Quahog Lumber Company

[009matt]

Greetings.

 

I love narrow gauge railways and have always been fascinated by Shay and Heisler locomotives since I first clapped eyes on one about 10 years ago. Admiring the Bachmann On30 range was about as far as it got until one of my friends, Tony, at the club said I am selling off my On30 stock are you interested? The Pope's Catholicisim was questioned and very soon after, I had a Shay, a porter 0-4-2, a couple of coaches and a set of skeleton log cars. Also included was a set of bits that was a Shay loco and a Backwoods miniatures dress up kit.

 

The 2010 challenge was launched and this got me thinking. Could I enter something small in On30? I found a plan that looked interesting - the famous Chuck Ynungurth's Gumstump and Snowshoe. I started playing with the track design with XtrkCad and started to look at gradients. In order to get the locos up a grade and then to pass over each other would have needed twice the space -back to the drawing board. :-(.

 

Ultimately, I came up with the track plan below. Still with a gradient and feel of the original, just without the overhead crossover.

 

Boards are open frame construction of 4" x 4' strips of 18mm MDF with 2x1 block at the joins. Thin pine from an old wardrobe makes the track bed. Before any track was laid, the contours of the land were formed and textured and painted to a basic rock colour. It was at this point that the T-Rex skeleton was blended discretely in.

 

All of the wood on the buildings has been made from coffee stirrers, painted and weathered - they are a budget version of scale lumber that can be cut, filed and sanded into a whole manner of items.

 

Figures all (bar one ) come from the excellent Falcon figures range.

 

Fir trees are either from brrom handle that was attacked by a rasp or from a cheap plastic christmas tree, cut to appropriate lengths, painted with PVA and rolled in a blend of Woodland Scenics coarse/medium foam.

 

The layout is DCC controlled using a Gaugemaster Prodigy system. The locos use a variety of DCC chips. Having rebuilt and added the Backwoods dress up kit to the 2nd Shay, I added an MRC sound decoder. This adds an extra dimension to the loco. One of the coaches had its underbelly stripped out and replaced with a Hornby Railroad HST chassis, a new end built as a diving cab and an MRC diesel sound chip was added. I still need to alter the CV's as it tends to be a little fast - probably that desire to go at 125MPH!!

 

Cassettes are employed as the fiddle yard, these have been constructed from PVC trunking.

 

The layout represents a small logging line sometime in the 1920's in North America. A Quahog (For those that don't watch Family Guy - of which there are a number of refernces on the layout) is a small clam! The part of the line represents a point of call halfway between the current logging operation and the sawmill. There is a small camp where logging families live and there are some loco servicing facilities. The line climbs up a switchback as there is limited space due to a ravine which the railway passes over two very precarious looking bridges. There is a TRex skeleton in the rocks but it appears that it may have gone unnoticed by the residents (maybe not the moose however!). Over on the right hand side, is the logging camp. The layout has one family house and one bunk house, both constructed from digrmas found in the NGSL Gazette.

 

The layout, as well as having to be ready for the 2010 challenge, also had to be ready for EXPONG on the 30th October 2010. I completed the layout the week before and set it up at our club's (Liphook and District) open day to check for gremlins etc. The layout performed very well from the word go and we had a great day at EXPONG. So good in fact that I have been invited to another 3 exhibitions (includiing a big one in France) and also had an interview and photoshoot from Voie Libre - the French Narrow Gauge magazine.

 

ORIGINAL THREAD

 

http://www.rmweb.co....ahog-lumber-co/

 

LAYOUT SIZE

 

The layout measures 19" wide x 96" long, therfore at 1824 Square inches is well within the parameters.

 

 

THE NUMBER 5

 

The number 5 has been a tricky one to fit in! All of the points are DCC controlled and there are 5 route settings that can be used. There are 5 'types of 'critter' on the layout - Moose, Bear, Raccoon, Porcupine and Wolf.

There are 5 giant sequioa type trees on the layout.

 

TRACK PLAN

PHOTOS

 

All of the photos below are courtesy of MIck Thornton and are subject to his copyright and rules etc.

 

Me with the layout- overall shot. It is a little bit low, so this is being raised by about another 8 inches.

 

 

A view of the camp

 

 

two views of the porter loco - running as an 0-4-2 was erratic, so I added a tender with extra pick ups - it runs like a dream

 

 

 

Four views around the yard.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope that you have enjoyed looking at this thread. I certainly have taken great delight in building and operating it.