Habour and logging mix?

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

hi all,
I am planning a free-lanced habour and logging and possibly mining layout based in the 1920s. i would like the layout to be based in the north east because that where i live but am not sure what rail road to base it on is there a rail road that did logging as well as water front opperations or something similar. i would like to purchase locos and rolling stock with out having to letter them myself so any eastearn railroad that would fit this model would be great…if one exists.

any info would be a great help Thanks!
Chris

2

Chris;

There are west coast rr that fit your desires, but few if any on the east coast, simply because it was almost completely developed before the advent of railroads, by boat. You might want to look in Maine though…

If you are in HO, why not just pick one of the roadnames offered by Rivarossi on the Hieslers, and/or Bachmann Spectrum on the Shays and Climax’s?

3

Sounds like that would make an interesting layout.

4

Look up information on Depot Harbour, Ontario, Canada. JR Booth of Ottawa (I belive later he was "Lord Strathcona - as rich a Bill Gates for his time), built the biggest in-land harbour on Georgian Bay. He had lumber interests as well. Virtually all the grain from the prairies in Canada went through this tiny town in what is now Ontario cottage country. The grain came by train to Thunder Bay (at the time it was Port Arthur). Then by laker boat to Depot Harbour, then by train again to ports on the east coast, including Montreal on the St Lawrence River.

Here is a place to start: http://www.ghosttownpix.com/ontario/img/depotimg.shtml

Good luck - this could be an interesting project!

Andrew

5

I never thought about trying a canadian railway ill have to check that out, thanks! oh would perhaps a maine based railway be prototypical i know they did alot of habour stuff but logging im not so sure.

thanks again all
Chris

6

Yes, I would think that New England had it’s share of logging lines as well. Not as dramatic and/or well known perhaps, but interesting prototypes are probably available with a little research. Even if you can’t find a prototype, it might not be unreasonable to freelance one. I believe that the first locos to run in Eastern Ontario and the Maritimes were wood burners - much of Eastern Ontario’s forests went for fuel…

Booth had numerous schemes in the late 1800s whose impacts were felt into the 1920s. Depot Harbour is a good example (primarily ship-rail transfer really), but he also had interests in logging and mining in the Algonquin highlands of Ontario. It is interesting to note that there are now less people living in the Ottawa Valley than there were during the first 20 - 30 years of the 20th century.

Andrew

PS. Here is another link for you. It is a site listing railway museums around the world. They list six (6) in Maine: http://www.railmuseums.com/namerica/MAINE/

7

Something else to considder, If you’re not ahead of me already, is how much space do you have? Your topic caught my eye because it’s exactly what I’m doing in a west coast theme, loosely based on Coos Bay OR, where I grew up. Local rail service was Southern Pacific. I chose the mid 50s-mid 60s, even though i was there from 1970-89.

I am not modeling any of the actual logging scenes, but do plan one of the many sawmills. It will sit on the waterfront of the bay (which was large, and fed by a number rivers and large streams), where logs were rafted to most of the mills. “Up the river” however, there were logging operations that used railroads to bring logs to the river to be floated downstream, or to send the logs to other mills that were not on the waterfront, or to bring logs to the Bay Area that were not from logging operations up the local rivers. These roads usually belonged to the logging- milling operations, such as Coos Bay Lumber. This was done until truck logging replaced the trains.

I also remember seeing logs themselves being loaded directly onto ships, as well as ships receiving chips from huge chip loading facilities, served by truck delivery. this was later, in the '60s and '70s, even to the present, but not nearly to the degree back in the days preceding the '80s.

Lumber was shipped out of the mills by rail and by ships, trucks later. Some of the mills loaded directly to the ships. (Conveniently, mine needs rail service)

There also was considderable coal mining and shipping out of Coos Bay, in the late 1800s, early 1900s. That was definately rail to ship service.

Then there is the large commercial fishing industry, served in part by rail to ship the product, even to the east coast.

