What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? Rock Island and Peoria or the Ripper Line. Based on the old RI&P that ran from Milan Il toPeoria.Protolanced I guess is what you an call it. What scale are you working in? HO What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? The era I want would be from post WWII to about 1955.Summer time would be the season and the location is as mentioned above in Western Illinois What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? Still working on this part. I want some "super power"steam IE Berkshires ased onNKP standards and a few Rock Island Mountains.Plus some Mikes,and a worn out old ten wheeler for the mixed train. What's the backstory for your railroad? Well I like to think of the RI&P being a bridge line between Peoria and the (then) Tri Cities.I have it in my head that theVan Swerigan brothers liked the idea of having a direct line to the tri city area with its agriultural manufactuing ( Deere Farmal Case)takng in Steel from the east and pushing tractors,plows,seeders etc back east on their lines.So the NKP helped our little RI&P on the Peoria side and the Rock Island ( as per history) on the Tri City end.I want a scrappy line but one with parentalhelpso tospeak. The RI&P uses RI and NKP power but lettered for it.This would allow me to run Berks and run them fast!The main trains on the line would be the Steel trains west,Beer runs (PBR in Peoria) plus the just whatever kinda of goods from eastern markets west.East bounds would be finished products from the big three implement makers,Montgomery elevators,Oh and in a big twist of history,Vielie Mono Coupe airplanes and cars.Add in a coal branch near Victoria Illinois ( Lafayette is where thisbranch met the real RI&P) and we have company coal running both directions as well as eastern markets on the NKP.Thats my story and I am sticking to it ! I just like the idea of solid "green" or "red" trains of tractors,implements,etc.When we did the combine train out of e moline in real life Deere refused to alllow Case combines in their consist. Reason being the Deere company photog would follow the train getting shots of it for publicity. Can you imagine a car with (gasp) red combines in there!?!?! Case was the same way! So that would toss a monkey wrench into who ever the YM is during an operating session.Cant mix em up to fill tonnage so we have to call an extra!I am slowly working on this but I have found a backstory sure does help!Ieven have this line alive and well in 1980something! With the Rock still running,but I want steam and some nostalgia.If I get bored with it then maybe we will go to the 80's
For some reason all my layouts 4 Z scale and 1 N scale have all been Depression Era back country railroads. I guess I like time frame. All the layouts have been 'runner' layouts emphasizing scenery and single track mainlines. I'm now doing a layout that only has 50 feet of mainline and will center around mining in 1931 with 'operations' and scenery this time around. Jim
My HO scale Huron Central Railway (no connection to the prototype Huron Central which operates in Ontario) is a collection of admittedly offbeat ideas. It's a scrolling era shortline set in Michigan's "thumb" area, serving manufacturing in the city of GreenRiver (near Saginaw and Bay City) and will feature interchanges there with PM/C&O/Railamerica(HESR), or D&M/LSRC, or GTW depending on which equipment I feel like running out of staging. From there it runs across the thumb, serving mainly agricultural customers, but also a coal mine (yes, coal was mined here from the 1890's until the 1920's-30's), later replaced by a steel fabricator and eventually a wind farm that will be represented on the backdrop. Motive power for the HC will range from turn of the century light steam, some of which is retained for a modern era tourist operation, to a motley collection of hand-me-down and leased diesels. Era appropriate power from the other roads will also appear. Rolling stock ranges from Roundhouse old timers to 54 foot covered hoppers, again depending on the era chosen. Time will run in circles from 1908-2008 by changing structures, equipment, and details, providing a lot of modeling and a lot of interest in the space of a spare bedroom and allowing me to incorporate everything I like. One of my experiments will be a Ford dealer (bad 1/87th vehicle habit) that will replace the blacksmith shop in 1931(Athearn Model A's) and function as a "date stamp" thru the early 80's. The only problem with this idea is that I can only operate in years I can buy Ford vehicles for. The backstory is a fairly tongue-in-cheek one: The 3 ft. gauge Pigeon Creek, Nutbush, & Hicksville, left landlocked when the real life Port Huron & North Western was sold to the Flint & Pere Marquette and standard gauged, was in turn bought by the standard gauge GreenRiver Eastern and standard gauged by them. The merged railroads became the Huron Central. After diesels arrived, steam was retained for use during the 2 weeks in the spring when Pigeon Creek overflowed its banks and prevented the use of diesels. This condition wasn't corrected until the early 1970's and by then the tourist operation had just sort of evolved along with the regular freight operation.
