HOn3 Rio Grande Southern First District 1938-1945

[Dave V]

Oh man, I love this:
http://www.raggstoriches.biz/RWSMainpage.html

I know, right?  But by my era, most RGS ore would be headed either for the big smelter at Durango or for transload to standard gauge at Montrose to head to Leadville or Salt Lake City.  On the one hand, having the smelters offline saves me significant model railroad real estate...but on the other kind of steals a really interesting modeling opportunity.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I know, right?  But by my era, most RGS ore would be headed either for the big smelter at Durango or for transload to standard gauge at Montrose to head to Leadville or Salt Lake City.  On the one hand, having the smelters offline saves me significant model railroad real estate...but on the other kind of steals a really interesting modeling opportunity.

You still doing modules for that group?

[Hawghead]

I'm debating ordering the Ridgway depot if I can get it to fit.  I have exactly as much space as the building's footprint, but I don't want the roof overhanging the floor, LOL.

When Rags first showed the Ridgway depot on it's website I futzed with my track plan to make room for it and was able to just squeeze it in.  However I realized that I would have to reach over it every time I wanted to do anything in Ridgway, so it would probably get destroyed at some point.  I may revisit the idea at some point because it's such a beautiful kit.

Scott

[CRL]

As far as smelters go, this is a fairly small smelter. If I was trying to model one of the copper smelters in the area I’m modeling, the smelter would take up my entire train room... in n-scale.

[Dave V]

You still doing modules for that group?

That’d actually be too big for our module standards, LOL.

[Santa Fe Guy]

Oh man, I love this:
http://www.raggstoriches.biz/RWSMainpage.html

My Good friend has built the smelter for his HOn3 Layout it looks stunn [ Guests cannot view attachments ] ing.
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wow. Yeah it does!

[Dave V]

Here's that type II stock car kitbash.  This is a Grandt Line type III kit with the floor and roof of a D&RGW 5500-series stock car from E&B Valley.  I did replace the brake rigging with the C&S-style rigging from Grandt Line which, fortunately, is also the same for a type II.



And I added a structure to Placerville.   

[Cajonpassfan]

Close the damn door!😜

[Dave V]

RGS 455 hammers uphill on Bridge 57-B over the Dolores River at Gallagher.



A Silverton RR freight detours over RGS Bridge 45-A at Ophir:



Rico...sauve?



The Placerville Garage got a Ford Model A tow truck I promptly weathered.



Looking over Bridge 45-B at Ophir.

[dcarrell8]

Amazing work Dave! 

That's a great looking truck, where did you get it?  I've been having a hard time finding vehicles earlier than the 40's.

~Dennis

[Dave V]

Amazing work Dave! 

That's a great looking truck, where did you get it?  I've been having a hard time finding vehicles earlier than the 40's.

~Dennis

Athearn made a whole suite of Model A variants.  These days you'll find them on eBay.

[Dave V]

Time to play a little catchup!

Here’s my completed kitbash of RGS 7303, a so-called “type II” design. It was a combination of underframe and roof from an E&B Valley D&RGW 5500-series stock car and sides, details, and brake rigging from a Grandt Line C&S/RGS “type III” steel underframe stock car.



A quick two-day build...the Banta Modelworks kit for the Rico bunkhouse.  It’s just propped up for photos here before I “dirt it in” with ground cover.





The “big one.” This is the Ragg’s [sic] to Riches kit for the joint D&RGW/RGS Ridgway, CO depot. Fortunately Ragg offers this kit in both a shortened configuration as well as with the full-length baggage section, because building the baggage section to scale would make it entirely too large for the space. Here I’ve gotten the plywood sub-walls up and I’ve added the wainscoting.

[Hawghead]

Man I wish I had room for the Rags Ridgway depot.  It's a fantastic looking kit.  I did just score a Banta Pro Patria Mill kit off ebay for a very good price.

Scott

[Dave V]

Man I wish I had room for the Rags Ridgway depot.  It's a fantastic looking kit.  I did just score a Banta Pro Patria Mill kit off ebay for a very good price.

Scott

I wish I'd left enough room for the Banta Pro Patria mill kit!  I am not 100% satisfied with the kitbashed mill that’s there now.  I actually could make room for it if I completely tore out and re-built Rico, but I would rather not do that.