A prototype bible

 

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While I was doing
research for The Sonkrai Tribunal, I came across a couple of references to the fact that the Japanese engineers used the Merriman Wiggin method of building railways. (Many sources misspelled it as
Merriam like the American dictionary, which is why I initially had trouble tracking it down).

During the research for the book, it was just a passing reference. Now that I am building my own model railway and working on the bridges I wanted to find out more about that manual. A Google check came up with little (especially when I used Merriam instead of Merriman). But a handful of copies of the book showed up on Abebooksas the American Civil Engineers Handbook
by Thaddeus Merriman and Thos. H. Wiggin. First published in 1911, it was issued by John Wiley up until (as far as I can tell from the editions on Abebooks, the middle 1950s).

The average price for the book was $15 and one of the dealers was in Canada, so I placed the order.

When the handbook arrived, it was immediately clear why it was the key document for the Imperial Japanese Army engineers. It is the hardcover equivalent of a trade paperback, thick, with 2,263 pages, but shaped so that it could fit into a large pocket (such as a military fatigue pocket), pouch or small shoulder bag.


It was obviously written not only for an civil engineer working in North America but anywhere in the world (it has conversion tables for local currencies and local measuring methods, for example, in Japan and China).

For the model railroader, the book is often far too detailed, but on the other hand it goes beyond the railway reference books. The main reason I bought it is because the Japanese engineers used it as the manual for building trestle bridges. And I found that it gives some hints that are not found in many of the trestle books aimed at modelers. One example that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

n high railway trestles on curves over the centrifugal
forces of the moving train should be further guarded against by
additional braces on the convex side of the trestle.

There are several railroad related chapters. How about water tanks? We buy them, build kits or
scratch build and usually pluck them beside the tracks. It goes into great detail about the problems in those water tanks, like hard water and even mud and the damage that could do a steam locomotive. It says, for example, in 1873, the use of hard or muddy water cost $750 per locomotive per year.â€

And this, again from the late nineteenth century, made me change my layout plans by moving
my water tanks closer to the river bank.

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The El Paso and Southern
Railway found that even after chemical treatment of hard water supply
on a division 128 miles long, the engine tonnage was reduced 25% and
the cost of the locomotive was maintenance was increased $1000 per
year per engine over the normal amount. To avoid this, a waterworks
system from a supply of pure mountain water 130 miles distant was
constructed at a cost of $1,300,000. Even this expenditure was proven
to be amply justified.”

Want
to know the wind resistance of a locomotive and total train resistance and the problem of oscillation? It’s there. So is the cost of building a rail line in the 1920s.

There are plans for dams, aqueducts, canals, shafts, tunnels, harbour and river works (including docks, wharves and retaining walls). Steel bridges and concrete bridges each merit their own chapter along with trestles. And if you want a breakwater on your layout, you’ll find it there as well. The book has a lot a rivet counter would love, but if you can get a cheap copy, any modeler would find it useful.

Weathering the Apalon Bridge

 

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I have completed the basic layout for the Wampo, Nieke and Sonkrai railway. Before I glue down the track, the bridges have to be built. The first bridge is the simplest, a two-span deck plate bridge on three concrete piers.


The
prototype

The prototype is the Apalon Bridge, about 25 kilometres inside Burma, beyond Three Pagoda Pass, at the 335 kilometre mark from the railhead in Thailand. John Stewart described it in his book To the River Kwai Two Journeys 1943, 1979, when he visited the bridge on his return journey. At the time it had been abandoned for 35 years, and at that time, appeared to be intact, but appeared to be
freshly painted a dirty shade of red, like coagulated blood. From close up, it is revealed to be nothing but deep rust which Stewart says contrasted sharply with the pervasive greenness of the
jungle. Aphotograph shows thick jungle right up to the edge of the pylons on either bank.