What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? St.Croix Valley Railroad (SCXY), prototype based What scale are you working in? N What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? Present day, eastern MN What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? Building the proper GP8 and GP9, mixed rolling stock What's the backstory for your railroad? A BNSF served short line that is part owned by a locomotive leasing company. The main customer on the line is a nice sized flour mill. The employees of the line painted the GP9 in NP colors while the line was shut down for bridge repairs. The GP8 was painted to match before delivery. The newest customer added unloading stands for HCl cars last year.
My Winter in New England layout is set in the early to mid 1980s when Guilford took over D&H, MEC and BM. A fair bit of the layout is taken up by the yard, modelled on MEC's Calais yard, and based on the original track plan. I also have Guilford's infamous Fresh Pond line [ex BM] that served the Newlywed Bakery. The remainder is my own invention. In my H0 world Guilford are happy to mix all the locos together with their own grey and orange versions, and they're very slow to repaint the fleet - so it's pretty much like the real world :teeth: They have an interesting mix of GPs, Alcos and SDs and they're hanging onto them, even though there are precious few industries to serve. Mike
Well it's the Grand Trunk and Western, 1955, Brush Street to Milwaukee Junction, Better known as the " Dinkee " or the Dequindre Line. N Scale. Totally a prototype layout from original track plans. Right now I'm working on the transfer of data to a plan. Hopefully something to show here shortly, Only about a 2.5 mile of industry and 2 mainlines N & S bound that will need a helix to the lower level for a staging and yard. My goal is to have 3 commuter trains inbound from Pontiac to Detroit in the AM and 3 outbound in the PM. Also will have passenger service to and from Chicago. Most operation will be from the Detroit yard with service to the industries. More switching and keeping out of the way of inbound freight and passenger. Should a lot of fun.:tb-wacky:
What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? Teh full name: The Madison Railroad division of the City of Madison Port Authority. Since there is a well-known freelance Madison Railroad, I tend to stick to CMPA. It is a protoype road, but I've tweaked it a bit. What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? CMPA is a modern era shortline in Southern Indiana, home of the steepest mainline grade in the country for standard gauge track. What's the backstory for your railroad? Rough version from the top of my head. In 1834, the state of Indian commisined the Madison & Indianapolis to move freight from the Ohio River to the growing capital, A second railroad (th Indianapolis and Peru was to take the freight off the city and take it to the Erie Canal, and on to the Great Lakes. M&I eventually ended up in PRR, and then Penn Central, who cut service to the oint that the town couldn't trust PC anymore. Penn offered to sell it, for many time what it was worth. So the Madison Port Authoruity condemenned the linee and eventually bought it int he early 1980s. From there to 1992, they were busy playing catch-up on the line, when the Power Plant at the bottom of the Incline spent miillions to have the old Inclien re-opened from it's ruined state. They needed a LARGE transformer that couldn't be brought by highway, so the 5.89% madison incline was their only choice. that, and the 1994 aquistion of the storage yards in the Jefferson Proving Grounds turned the railroad around and put them back in the black. Not by much, but for a 20mile short line, it was enough. Now, all that really happened. Bu in my world, the old incline didn't fall back into disrepair after Indiana-Kentucky Electric was doen with it. Instead, they brainstormed a way to get more out of their initial investment by bringing in business ont he South end of the Grade. Tehy figured that by proming others to use it, a larger fund to pay for trackwork on the Incline would mean that the next time IKE needed to move a transformer, they would only pay to make sure there was clearence for the loads, not to completely overhaul the trackage. That incline now also serves a brewery, a boatwright, does trash-hauling, and a tourism RDC shuttle. It also paved the way for two custoemrs at the top of the Hill, who came in for the intial rebuilding prject and stayed on long term. a railcar rebuilder now sits in the old Proving Grounds, and they've opened a small intermodal hub. CMPA is also looking at connectying back into Columbus Indiana, and a very small wrehouse distrct railroad there that I made up so I could justify a 45tonner. For a map and visuala, please visit www.sites.google.com/site/cmpaho What scale are you working in? HO What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? CMPA rosters an SW8 and a GP10. I added in a pair of RDC1&3 trainsets, and the two PRR SD7s. a "Historical Society" restored a tank engien beleived to have worked the Madison Hill for the town's cenntenial. Also, the Board wants to aquire a pair of Gensets to replace what it sees as "old, dirty, outdated locomotives". As it stands now, I cannot keep the SW8 going and I'm torn on whether to get the Kaslo Shops GP10 kit or wait for Athwearn to ineviatbly