Coos Bay also has a couple bulk petroleum products facilities where the product is brought in by ships, and delivered out by truck. That I don’t recall rail service to these facilities doesn’t mean they don’t or didn’t have it and I am m

8

Not on the coasts – but in the late 19th century they would float large logs to port cities on Lake Superior, such as Ashland. Ashland was also an ore dock town and general agricultural shipping as well. Ashland was served by the Soo, the Northern pacific, the C&NW/omaha rd and I think the Milwaukee Road and perhaps also the DSS&A so it was quite a railroad and shipping town in its day.
Interestingly some of these huge trees failed to float and the water in Lake Superior is SO cold that the wood was preserved. These logs are still being harvested from the lake bottom and are completely usable.
How cold is Lake Superior water? Well as the saying goes, the lake never gives up its dead. Bodies fail to decompose and thus fail to float to the surface. I understand the Edmund Fitzgerald crew, all of whom died in the sinking, are in many cases still recognizable when divers approach the pilot house. Sorry to get so gruesome here
Dave Nelson

9

You might want to look for artciles on Dave Frary’s Carabsset and Dead RIver RR that uses N gauge track with HO or HOn3 equipment. Set in Miane it should have everything you want. Alternately you could always freelance whatever suits your fancy.

10

chipmonk010, there’s no need to base your RR on any that actually existed. It’s your RR. I plan a logging RR that will be connected to the docks by another road but the dock area will actually be served by another shortline road. That way I can have a small amount of narrow guage equipment, some large road diesels and some small switchers and nothing will be close to prototypical I suspect. But I will have what I want. That’s the key. Bob T

11

Logs was one of the very first things we moved to the water when America was established.

The ship yards were in Maine on down towards the carolinas. The trees were suited to this kind of work.

There is no reason why not to do Logs and Harbors. They do very well together. I myself will have a few customers on my harbor that requires lumber.

12

All kinds of railroads of all kinds of gauges. Any of the current logging operations in Maine would be ideal as a prototype. Don’t no what kind of ore however. Might have to go with Impossiblium.

13

I Belive Granite or Limestone would be mined more than any Ore’s in Maine. although Gravel would be loaded up and shipped to the shipyards as well, but not in enough demand to dedicate an entire operation to it.

So maybe You’d have a Logging operation to take the trees to the river, float them down to the sawmill, have a train take the lumber from there to the Harbour. Have another train take slabs of granite or Limestone down to the city the harbour’s at and maybe even drop off a few bin’s of gravel at the shipyards. although not sure how many wooden ships were being made in the 1920’s, so this may be better geared to the 1900 timeframe.

You’d probably want something a it more like the following for the 1920’s:
Logs floated down a river to sawmill (this is usually how it’s done in most areas), Train takes Fresh Lumber to Funrinture factory, window factory, or other wood based industry.
Take the finished product to the harbour and ship it out and maybe even drop off a few carloads at the local warehouse for use in the city. Again Granite or Limestone or maybe even jypsium could be quarried and brought to town to be used for buildings, roads, or to be shipped out.

A window factory would be interesting as you could have a return train from the city bringing in the glass panes. unless you want them to produce the glass themselves, then you can have the quarry train bring in sand or other silicate found in the quarry. Old glass easily fits in your system, as reject logs can be burnt for the woodash needed to produce the glass. The composition for common green window-glass is, 120 lbs. of white sand, 30 lbs. of unpurified pearlash; woodashes, well burnt and sifted, 60 lbs.; common sal

14

You might take a look at Iain Rice’s “Loleta & Mad River” plan, which is vaguely based on the Arcata & Mad River Railroad in northern California. It’s a 4x8 plan based around a harbor, and functions as a point-to-point plan which carries lumber from a mill to a harbor. The plan also includes a mine, although the real A&MR RR didn’t feature mining.

It would be easy enough to translate the L&MR plan to East Coast standards by some basic changes in motive power, trading the Northcoast redwood logs for East Coast hardwoods, and a few structural details.

Most logging railroads, however, were small short-line operations rather than big major railroads. Typically the railroad was owned by the logging company and existed solely to retrieve lumber–a few were common carriers but not many. Bringing logs from the woods directly to the ocean wasn’t uncommon–elsewhere in the Northcoast where there wasn’t even a harbor, logs would be winched down from high cliffs directly to ships offshore using a cable system and not a little nerve.

15

You might consider looking into railroads located in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. I’d start with the D & H and go from there. For some reason, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of modeling - at least that I’m aware of - of railroading in this region.