Post by mph on Oct 23, 2019 19:59:34 GMT -5
Introducing the Medford & Salmon Harbor Railroad (M&SH), also know as The Harbor Line.
Background
The origins of the name are based on my wife and my initials, thus the M&SH. The location comes from blindly looking at a map for locations that fit. Being a Southern Pacific fan, I was familiar with Medford, Oregon and happened to notice Salmon Harbor, Oregon which lead to the places that fit with the initials and creating the railroad name.
The M&SH is a fictitious line running between these two points had Salmon Harbor been a coastal port for shipping freight. From what I can tell from photos, Salmon Harbor looks like a nice recreational inlet that never docked a freighter. The Medford location is an interchange between the M&SH and the SP. A side note: Salmon Harbor works really well for my wife. She spent 5 years of her childhood in Alaska and salmon is one of her favorite foods.
We're still working on the logo. My daughter has provided the following as a starting point:
We're leaning to the logo in the upper left and using "The Harbor Line" bottom center as well.
The Layout
I've had several layouts over the decades I've been modeling and this one started as an expansion of a 4x8 layout I've had since we moved into our house in 1994. After much negotiating, I was able to acquire a land grant for some space in the garage (there will be much more said in future postings about running a railroad in an non-climate controlled garage in the great state of Texas).
The space granted to me was an irregular shape that is somewhat triangular. Being 11' on one side (left side in the photo) , 8' on another (bottom) and I've never measured the hypotenuse. Resulting in this:
I've learned from past layouts that I needed to be able to reach everywhere which lead to the open center. The somewhat square are on the right center is a drop down section for access, which I think creates more problems than if I had made it a duck-under. Of course, I have the option of making it into a permanent duck-under, but I wonder what my back will think of that.
In the upper left below the hill, there are 2 hidden sidings the run to the garage door. The very bottom siding is my test track that I'm expanding into a staging yard (thus the switch to nowhere). The outer loop has a 3% grade on other side of the bridge and a good size passing track.
Running Trains
I'm not into operations, so the primary function of the layout is for me to enjoy watching my trains run. But I can get bored easily. To address the boredom factor, the loops don't come together often and I'm working in scenery to break eye contact with the train as it goes through the tunnel (bottom right) or behind the future car shop building (upper right corner, yard area). The cross-over is another feature that breaks things up as I can have a train run a double circuit (inner loop than outer loop and back to the inner loop). I've wired several electrical switches to allow me to use either power pack to run either loop which means one power pack can run both loops so I don't have sudden speed changes when a train moves from one loop to the other.
Another anti-boredom feature is the hidden sidings and future staging yard which allows me to pull trains on and off the layout. When I get bored of the tank car train, on comes an Overton passenger train. My final anti-boredom feature is different view locations. The view in this photo is from the control area (just at the bottom of the photo), but I've also wired it with a walk-around throttle that can run both loops from the center opening. I can run my trains in circles around me.
With cooler weather, I should have time to make progress on the layout and I will post progress updates. Also, I took photos from the old layout and steps along the way, so I may have some flashbacks as well.
Background
The origins of the name are based on my wife and my initials, thus the M&SH. The location comes from blindly looking at a map for locations that fit. Being a Southern Pacific fan, I was familiar with Medford, Oregon and happened to notice Salmon Harbor, Oregon which lead to the places that fit with the initials and creating the railroad name.
The M&SH is a fictitious line running between these two points had Salmon Harbor been a coastal port for shipping freight. From what I can tell from photos, Salmon Harbor looks like a nice recreational inlet that never docked a freighter. The Medford location is an interchange between the M&SH and the SP. A side note: Salmon Harbor works really well for my wife. She spent 5 years of her childhood in Alaska and salmon is one of her favorite foods.
We're still working on the logo. My daughter has provided the following as a starting point:
We're leaning to the logo in the upper left and using "The Harbor Line" bottom center as well.
The Layout
I've had several layouts over the decades I've been modeling and this one started as an expansion of a 4x8 layout I've had since we moved into our house in 1994. After much negotiating, I was able to acquire a land grant for some space in the garage (there will be much more said in future postings about running a railroad in an non-climate controlled garage in the great state of Texas).
The space granted to me was an irregular shape that is somewhat triangular. Being 11' on one side (left side in the photo) , 8' on another (bottom) and I've never measured the hypotenuse. Resulting in this:
I've learned from past layouts that I needed to be able to reach everywhere which lead to the open center. The somewhat square are on the right center is a drop down section for access, which I think creates more problems than if I had made it a duck-under. Of course, I have the option of making it into a permanent duck-under, but I wonder what my back will think of that.
In the upper left below the hill, there are 2 hidden sidings the run to the garage door. The very bottom siding is my test track that I'm expanding into a staging yard (thus the switch to nowhere). The outer loop has a 3% grade on other side of the bridge and a good size passing track.
Running Trains
I'm not into operations, so the primary function of the layout is for me to enjoy watching my trains run. But I can get bored easily. To address the boredom factor, the loops don't come together often and I'm working in scenery to break eye contact with the train as it goes through the tunnel (bottom right) or behind the future car shop building (upper right corner, yard area). The cross-over is another feature that breaks things up as I can have a train run a double circuit (inner loop than outer loop and back to the inner loop). I've wired several electrical switches to allow me to use either power pack to run either loop which means one power pack can run both loops so I don't have sudden speed changes when a train moves from one loop to the other.
Another anti-boredom feature is the hidden sidings and future staging yard which allows me to pull trains on and off the layout. When I get bored of the tank car train, on comes an Overton passenger train. My final anti-boredom feature is different view locations. The view in this photo is from the control area (just at the bottom of the photo), but I've also wired it with a walk-around throttle that can run both loops from the center opening. I can run my trains in circles around me.
With cooler weather, I should have time to make progress on the layout and I will post progress updates. Also, I took photos from the old layout and steps along the way, so I may have some flashbacks as well.