to the Paducah Geeps, so for a while it'll be the SD7s and the Gensets and the RDCs. CMPA will have a small fleet of palstics hoppers and RoadRailer capable trailers, but that's mostly because I someday want to do car exchanges. Conservative estimate, 85% of CMPA's imports and exports are cars loaded with air. They own 20miles or so of track in the old Army base that they lease out as fleet storage. So Autoracks, coal hoppers, tank cars, and seasopnal grain cars will be high-numbers. There's also two plastics plants (One of them is Meece-Obitron-Dunne, who's doen stuff for the Olympics) requiring plastic pellet covered hoppers, and one of the companies in the Provign Grounds is car rebuilds by the name of SouthEastern Car Shops, and they also do Private Varnish coach work. TrainBoard Xchange aquired their leasefleet, and now operates out of their as well. So basically, whatever the heck I want. :mtongue:
I don’t properly have a railroad right now, but I’ve been in the planning/daydreaming stage since 2005 or ‘06 (a little before whenever I joined Trainboard), and was heavily inspired by the semester I sent cataloging stock certificates for Pere Marquette predecessors at Central Michigan University. My dreams lie dormant during the warm weather, while I play with old cars, and come back to life when the colors start to change in autumn. What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? I call my railroad the Michigan Lakeshore Railway. It’s freelanced, based on the Pere Marquette, but with a focus more on the western shoreline of Michigan, rather than the industrial middle of the state like the real-life PM. What scale are you working in? I’ve been in open debate over whether to stick with HO, like I grew up with, or move into N, as my late father always said he’d do if he were really getting back into it. I’m leaning toward HO, lately, as the size benefit doesn’t seem to outweigh the more-limited selection of equipment, vehicles, and buildings in N scale. What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? The era is immediate post-WWII. Specifically the autumn of 1946. My dad was born in October 1946, that year offers a good selection of both steam and diesel, and it’s a neat period stylistically. Further, I recently learned that right about then the Pere Marquette did a comprehensive photo survey of their equipment and facilities, which should offer a great opportunity for research. Geographically, I want to model a small industrial city based on Muskegon ("Wabaningo"), a rural region ("Fruitland"), and a small tourist town with a vestigal lumbering operation ("Maple Grove"), all located near Lake Michigan. What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? I’m looking at using 0-6-0s for switching; 2-8-0s and 2-8-2s for freight; 4-6-2s for passenger service; and some early diesels. SW-1s and -2s would be prototypical for the PM, but I may throw in an RS-1 or -2 just because I really like them. Rolling stock should be typical of the war years, lots of 40-footers with a few 50-foot automobile transporters, and largely based on the Pere Marquette of the era. The color scheme would be maroon and gold, based on my undergraduate alma mater. Passenger equipment would be brightly painted, and freight equipment more muted in tuscan red and beige. What's the backstory for your railroad? Probably not much different from the real-life Pere Marquette, except that I am too much of a perfectionist to model a real prototype, so as president of a fictional 1940s railroad serving fictional communities, I have a lot more flexibility in my modeling. -Dave
What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? My current model railroad is called the Saginaw Transfer Railroad. It's "somewhere in between" but leaning toward the Prototype side of things. It is based on the general feel, operations, railroads, and trains located in Saginaw, TX. What scale are you working in? I’m working in N Scale. What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? I’m focusing my era on the spring of 1999 although my actual modeled era spans from the start of BNSF to about 2003. My current layout loosely depicts the area in and around Saginaw, TX. Saginaw is a northern suburb of Fort Worth, TX and is a major railroad town. Saginaw's signature feature railroad-wise is three massive grain elevators that triangulate around a railroad interchange consisting of two major BNSF lines and one UP mainline. Additionally there are several yards adjacent to the Saginaw interlocker and numerous other industries including a significant amount of cold storage facilities. What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? I have carefully developed a roster that represents the typical motive power in the area during the era modeled, while attempting to use the fewest locomotives possible to achieve that goal. BNSF power includes SD70MAC's for coal, C44-9W's, SD40-2's, SD60/M's for intermodal/grain/manifest trains, and Misc Geeps for manifest, transfers, and switching. I have a limited roster of UP and Lease units also. There are several interesting industrial switchers in the area, currently including an ex-DRGW SW1200 at one elevator, a GE 65-tonner at a car repair facility (to be represented by a Bachmann 44-tonner), a pair of CF7's at the flour mill/elevator, and a couple of GP7's floating around. What's the backstory for your railroad? Well, my