Wordless Wednesday #6

A Union Pacific train crosses the Pend Oreille River Bridge just west of Dover, Idaho

Happy Accidents

Just for kicks, I went on Google Maps the other day to check out the Pend Oreille Valley area where I'd be placing my proto-freelance line and was delighted to find that Google had updated their aerial views with new higher resolution photography.

This new photography made studying the paper mill in the town of Usk much easier and to my surprise, the trackage around the mill matches up with my current layout fairly well!

I sat there for a while considering the possibilities. Could I actually build a faithful representation of the paper mill? One which would allow me to operate it in a prototypical fashion? It didn't take me long to decide that this happy accident was just too good not to take advantage of.  I MUST model this mill.

With that decision made, a new problem arose.  Where do I put the cement plant, yard tracks and all the other industries that were originally crammed into that tiny little module? Looks like it is finally time to seriously consider expanding the layout!

Wordless Wednesday #5

Working the pulpwood loading tracks on a warm February day.

You Say Train Fair, I Say Swap Meet

The annual "train fair" (more like, "swap meet") was this weekend and I went for the first time in a few years. Unsurprisingly and a bit disappointingly it was the exact same vendors in the exact same locations selling the exact same stuff they always had. There was a bit of comfort to be found by this however.  I might have stepped away from the hobby for a bit, but I've come back to find everything perfectly in it's place. 

Among the items I picked up were a few old magazines and a couple of cheap cars to practice weathering on.  There was very little there that really caught my interest. Perhaps this is a result of having already collected just about everything I'd ever need for my railroad years ago.

I also pick up this really lovely Oregon Pacific and Eastern boxcar from a vendor.  I really adore the deep blue color and especially the lovely goose on the side, however I did a bit of research after bringing it home and it turns out that the OPE appears to have been a shortline tourist road for much of the 80s and is all but shutdown today with the hopes of opening again soon for tourism.  These box cars were a result of a collaboration with the Current CEO and model manufactures. They apparently did exist in real life at some point though as evidenced by this single image I've found online:

How I am going to justify it's existence on my little freelanced version of modern shortline railroading is yet to be seen. (Perhaps a patch job?) You WILL see it running the rails though, it's just too pretty to keep in a box!

UPDATE: I just discovered this image below of a POVA boxcar in the exact same scheme.  The significance here being of course that the POVA is the REAL shortline that operates on the trackage I'm modeling my freelance railroad on deep in the Pend Oreille Valley.  Ok, so I'm feeling much better about my purchase but the question remains, why the same scheme?  The plot thickens...

Terminating the Terminal

I'm an idiot.

I arrived at the name "Metaline Falls Terminal Railroad" after much care and consideration. (as outlined in this blog post here.) You see, naming a model railroad is important to me because a name can evoke an image or feeling in the mind of the viewer.  For artists (and yes, all model railroaders are artists) These images, these feelings become integral to the model.  Just consider what wells up inside you when you hear names like: Gorre and Daphetid, Utah Belt, Grimes Line, and Downtown Spur.  These names not only describe a location, but also evoke a sense of the type of railroading the viewer can expect to experience.

And so, before laying one bit of track, I buckled down and worked to come up with a great name.  One that would be unique, yet memorable and would evoke a sense of a tiny short-line struggling to survive with few customers, isolated and tucked away deep in the mountains and forests of north eastern Washington; The Metaline Falls Terminal Railroad...

...which is why I'm an idiot.

The word "Terminal"  Originally chosen because it "does well to both describe the type of railroad I'm modeling and evoke a sense of inevitability that seems to be so common with modern-era short lines" does NOT, infact mean what I THOUGHT it meant.  I thought "Terminal" meant "End of the line" "This railroad does not interchange with any other railroads besides the one." Nope. Not even close. Turns out "Terminal" means "Railroad that operates and interchanges cars at a railroad terminal."

So, I'm forced to change the name which also meant changing the blog URL which sucks because once you change the blogspot URL, anyone who has that original address saved will have no way of getting to your new one. It does not forward to your new URL nor does it inform the reader that the blog has moved and offers them a link to the new address.

This probably isn't as big a deal as I am making it out to be as I stopped blogging years ago really and whatever readership this thing once had has likely given up on me and moved on.  I also have not re-lettered any of my cars yet, so that saves some headaches and embarrassment there as well.

Anyway, lesson learned. Moving on.

Wordless Wednesday #4

Blizzard conditions near Peshastin, Washington. Photo by Bill Edgar.

Layout Progress Video February 2018

I've posted a new video on youtube discussing moving the model railroad to it's permanent location as well as expanding it a bit.