Alternate world

This project is more of an alternative world, the term taken from speculative fiction than the pure model railroading freelance.  In this alternative world, the railway was not abandoned; instead it becomes a mainline route from China and Southeast Asia, as well as traffic between Thailand and Burma as well as the local runs. However, in the post-war world, there is a minimal budget, and so far, in the period 1946-1947, the maintenance on the hastily built railway is concentrated near the railheads and high traffic areas in Thailand and Burma. The border region that I am modeling is on the list but at the bottom. So the bridge can be described as neglected, and I have weathered it, as it would have been in either world in 1946 or 1947.


A note on construction


In the construction of the Burma Thailand Railway, the wooden bridges, ties (sleepers) and telegraph poles were made from local insect resistant tropical hardwoods, mainly teak. At least during the
period of the Second World War, creosote was not available and not used. That means the traditional methods of staining or painting both the wooden trestle and the ties do not apply on this railway. Teak and other hardwoods were used, usually untreated, for many years after the Second World War across Southeast Asia. Later various forms of anti-insect treatments were used. Today it is more common to use metal and/or concrete for bridges and poles.


The model

The original model is made from two Kato N Scale deck plate bridges with Kato pylons. There is a close resemblance to the original Apalon bridge



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The pylons

I came upon a method of creating neglected or decaying concrete purely by accident. I was testing
Krylon All Purpose White Primer #41315 on some scrap styrene. The result was a powdery cracked white, not all suitable a primer, but perfect for crumbling or neglected concrete.

First I sprayed the three pylons with Krylon primer. Once it was dry, I applied a wash of Polyscale Concrete, allowed it to dry and then applied two more washes.

The level of the Kwai Noi varies from day to day and sometimes from hour to hour. Flooding is frequent during the rainy season. So how to create flood/mud stains on the pylons? So I tried an experiment, I created a bath of artists acrylics (raw umber and raw sienna), and mixed it so it actually had a consistency of mud. I left the three pylons outside in the sun, which reduced the bath and left a stain, then transferred the pylons to my work bench, where the remainder of the paint bath evaporated over three days, leaving an authentic looking stain.

After the mud stains were dry, I applied artists pastel chalks, first some raw umber followed, in the tropical environment with a bright Phthalo Green, an Olive Green and then a mixture of the two. The
final chalks were Black, Mouse Grey and a mixture of both. The final step was a Krylon matte spray to fix the chalks and remove any sheen.

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The track I have already run experiments with spare Kato Unitrack and Atlas Snaptrack. Both have ties that are too dark to match tropical hardwoods. As is widely recommended, I coated the
rails with oil before each painting step.

What worked best was Krylon Satin Almond spray #42327, which creates a dull grey-brown finish. The second step was also an experiment. I had successfully tested Home Hardware Teak wood stain on bass and balsa wood prior to building the trestle bridges.

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So I brushed the ties with the teak wood stain”and that worked, bringing out the details of the ties and adding a teak-brown tone to the grey from the spray.

However, this technique works best on track without a built-in roadbed, since the stain tends to bleed into roadbed. (I am working on a couple of other techniques with the Unitrack) I then painted individual ties with a variety of washes from Polyscale D&RGW Building Brown, Depot Buff and Mud, adding a smidgen of Box Car Red now and again. The guardrail and the sides of
the rails were painted with Polyscale Rust.

I added a wash of rust on the central walkway. It was chalk pastels that made all the difference. First was for rust, Caput Mortuum Red, Indian Red, Permanent Red Deep and Raw Umber (and mixtures of those shades). There were several different shades of Raw Umber in Curry’s Artists Supplies in Toronto, so I used those to add a general aged appearance. As with the pylons, I used my selection of green to add some hint of the jungle, followed by greys and blacks.

 Kato calls the colour of the deck plate grey. But it was actually a grey green that was perfect for my needs since it closely resembled camouflage paints, likely the only paint available in the
region at the time anyway. I used a small sculpturer’s pick to distress parts of the bridge, weakening some of the side rails and poking some small holes, which could have come either from allied
strafing or just general wear and tear. Again I started with wash of Polyscale Rust, followed by a mixture of Rust and Building Brown, but largely left well enough alone.

