Welcome to the Metaline Falls Terminal Railroad

Welcome to the Metaline Falls Terminal Railroad! This is the first in what I hope to be a great many posts about the construction and operations of my own little railroad empire. Please feel free to join me on my new adventure!

So what is the MFTR?  Well, it's a Modern-Era freelance railroad inspired by the grand vista and the tough and resilent people of the Pend Oreille Valley in eastern Washington state.  In the real world, the area is serviced by the POVA and doesn't see as much traffic as it once may have.  For my purposes I have decided to give the area a bit of a different history:

Thanks to a strong logging industry and a large Cement Factory, The towns of Ione and Metaline Falls experienced good prosperity through the mid nineties.  In recent years however, demand for east Washington timber has slowed and a sluggish economy has taken its toll on the cement industry.  In response, the BNSF decided to shut down operations in the Pend Oreille Valley north of Newport.

Rather than see the line shut down, the citizens of the Pend Oreille Valley joined together to form the Metaline Falls Terminal Railroad to continue service to the industries so vital to the prosperity of the area.

The Model Railroad itself is a small one. I do not have much room or money for a large railroad, and so I've decided to model a small HO scale shelf layout. along an 10 foot section of wall.  I've taken much inspiration from a number of model railroads recently.  Namely the NCIR: http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/ and Dawson Station: http://dawson-station.blogspot.com/ I am a big believer in the idea of small model railroads.  Most people seem to think that to build an interesting and engaging layout, one must spend a small fortune and give an entire room of their house over to their trains.  I intend to prove that this is not the case!