ultimate goal is to model BNSF's ex-Fort Worth & Denver line between Fort Worth/Saginaw, TX and Texline, TX northwest of Amarillo. I actually put together this "interim" layout quickly as simply a place to run trains using Unitrack, then decided after the fact that I could sell the idea of representing Saginaw, even though the layout of the trackage doesn't really mesh up very well. So it's very much a caricature of what I view Saginaw to eventually become...but with some key structures, relevant and identifiable rolling stock, and a little imagination I hope that it will proudly wear it's new identity. As was mentioned above, Saginaw is a huge railroading town, located at the crossing of BNSF's Wichita Falls sub (the ex-BN, ex-FW&D line that runs from Fort Worth to Denver after joining fellow Q subsidiary Colorado & Southern at the Texas-New Mexico state lines), BNSF's Texas sub (ex-ATSF from FW to KC) and UP's Duncan sub (ex-OKKT/MKT, ex-Rock Island from FW to Wichita, KS). BNSF runs several Intermodal, Unit Coal, Unit Grain, and Manifest trains through the area, as well as two Triple Crown Roadrailer trains that terminate/originate in the ex-ATSF Saginaw Yard. UP runs Grain and Manifest freights, plus several rock trains per day to and from quarries in Chico, TX to the northwest. Other industry includes a Trinity Freight Car plant, a large freight car repair facility, cold storage warehouses, and various others. (food products, cement, building materials, and petrochemicals among others) As mentioned, my layout was really designed to be able to run two trains while storing one or two others for running. There is one small yard that will be suggestive of either the ATSF or BN yards in the area. There are 4 industrial spurs that will serve flour mill, lumber, cold storage, and food product customers. Additionally two more grain elevators and the car repair facility will be represented. It's still designed to mostly run trains, although some limited ops could be possible. The layout is built on foam and is very portable so I may take it to some train shows in the future for grins. It's definitely serving its intended purpose...to bridge the time between my current apartment dwelling existence until such time that I have a house, space, time, and money to start my dream pike. ;-)
What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? The railroad's name is the PW&NJ (Pearson, Wellington and North Jersey) and it's freelanced, loosely based on smaller railroads and shortlines in the NY/NJ area. The layout is the Shrub Terminal, a proto-bash-lanced setting based roughly but noticeably on the Bush Terminal Railroad in Brooklyn, NY. It also features elements of some of the other nearby harbor/terminal railroads, such as the BEDT, Cross Harbor, Bronx Terminal, etc. What scale are you working in? N What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? Post-transition era from the early 1960s through about 1980 (though if I can find one, it'll have a dockside or saddle tank steam switcher, which neighboring BEDT ran until 1963. Location is Brooklyn, NY. What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? I'm running a scratch-bashed IR boxcab (similar to CNJ 1000), a GE 59-tonner (only 7 built, used exclusively on the BTR), and an SW-9. Here's the boxcab: And here's the 59-tonner: I've also got a GP-40, GP-50, F-3 (A & B), and an RSD-15, which may see use on the elevated line that crosses the layout. Rolling stock is mostly 40 and 50 footers, mainly boxcars, some gons, some tanks and some hoppers. What's the backstory for your railroad? Originally, I had planned a dual-HCD layout (L-shaped) with lots of neat features and fun switching and running (roundy-round but enough theatre tricks to not have it look that way), but my budget sorta scrapped that idea. Then I was helping someone plan a small Z-scale switching layout and I came up with a great idea for using a car float as a removable staging yard and have the entire layout just be switching in an urban setting. I liked it so much that I took it way farther as a new plan for my layout. But I still was short on funds, so my son and I decided that if we were going to build this thing, we had to do it on the cheap. A generous gift from a fellow TB-er got me all the track I need for the layout, and some trading related to the TB Boxcab Challenge got me the power chassis units that I needed for my two scratchbashed main locomotives. This layout wants to be built! So, after reading a lot about Tim Warris' excellent Bronx Terminal layout project, and after reading tons of information about the harbor railroads in Brooklyn, I decided that I'd do a protolanced layout, incorporating the features, trackage, trains, and structures that I liked from all of them (mostly from the Bush Terminal Railroad) and with a little bit of condensing and artistic license, come up with a layout has the flavor of the railroads I'm modeling, just enough to make people say "hey, I know that place". Since I'm using my own freelanced railroad, I decided that an appropriate freelanced name should be chosen (hence Shrub Terminal). Here's the track plan: Dimensions are 4' x 2.5'. It also includes a 3-track elevated line right across the middle of the layout that I may make compatible with N-trak standards, but at least compatible with a module adapter so I can connect it to some T-trak modules for some roundy round fun.
