Wordless Wednesday #7

Canadian Pacific train near Dover, ID

Railbanking or Abandonment?

Much of my inspiration comes from the Kettle Falls International Railway and in 2010 the KFR. (just to the west of the imaginary MFR) experienced a bit of an upset as a large portion of it's line connecting Kettle Falls to Canada was declared for sale or abandonment. Discussion immediately begain around turning the line into an international bike trail, but many wanted to invoke "Railbanking" to preserve the line for future use.

It appears the line has been preserved and is still in use thankfully, but this moment of uncertainty reflects the type of railroading I'm looking to recreate on the MFR. Check out these articles for more info:

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/oct/14/railways-could-become-international-bike-trail/
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,2380005

Movie Mondays #5

Of all they youtube videos I've watched over the years, this four-part series on operating model railroads by Chris Lyon and Mike Hamer has done the best job of introducing the concepts of operations to those of us who know little about how a model railroad should operate.  I found their videos to be invaluable when designing my own little layout. Here's part one, but be sure to check out the other videos in this series as well.

Critique my Track Plan

There is an interesting discussion going on over in the Model Railroad Hobbyist forums where I've posted a couple of track plan ideas for an expanded version of the MFR. There are a lot of really knowledgeable guys there offering some great advice and I am learning a lot. Head on over to my post to check it out and maybe jump in the conversations!