So this is where those buildings youve been building are going

Hi Pelsea,  I love the name.  It seems to fit so well with your description and my fuzzy recollection of the area from my youth.

Andrew

Givens & Druthers

Givens:

• HO
• 28” x 82” space.
• Must be movable to access storage beneath/behind
• Height limited by ceiling slope: 32” benchwork.
• Standard gauge due to costs, & lack of scratch building skills
• Must include sound

Druthers:

• Logging scheme
• Forests
• Geared steam
• Modern Era
• Impressionistic rather than strict prototype

Scenic Elements:

• Yard with service
• part of small town
• small mill
• flume
• Picnic area
• Quarry or mine
• River

Inspiration

• Logging operations in Santa Cruz CA from 1860s to modern times.
• South Pacific Coast Railroad.
• Roaring Camp & Big Trees tourist operation.
• Gumstump & Snowshoe

Givens and druthers are one of the best planning tools I've found. They really helped me focus on a practical railroad in this space. Note I don't include mainline running. I'm much more interested in building things than running trains, and switching is the most interesting aspect of operation to me.

HO scale is determined by the MDC shay, as well as my previous experience and current dexterity. I almost went with narrow gauge, but then I would have had to convert the shay, and I'm not sure I have those skills. There is also the cost of narrow gauge to consider. Logging ops around here were about equally divided between narrow and standard, and the narrow gauge lines that endured were converted by the 1900's.

Sound is an absolute necessity (I have the proper Tsunami for the shay). My wife happens to be blind, and she will participate in the layout by listening to it and operating it.

I'm going to build this as a modern era pike, with many holdovers from the good ol' days. A future version might be set in 1906 or earlier.

pqe

Design

I started the design stage well before retirement, and drew up many impractical layouts, some for other spaces, many for this one. With an 82” mainline, it is obvious this will be a switching pike, and I looked at a lot of  online plans with similar dimensions. The most elegant solution I found was the Gumstump and Snowshoe, a simple switchback design. Switchbacks were of course very common on the old loggers, which ran backward as often as forward. I have more depth and length than Chuck Yungkurth used, so I could expand operations a bit. Basically I unfolded the design (allowing a less daunting grade), extended the switchback tails, and added a few sidings. I did all of this by trial and error, with loose track on the bare plywood. (Bench is a basic module, mounted on castors so I can pull it out to access some stuff I store behind.) By this time I had acquired enough rolling stock to measure a typical train and test clearances. Typical is defined as a 50’ engine, two 40’ cars and a shorty caboose. Here is the track plan:

The layout is divided into four sections by a river and cliffs. (Very like the Gumstump.) Each section is at a different elevation: 1”, 1.5”, 2.5” and 3.5”,and accounts for about a quarter of the real estate. The grade to get up to the back is 5%: steep, but common enough on lumber roads. Here's the geology:

The sections are:

Station and yard. This will include service facilities with a one stall engine house, a station, snack bar, office converted from an old caboose and undetermined incidental buildings. The yard has enough space for two active trains, and connects via a flexible bridge to fiddle tracks on an adjacent shelf.

Town. No name yet. Will include some rustic housing and light industry indigenous to the current area: a guy who carves redwood into souvenir statues, an old garage that now converts cars to bio-diesel, a psychic, and a factory for garden gnomes that somehow manages enough production to spot a hopper load of clay from time to time. (The clay might come from a quarry up past the picnic area.) There will also be a church converted into a performance space/yoga classroom and a disreputable dive. The town continues across the river near the yard. A connecting automobile bridge is assumed but will not be modeled.

Logging. This still pretty sketchy. Log cars will be loaded at a camp and unloaded into a mill pond for a small sawmill. There will also be a flume feeding the mill. Boards will be loaded onto flats and taken to staging.

Picnic area. Trains have run picnic excursions up into these hills since the 1870s. According to some books I've read, those trains were pretty rowdy on the way home, probably because of the flatcar load of beer.

This drawing shows the current building plans:

pqe

Building it

Construction started two years ago. Progress hasn't been slow but it has come in bursts as other parts of my life allow. Here's the benchwork-- 1/4" ply over a frame of poplar 1x3s. The legs are 2x2 redwood in a removable trestle on castors. In theory the whole works can be moved out of the room and downstairs. In practice, I'm not so sure, but I can, by moving some other furniture out of the way, pull it out and get at a collection of LPs and audio tapes.

Next step, pink foam.