My layout is a freelanced layout based on the Union Pacific over Sherman Hill. I model in N scale and am lucky enough to have a dedicated layout room. I have the two hidden staging yards complete, and the main line laid, now I need to yards and sidings. I am modeling the transition era, 1940's to late 1960's, so I run big steam, turbines and early diesels. As for my backstory, my story ended being 4 pages long, so I posted it in my blog. http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/entry.php?2594-The-Story-of-Sherman-Hill-Track-4
A Brief History of the Bear Creek and Wazoo Railroad Humans in growing numbers crossed the land bridge that then united the Asian and North American continents, generally following the newly-exposed lands along the coasts. Migrating herds of animals no longer seen today followed the ebb and flow of seasonable temperatures. Predators, both animal and human, followed in their wake, and by 8,000 B.C., the first humans entered the valley. Finding generally poor soil and only limited vegetation (and therefore poor hunting), they moved on. It wasn't until 5,000 B.C that a semi-permanent settlement grew along the river. Over the next millennea the valley was home to several tribal groups, one of which eventually made the place their permanent home. They gave names to various places as well as the river. By the very early 1700's, the first white men entered the valley in pursuit of fur-bearing mammals. A few stayed, but most moved on, looking for better hunting. The aboriginal population shrank as the white population slowly grew, following the continent-wide pattern. Few of the place names given by the native peoples survived, but the river's name stuck. 'Wazoo', which meant 'flowing' or 'running', was adopted by the white settlers; and the Wazoo became their name for both the river and the valley itself. By the time a new nation was forming on the east coast of the continent, the valley near the upper west coast looked much as it does today. The broad valley, its floor higher now than it was when it was formed, is rimmed with mountains. Conifers and a scattering of other cold weather trees predominate. At the upper end, the boulder that helped form the valley is all but buried, only it's upper surface partially viable, the zig-zag crack widened to form the Wazoo River's channel. In 1794, Zebulon Willoughby left his family home in Pennsylvania and began to trek westwards. The fourth son of a farmer, he had few prospects of a workable inheritance. His three brothers were content to farm, but Zebulon was fascinated with tools and woodworking. During the following decades, he continued to move westwards, always looking for new places and opportunities. He settled for a while in California but then moved north, and, in 1821, he found the Wazoo River valley. The valley was poor farmland but was blessed with an abundance of forests and a sizable river. A saw mill seemed a natural for the place, and Zebulon quickly sketched plans for a water-powered mill. The original undershot wheel was constructed entirely of wood. Over the years, the mill prospered, and Zebulon met and married Eulalie Burroughs and raised a family of three sons and two daughters. His original wood cabin still stands on land overlooking the valley and Bear Creek. The mill was enlarged several times, each time with a larger water wheel. The population of the little company town grew, and became known as 'Willoughby Mill', after the principal business and its founder. Eventually, the town's name was shortened to 'Willoughby'. When Zebulon died in 1860, his middle son, Franklin, inherited the mill, the first son, Zebulon Jr., having died in infantcy. Franklin shared his father's fascination with all things mechanical, and converted the mill to the most up-to-date steam driven equipment, severing the great wheel and it's shaft from the mill. The wheel survives to this day, but is much deteriorated. Since his newly steam-powered mill needed coal to fire its boilers, Franklin built a very short rail line off the main line to carry coal to the mill and the cut lumber to a storage barn. He named it the Wazoo Railroad, after the river that had originally provided power for the mill. Franklin's younger brother, Jefferson, ran the road and added 'Bear Creek' to the name. The Bear Creek and Wazoo Railroad was