The main step was a heavy application of pastel chalks, several of mixtures of a rusty orange, followed again by greens and finally by blacks.

Finishing

All the elements were sprayed with Krylon matte finish, to seal the chalks and to remove any remaining plastic shine. I gave the Kato unijoiners a thin wash of concrete, and added
a black gantry support in the middle, that I may use for a telegraph pole or just leave as is.

Next step The next step is
the first trestle bridge.

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Prototype Elements The Burma Thailand Railway (aka the Railway of Death)

This model railway is classified

The prototype elements of the Wampo, Nieke and Sonkrai are based on
two post-war intelligence reports on the Burma Thailand Railway.

The
main report was written by then Lt. Cecil Carter Brett, a Canadian
intelligence officer serving in Southeast Asia as part of a joint
British-Canadian-U.S. Intelligence, interrogation and translation
corps. (Brett later became head of Asian studies at Monmouth College
in Illinois).

The second report was written by the Japanese under
issued under the name of Yoshimoto and introduced as evidence in the
Tokyo War Crimes trial. The locomotives and rolling stock I have
chosen are based on lists in Brett’s report, with additional
information from the Yoshimoto report and information obtained from
rail and steam buffs and websites.

After the end of the Second World
War, the British military ran the railway, in cooperation with Thai
State Railway and the Burma Railway for about a year. The Burma
portion of the line was abandoned in June 1946, due to the high cost
in money, equipment and possibly lives of maintaining the line,
Britain and the rails salvaged for scrap. Britain turned the railway
over to Thailand in October 1946 for £15.Million and the line was
dismantled north of Nam Tok.


Freelance elements The area where
the toughest construction for the prisoner of war and coolie labour
was at the mountain border crossing at Three Pagoda Pass, an area
with a sparse population even today. Under normal circumstances (as a
recent United Nations study showed) a railway in this area would be
uneconomic.

For the purposes of this model railway The
complete line continued to operate after June 1946, operated by Great
Britain who had claimed ownership of the railway because it was built
partly with POW labour and as the colonial power in Burma and in
cooperation with the Thai State Railway system. The freelance
assumption is that the railway continued to operate and that it is
now late 1947.

Locomotive and rolling stock

The standard gauge in Southeast Asia is
three metres, one metre narrow gauge but almost all the locomotives and rolling
stock were standard gauge prototypes. All were modified somewhat for
use in Southeast Asia, so most of the locomotives I have purchased
are “as close as possible.” On the BurmaThailand Railway,
the Japanese used:

  • Locomotives androlling stock
    shipped from Japan

  • British locomotives and rolling
    stock based on British models from the Federated Malay States
    Railway and Burma Railway

  • US built Baldwin locomotives built
    for and modified by the Federated Malay StatesRailway

  • Japanese built locomotives purchased by Thailand prior to the
    outbreak of war.

Layout (1) profile Summer 2005

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Name: Wampo, Nieke and Sonkrai

Scale: N Scale:
1/160; 9 mm

Prototype: The Burma Thailand Railway

Freelance
elements:
Railway continues fully operational after October 1946.
A couple of locomotives and some rolling stock are also freelance
additions.

Period: Circa June to October 1947 and beyond

Locale: Wampo viaduct with a skip to Nieke depot point, the
Sonkrai bridge and Three Pagoda Pass

Layout Style: Tabletop

Layout height: 28 inches

Benchwork: Modified,
door-based, cookie cutter with some framing

Roadbed and track:
Kato Unitrack for mainline, Atlas snap a flex track, MicroEngineering track for bridges.

Length of main line: TBA

Turnouts:
Kato 6

Minimum radius : 9
3/4″

Maximum grade: 3.0 Scenery: Exruded foam

Backdrop: Based on Photoshop video screen capture (work in
progress)

Control: Model Rectifier Corp. Tech 4 200