Then more foam and some temporary track:

It stayed this way for some time as I played with details of the track plan and the elevations. I also learned to build fast tracks turnouts. At this point, I was using caboose ground throws. To begin with, my only loco was a Mantua 0-4-0 given to me by a friend. I converted it to DCC, and discovered a crying need for powered frogs. Hence the toggle switches lying around.

 I acquired some locos and rolling stock and  tweaked turnout locations and grade easements. Once I got it where I liked it, I installed Tortoise machines, which I have documented in the thread herding tortoises. At the same time, I installed the buss wires and track drops. Everything is run off one NCE power cab. There's just one district, although I can shut off some of the yard tracks to park locos quietly.

I also made some control panels, which I documented in someone else's thread.

The layout then lay dormant for a while as I got busy earning money. When I got back to it, the track needed cleaning, and I decided to apply graphite. However, before that I needed to paint the rail. That was an interesting little adventure.

I haven't addressed scenery beyond a vague need for a river and cliffs. I did carve a gap for the river, But I want to get the principal buildings together before designing the scenery. So I'm off on a jag of building buildings, which I'm documenting in my blog space. I have 21/2 done, plus some partial plastic kits and paper cutouts to help visualize the effect. This is the way the LT&SS looks today:

There's still a lot to do, which is the way I like it.

pqe

Thoughts on operations

Every railroad, imaginary or real, needs work to do. The nature of the work gives the railroad its identity and determines the rolling stock and physical plant. So I've been thinking a lot about operations. In the backstory I'm constructing, the LTSS began life as a logging railroad, had a brief stint as part of a general carrier, returned to logging when the general carrier went away, and gradually expanded the excursion business the gc operated into a flourishing tourist line. Logging continues, but it's sustainable, not the feverish clear cutting of the past century. The railroad continues to haul logs because the hills are a patchwork of private timberland and protected forest reserves. No new roads can be constructed through the preserves, but the railroad is grandfathered in. The line also serves a quarry that produces a particularly fine grade of clay. (I need to check the geology of that one.)

This provides the basis for three kinds of operation. For logging, there are several jobs: 

• Hauling logs from the logging camp to the mill. The mill is a board mill, which does the first step of quartering the log and cutting the quarters into boards for shipment to a finishing mill. The camp needs the equipment to load logs onto skeleton cars, and the mill needs equipment to dump logs into the pond and to load boards into flats. The empties go back to the camp on the same job. This kind of work is done by diesel power.
• Hauling logs from the camp down to the yard. (The mill doesn't handle everything that comes from the camp.)
• Hauling boards from the mill to the yard.
• Delivering empty skeleton cars to the camp.
• Delivering empty flats to the mill.
• From time to time, a road engine arrives from Surfside, drops empty flats and skeletons at the yard, and makes up a train to take back down the hill.

Tourist operations are similar:

• Excursion trains of coaches and open tour cars run up to the picnic area and back one to four times a day according to the season. These trains use vintage steam. In season, the trains drop passengers at the mill for tours of the antique mill works. Since there is only one short siding at the mill, this takes coordination with the movement of flats.
• There is the occasional run to town and back.
• Thomas the Tank makes a visit for a couple of weeks each summer.
• Christmas trains run daily from Thanksgiving to Dec 24. 

The quarry run run is simpler. There is only one car (an old ore car) that is left empty at the quarry to be filled, then brought down to the gnome works. It sits there a week until it is empty (they use hand shovels) then returned to the quarry. This is also a diesel job.

Of course on a layout this size, a train will consist of two cars, and some jobs, like the quarry run, will require 0-5-0 intervention. I've tried some of these jobs, and a full trip takes about 15 minutes at appropriate speeds. That's plenty of operation for me.

Comments, suggestions?

pqe

"The railroad continues to

  When I was a kid there was still a lot of logging in the valley( coming down the hill on Graham Hill road one could start to smell the smoke from the sawdust and slash burners) and a mill across the tracks from roaring camp site, ( roaring camp didn't yet exist) the east side of the tracks had the small SP depot and freight house. There was a small yard there plus a spur into the mill. Beyond roaring camp the tracks went up a mile or so to the Olympia sand plant.When I rode up there with the SP crews they left the caboose at the yard and took the empty hoppers  and GS gons up ,brought the loaded cars  down, ran around them and tacked on the caboose then headed back to Santa Cruz. The tourist line could very plausibly be hauling out sand still, there's plenty left , the vein runs from down by Pasatiempo to way up near  Loch Lomond but too many houses were built in the area  and they don't like the sights and sounds of industry :> ) ..DaveB

More operations

DaveB- SP was still hauling sand from Olympia when I got to town. Since I only have staging on one end, I can't really do pass through trains, so that idea will probably wait until the big version.

