Strasburg Rail Road.  As his father recalled it, the big 2-10-0, No. 90, was "friendly,' like a large dog or a horse.  His boy was walking up to it and walking around it, and was not frightened of it at all.

I wish I could have seen that.

[Doneldon]

J3a-

Thanks for the memories!  I was actually telling a story on myself.  As a grade schooler in northern Indiana in the 1950s I had to cross the Nickel Plate mainline to get to town, whether by bike or riding with my parents.  The crossing was on a fairly sharp, super-elevated curve so it seemed like we were actually under the train as it passed.  I can tell you those huge Berks were very imposing and they made a legendary amount of noise so I found them pretty scary.  It was worse at night because of the flashing colors from the hungry firebox.  It wasn't quite so bad on the homeward leg because the locos were leaning the other way, but I remain convinced to this day that those old engines would have eaten us right up had we gotten any closer.  From a distance, however, their magnificence could be more easily appreciated.  Those Berks really moved the timed freights, I can tell you that.

Steamer-

You want to have your water plug and coal tower positioned so the lokies can fill up from the turntable access tracks.  Moving them to a garden track for water and fuel would be inconvenient and cosstly for the railroad.

                                                                                                                  -- D

[RAM]

Doneldon; I don't know where you came up with the comment about scary engines.  I even went back and looked up my post.  Man I get in enough trouble  for thinks I say.  Now I am getting into trouble for things I didn't say.  Now you are sounding like my wife.