always a small operation. Today it consists of less than a half-mile of track and one piece of motive power. It employs two workers -- an engineer who pilots the sole motive power, a 44 ton GE switcher, and a maintenance man. Zebulon's two daughters, Euphemia and Hepsapah both married local men and raised families in the town. Their children and grandchildren have scattered across the country, but one or two of each generation always seemed to stay in the region, with four currently living in Willoughby. Euphemia's granddaughter, Estelle, owns the town's bakery and pastery shop. The decline in lumber prices hurt Franklin's business, and, for a time, he added steam-powered cloth looms to the mill, hoping to ship in cotton and wool and sell cheaper locally made cloth to the slowly growing population of the northwest. This proved an unwise business plan, and Franklin died bankrupt in 1911. His son, Lawrence, had started as a teller in the local bank, the North and West; by the time of his father's death he owned it. He abandoned the mill building but branched out into the funeral business, opening the Willoughby Funeral Home in 1935. Through cautious and careful management, the North and West survived the Depression. Some businesses weren't so lucky, The building that is the town library, for instance, was occupied in turn by four different but equally unsuccessful businesses during those grim years. World War Two brought a temporary boost to the lumber business. Fanny, Lawrence's daughter, worked in the funeral home office but had inherited some of her grandfather's wanderlust. She enlisted in the Women's Army Corps, hoping to travel a bit while serving the war effort. Because of her prodigious office skills, she was slotted into the secretarial pool, a great disappointment to her. However, this led to being noticed by an adjutant to General Eisenhower, and she was tapped to join the planning office for the invasion of Europe. When Eisenhower's staff moved to England, she went as well, and there met and later married Angus McLeod, a young Scotsman with dark red hair serving in the British Army motor pool that serviced the Allied Headquarters. Fanny grew homesick after the war, and she and Angus returned to Willoughby, Angus being a kind of male 'war bride'. He runs the local Texaco station and auto repair. His dark red hair has been passed on to all three of his sons. The oldest boy, Hamish, has just started working weekends at the shiny new A&P supermarket. He is doing well in school, and wants to go to college when he graduates, but isn't sure where. No matter where he goes, he'll be the first Willoughby (or McLeod) to matriculate. Both Hamish and his younger brother Fergus are mad about baseball, and can often be found organizing a pick-up game in the open field just north of the railroad tracks. During the war, the Army set up a small POW camp outside of Willoughby, mostly for captured Italian soldiers. The Salmonella brothers liked the area and when others were repatriated in 1945, they remained behind. They sell the best local vegetables and eggs in the valley from their market off US Route 90. After the war, the Tri-State Utility Company bought the abandoned mill building from Lawrence and refurbished it as a small power plant, a cheaper alternative to running high tension power lines over the mountains. Eulalie's family is still in town, selling appliances and those new-fangled color TV's. Franklin's North and West Bank holds most of the paper on the commercial buildings in town. Lumber is still important to the area, although none of it is milled here. The Bear Creek Lumber Company which originally sold Zebulon's finished lumber products has changed hands several times but still thrives as a building supply business. The Bear Creek and Wazoo Railroad still chugs along, dragging coal to the power plant and various building supplies and stock to the Bear Creek Lumber yard. Today, the local historical society is raising money to restore Zebulon's water wheel and open a town museum. There is talk of erecting a statue of Old Zeb in the town park, arm outstretched, pointing at the power house which was once his old mill. (All of the places mentioned in the narrative appear on the layout. The backstory was created for an exhibit at the county museum when the layout went on display last year.)
