Little River Lumber Company - a Logging Mini-Layout

[cbroughton67]

I thought I'd start a thread covering the construction of my very small (1' x 4') N-scale logging layout. It's loosely-based on the Little River Lumber Company's Little River Railroad in what is now the Smoky Mountain National Park in the 1930's. The track plan is based on the venerable Gum Stump & Snowshoe, designed by Chuck Yungkurth in the 1950's. The inspiration to do this came from a couple of sources. One, my wife and I have hiked parts of the Little River Railroad's former right-of-way around Tremont and Elkmont, and found a few artifacts of its existence along the way. We've also visited the Little River Railroad Museum in Townsend, TN, where the sawmill was located. The second inspiration is a lot more basic - I've had a couple of Atlas Shay's for YEARS and wanted an appropriate layout to run them!


To start, here are some photos from one of those hikes, this one from Tremont.

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[cbroughton67]

I can honestly say I've never used the "cookie-cutter" method of building benchwork. Given the unique set of grades in such a small space, I thought I'd give it a go with this layout. Framing is just simple 1/2" birch plywood ripped into 3" boards, and screwed together using 1x2 bocks for something to screw to. The top is luan, with the grades and elevated segments supported from underneath with more 1x2's and/or scraps of birch plywood. There are basically four elevations on this diminutive layout - the lowest is at the far-right front, where the sawmill and interchange track will be located. The second is the far-left front, where the railroad begins its ascent up the mountain to the logging camp. The third elevation is far-right rear, where a switchback is located. The fourth and final grade is far-left rear, where the logging camp will be located.


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[cbroughton67]

The landforms were added and gaps between elevations filled using scrap pieces of styrofoam. I covered everything with plaster cloth to smooth out edges and blend the styrofoam and wood elements together. Once that was done, I gave the entire base a coat of dark, mud-brown paint.

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[cbroughton67]

The original plan was to have the runaround track located on the switchback. My thinking was that there'd be an operating rule that required the locomotive to always be on the downhill-end of the train to prevent runaways, etc. A similar practice was put in place by the Pennsylvania Railroad on what's known as "The Madison Hill" in Madison, IN. It sounded good, but the reality is that I was trying to do too much in too small of a space, it forced the grade to be too steep, and it's the reason why I got frustrated and shelved this project for several months. Once I finally got back into it, I removed the runaround and co-located with the small yard by the sawmill, made some adjustments to the grade up to the switchback, and life became good again. Everything worked and flowed much better.


Chris
 

[cbroughton67]

Once the track was laid, wired, and Bluepoint turnout controls installed, I was ready and anxious to being scenery. I love Fall, and had decided from early-on that the layout would be set in the Fall of the year. I purchased a 18" x 72" Fall backdrop from Joey Picard at Trackside Scenery. I love his backdrops - if you've seen photos of my main basement-size layout, then you've probably seen his backdrops used there. Anyway, I had the backdrop professionally mounted on 40" styrene at a local print shop. I wanted to curve the backdrop in the back corners, so the styrene allows enough flexibility to do this, but it's also rigid enough to keep the backdrop smooth and upright.


I added static grass along the right-of-way, and employed @Ed Kapuscinski "forest floor" technique in the areas that would be wooded. I LOVE how the forest floor turned out! Ed deserves a medal for developing and sharing his technique! Thanks again, Ed! The static grass is glued in-place with straight matte medium, while the dirt-brown ground foam and leaf litter are glued using the traditional diluted matte medium applied with a spray bottle. I did use a little ballast here and there, but very sparsely. I used buff talus, since it somewhat resembled creek rock, etc - what might have been found on-site and utilized.


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[cbroughton67]

Any good logging railroad needs an abundant supply of logs, which means the layout needs lots of trees. Lucky for me, the majority of the trees depicted on the layout were mercifully provided by the backdrop! Miles and miles of them! But, for the part of the layout that isn't all backdrop, I need to make some trees adorned in Fall splendor. That's where Scenic Express' "SuperTrees" come in. They're a little tedious to make, and no matter what I've tried, they tend to be a bit fragile once complete, but it's hard to beat how they look. The key is the natural plant-material armatures. Nothing imitates nature better than nature. The plants were cut and trimmed to size, soaked in diluted matte medium and hung upside-down, sometimes with weight, to help strengthen and straighten the "trunks." Once dry, I sprayed them with gray automotive primer from a rattle can, and while the paint was still wet, sprinkled various hues of Fall-colored ground foam for foliage. Once the paint was dry, they were ready to plant. I still have more to make, but this is what I have so far...


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[garethashenden]

Fantastic!

[Chris333]

Thanks for posting the step-by-step. I really like small layouts like this! 

I didn't even notice the 4th lowest level till I saw the bench work photo.

[Sdynamo]

Your layout looks awesome!  This is more inspiration for me to start the 1x4 module I keep talking about

[DKS]

Outstanding! Brilliant adaptation of the classic Gumstump layout.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Seriously. It's a work of art.

[wazzou]

Very nice Chris.  I'm looking forward to you're adding structures and your terrific Spar Tree Loader.

Ed may have led the charge on the Eastern Seaboard for using yard waste for scenery but many of us here in the West have been doing it for years too. 
I'd been doing it on layouts going back to the late 80's.  These photos were from a diorama I constructed in 2005.

[cbroughton67]

Very nice Chris.  I'm looking forward to you're adding structures and your terrific Spar Tree Loader.

Ed may have led the charge on the Eastern Seaboard for using yard waste for scenery but many of us here in the West have been doing it for years too. 
I'd been doing it on layouts going back to the late 80's.  These photos were from a diorama I constructed in 2005.

Bryan,
Wow! That's outstanding! With the outdoor photography, I'd totally believe you if you told me it was a 1:1 shot of an actual location! Thanks for sharing!
Chris

[cbroughton67]

I like adding details and small scenes to my layouts that are personal in some way, tell a story, or are part of an inside joke. In my initial post on this thread, I included a photo of a rusted-out sedan (Model T, maybe?) we discovered on one of our hikes that had been left behind when the railroad ceased operation in 1939. So, I wanted to include this little detail on the layout. It's a neat story, and details like this (IMO) add a dimension to a layout beyond modeling and operation.


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[cbroughton67]

So, thinking I'll start on the logging camp next, I figured I needed to dig into this spar tree loader kit from KMP. It's a "craftsman kit," meaning you get a set of plans and a pile of sticks.    In this case, it was a couple of dowel rods and some hardware. I figured out early on that replacing the dowels with some similarly-sized sticks out of the backyard would produce a better looking spar tree than trying to make a milled dowel look like something natural. Otherwise, I followed the directions that came with the kit, which mostly involves how to rig this beast. If said before that I've done more tedious things than rig this spar tree, but I'll be darned if I can tell you what any of them were. I did as much of the rigging as I could without it being installed. Once the scene is about complete, I'll install the spar tree and run the guy wires and string the lines through a few more pulleys and over to a steam donkey. Good times...


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