I did have one thought, that ties into the railroad name-- Christmas trees. That's a big business in the county, although most of the farms are cut it yourself. That would give me a reason to run the occasional boxcar. The farm could be pictured on the little bit of backdrop I'll have.

pqe

"Christmas trees. That's a

  Yeah, I can think of two way to run cars for industries you can't physically model. One is to load or unload at a team track somewhere near the depot or town and the other would be to designate one of the left or right spurs as continuing off scene so any cars destined for  off stage industries could just be spotted at the end of the spur. The main operation problem I see is with no run around the cars will need to be placed both fore and aft of the loco off scene instead of arriving on scene with loco in front...DaveB

No run around

That's right, there's no run around, which is an oft made criticism of the Gumstump too. I tried fitting one in, but that's another thing that will have to wait for the big version, if that ever develops. The spur to the left is presumed to run down to town, and two of the yard tracks will be bridged to fiddle tracks on a shelf over my desk. I may put a crossover there for runarounds. (I can add add more storage shelves above this.) Most of the jobs I listed can be done with one engine though.

Rolling stock

With jobs defined, I can think about rolling stock. I don't need much (with 15 square feet I don't need much of anything!) My lifetime plan is to get some rtr and simple kits to begin operations, and replace unsatisfactory items when the layout is mature.

The Shay 

The MDC shay is a key ingredient, sort of defining the whole show. Currently it looks like this:

I converted it to DCC after one of Mr Bunza's excellent articles. I got the chassis running well, then stalled the motor and blew the decoder. I have a replacement decoder, but the loco is on the shelf waiting until I improve my air brushing technique. I also need to find some time on a mill to make space in the solid metal boiler or find a smaller motor. I welcome suggestions from folks with some experience with this kit.

Other Locos

One of the things I enjoy most about this hobby is impulse shopping. Thus my wife clenches her teeth every time I head to the Train Shop. (Luckily for her, it's on the other side of the mountains.) So far, I've bit on the Bachman Climax, the Rivarossi Heisler and a BLM SW-7. There's also a Bacmann 44 tonner around, but with no sound that's just a fill in. I'm been looking for a worthy successor.

Log cars

Log cars are interesting because of the variation in styles over the years. A good historical presiveration rosd should have all types available. I have Rivarossi skeletons running now, and have the Kaydee kits for disconnects and lumber flats. I'll probably acquire way more than I can use, because I see so many quirky models like those from Cache creek. They aren't exactly cars, but I'm also looking forward to building some donkey and yarding engines.

Cabeese

Another source of quirky cars, so I'll be getting too many of those too. I have a Kaydee kit up and running, and I couldn't resist a nice SP bay window job with DCC lighting. It's not really appropriate, but I plan to put it up on blocks for a business office.

Coaches

You gotta have something to haul the tourists around. I like the look of the old Carter Brothers wood coaches, so eventually I'll scratch build some. Meantime the Roundhouse "silverton" coaches look decent, so I've been hunting some down at train shows.

Eventually this will get painted in LTSS livery, once I decide what that is. Also needed: some open air excursion cars. Not a common item in the catalogs. I figure the LTSS will build their own out of old gons and flats. Here's my first attempt at converting one.

There's plenty of work needed here, but it's a start.

pqe

 "The spur to the left is

Yeah, operationally the run around could be presumed to be just off scene and the loco could push any cars it needs to run a round off scene then they could be fiddled to the other end of the loco and it could return. If the spur on the left is down town the tracks on the right could continue beyond the yard to olympia or where ever in the hills there was interesting industry. They could even head over the hill to Los Gatos if desired.......DaveB

Any way to do a cassette?

Could your off layout staging be done by cassette?  You mentioned your layout would be on casters so you can pull it out.  If you could pivot the layout you might be able to get room for a cassette on one end. It would be a lot better than using the ol' 0-5-0 switcher.  Besides you will be moving it out to work on it.

Den

Cassette

That's an interesting idea, but things are so tight in here I don't think I could pull it off. Here's how the fiddle tracks will connect:

I'm just using that shelf for storage now until I figure out how to flexibly bridge that gap. I plan on putting more shelves on that wall, since my roster keeps growing.

pqe

Log cars

You might think about adding a couple of the Yosemite RR logging flats. They were unique because of the incline they ran on so they had a bulkhead on one end which was always on the downhill end.