I'm Finalizing my track plans so I can begin to do the benchwork and track laying at the start of 2012. But that doesn't mean I haven't put thought into it. My layout is the Wolfcreek & Iron Mountain. It's conception began as a freelance railroad back in the late 90's right around when I started high school, but abandoned it shortly after. It evolved into a combination of a prototypical freelance almost 4 years ago. It was to represent a subdivision line from a fictional Wolfcreek, WA to Iron Mountain, WY (those towns are real but not in the states I put them- Wolfcreek MT and Iron Mountain MI). Then earlier this year I had begun to evolve it once more as my finalization of track plans became apparent. Originally I had begun to decide on modeling strictly Marias Pass; Whitefish to Shelby. But more recently, I began to do the same, but with a spin. Wolfcreek (Fictionally relocated in MT) would act as Whitefish, off a branch line that interfaced with the route near Kallispell which would traverse onto the mainline and up through the pass. Around Shelby it would hit another branchline interface which would take it to the Fictional town of Iron Mountain. Both towns have an interface to other railroads. The layout has 2 incarnations. The one described above is in HO Scale. The Large Scale Variant encompasses the original "Wolfcreek, WA to Iron Mountain WY" concept. So because of this I will break it down into 2 distinct Categories. We'll Start with the HO Scale Layout: What's the name of your railroad? Both are named the Wolfcreek & Iron Mountain. Both are Prototypical Freelanced. What scale are you working in? 1:87 HO & 1:29 G-Scale What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? The era of my HO Scale Wolfcreek & Iron Mountain Subdivision is interesting. I wanted to do two things here. Tell the story of the lifespan of the Burlington Northern, from it's inception from 1970 to 1995. But I didn't want to stop there. After seeing a modern freelanced New York Central System, I wanted to tell a new tale. A Tale where the Santa Fe fell to a sea of Cascade Green. Where instead of becoming BNSF, The Burlington Northern extended it's range. Now as for the G-Scale incarnate, It simply is to be 1970 to 1995, The lifespan of the Burlington Northern. The reason is mostly financial, as Large scale is expensive if you have to custom paint. I have a few fictional ideas, like the BN FA's surviving long enough to get green paint. What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? On the HO Scale Wolfcreek & Iron Mountain, My locomotives (at this point) consist of Stewart Hobbies & Kato. Plans to add Atlas Locomotives is on the drawing board, and I'm using Rapido/Walthers for my passenger cars and I'm trying to stick to Atlas Traiman/Master for my Rolling stock, with plans to use Exactrail and Intermountain. On the G-Scale side of things... My motive power is exclusively AristoCraft (U25-B, FA-1, FB-1, GP-40 x4) while the rolling stock is a combination of AristoCraft & USA Trains. Now I have some LGB Equipment, but that is specially run and not normally considered part of the layout. It mostly consists of a European work train, and my D&RGW Americanized Stainz Locomotive. Is it hard to do two layouts at once, when you start building? Yeah, but I spent years fine tuning everything in small and large scales so that when the first of the year comes, progress begins. I wanted to build my large layouts and not get overwhelmed, so I spent years researching everything to know what would be done and how it would be done. That gave me time to finalize each scale's track plans.
Cheat River Railway What's the name of your railroad? Is it freelanced, prototype, or something in between? The name of my railroad is the Chesapeake, Maryland and Pittsburgh, also known as the Cheat River Railway. It is a proto-freelanced Appalachian bridge route using the route of the Durbin Branch of the C&O, the cheat river section of the Western Maryland Thomas Sub, and the Bellington Branch of the B&O. What scale are you working in? N scale. What's the era, time setting, and location of your layout? It goes from Ronceverte connection to the C&O up to Elkins then to Morgantown, WV and Pittsburgh over shared track rights. It set in the late 50's, in the Transition era. Its job is to haul Chesapeake and Ohio and Western Maryland coal up to Pittsburgh PA. It is inspired by tourist train trips on the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley http://mountainrailwv.com/ and the Cass Scenic Railway http://www.cassrailroad.com/ , my love of the Appalachian Mountains, as well as my favorite coal haulers, the Western Maryland and Chesapeake and Ohio. A quick route map using modern roads. What locomotives and rolling stock are you using? While the WM and C&O are all diesel now, the Cheat River still runs some steam. 2-8-0s, 2-8-2, and 4-8-2 are the usual power, while the steam friendly management hopes to buy some second hand 2-6-6-2 or 2-8-8-2s from the Chesapeake and Ohio or Norfolk and Western. 55 ton hoppers still are very prevalent even after some realigning of some ultra sharp curves of the old branch lines. The branch line up to Green Bank is also still too sharp for anything other than 4 axle diesels, small steam and 55 ton hoppers. The B&O and C&O run a joint passenger train called the Greenbriar. A small logging line connects at the Green Bank sawmill hauling trees from Spruce Pine Station.
