Finally got rolling on my logging & ice railroad,the Lopez & Bowman's Creek.It's based on the real Pa logging town of Lopez,in Northeast Pa.The town is on the Lehigh Valley's Bowman's Creek branch,and mimics the operations of the LV and the Susquehanna & New York RR in the early 30's in the area.The sawmill will only cut logs to length,because the trees harvested would have primarily been used in the Anthracite Mining operations in the Northeast coal field,and would have been used almost as harvested.
I was going to make it bigger,but I just made it 2X4,so it's totally portable.As it sits,it's probably 8 pounds,and has over a pound of screws in it,which will be removed after it's glued together.Power will be all small steam,an Atlas Shay,some nice scratchbuilt passenger power,and in the works,I'm starting to scratchbuild a Heisler,a Climax,and all the rolling stock.
The styrofoam on the second level is custom thickness.I wanted it just high enough to clear my "big" passenger power,a pair of 2-6-4T's,so I made a special jig to cut a 2" piece down to 1-7/16.The open area to the right will be a pond/sawmill,the second level to the left will be a loco service facility/logging camp.There's a third level which will be the logging operation.Track will all be ME C55,I'm going to see if I can cut the ties so I can get rid of maybe 30% of them,and reposition the remaining ties so it looks like lightweight trackwork on the logging section.The front track between the tunnels is a loop around the outside edge,and represents the LV main..