As for the shays you might hunt down a copy of Jeff Johnstons book on building those MDC kits. Someone on here should be able to come up with the name of it. Mine is buried in unknown land at the moment. I had one of their old 0-6-0's and used a dremel tool to grind out the boiler as it was so tight that it kept shorting out the engine. It took awhile with a lot of test fitting, but it worked pretty well.

Your engine house looks right at home.

Jack

"As for the shays " keep

keep them away from stringy stuff. I had one once that ran on  an Xmas tree loop and one day it got it's spinning side shaft wound up in the fuzzy quilt batting base and torqued it's self upside down off the rails. My kids though tit was funny and kept asking me to do it again :> ).....DaveB 

Shay info

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/little-trees-surfside-12199202

I have built or rebuilt about 10 MDC Shays of which five are still in my collection. Jeff Johnstons' book "The MDC Shay Handbook" is a very helpful reference. You might also take a look at René Vink's MDC shay work ( http://www.modelrailroading.nl/Projects/Shay01/index.html).

After trying to get my first RTR MDC Shay to run reliably (and find space for a decoder), I first replaced the open frame motor with one from NorthWest Short Line. Finding the erratic performance was still going to drive me nuts, I ended up installing a NWSL drive kit ( See page 4-22 of http://www.nwsl.com/uploads/chap4a_web_09-01.pdf). Although I have found that some of the drives can be tuned up as René has done, after a couple of frustrating builds I just installed the NWSL kits. Nice smooth running with all the tractive power needed for a small logging layout (They can out pull the Bachmann Shays by two to one).

Shays

Thanks for the information- I just sent NWSL an order.

pqe

What I wouldn't give to have a HO Shay.....

I wish someone would make a new run of them sometime soon. I'm liking the concept of the layout a lot. Looks like a great little project.

Michael

Have fund with the Shay

pqe,

Your are very welcome. Have fun with the build.

Michael.

MDC Roundhouse shays regularly turn up on ebay and at shows. I have purchased some for as little as $10 at Timonium (I think I have three or four in my in some future life box). Many kits were purchased by unsuspecting modelers who did not realize the time needed to properly build one of these models. The kits, out of the box, are not extensively detailed which has also turned off many modelers.

Sound, holidays, and flats converted

Since your wife is blind, have you considered adding some sound effects to the layout besides the locomotive itself?

Regarding Yuletide running, have you considered the idea of the train taking people up to the trees, where guests pick and tag the one they want.  The loggers cut teh trees and load them into a gon, and they get the tree at the bottom.  (Idea stolen directly from the Seashore Trolley Museum's Pumpkin Patch runs.

Some time ago, I did a conversion of a gondola for tourist train running.  I used an Accurail gon, Bachmann benches from a scenery kit, and real wood and chain.  If you do this, be sure to put the openings for the little people on the correct side...I wish I'd put them on the opposite side.  (Old pic, please forgive the mess around it...) 

Good ideas

Sound is, of course, a given. I just put sound in a Bachmann 0-6-0 side tanker, but I haven't really considered effects on the layout itself. I'm going to have a sawmill, so there's a source of racket. I'd thought about a Christmas tree farm- easy to model with a lot of n-scale trees. Maybe a polar express with a flat car to bring the trees back?

I like your excursion gon- how high are the sides? The little kids need to be able to see. I haven't done much with my own open car, but I'm painting some coaches. Here's a load of tourists:

I have to get some more casual customers. Those guys are way over dressed for Santa Cruz.

pqe

Gondola

The gondola is just a standard gon with a quick and dirty conversion by the railroad--might not be ideal for the little ones.  As I've got things, it's an overflow car, added on when the more traditional open coaches (Bachmann open excursion cars) are not going to be enough.  It was my first serious model train modification experiment.

Pelsea,  we should talk. We

Pelsea,  we should talk. We just moved the RR boxes, unopened since the 70s, to Bellingham, WA from the Bay Area. My wife is selling her dad's place in Ben Lomond. I know the Roaring Camp RR. When I retired I thought I'd volunteer in the mechanical department but never got a call back.....too old. For us there is model railroading and train spotting. The technology leap 

Lots of good ideas

Wow, lots of good ideas. I am still in the analysis paralysis phase of designing my logging modules.

I have most of the carpentry done, now I need to start making mock cardboard structures and laying out track.

This is my blog that I have to update:

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/wslco-logging-layout-in-a-shadow-box-12199912

-- Bill B.