Sounds like a good plan. If you’re not confident about building your own mechanism, you could consider using some of the modern power trucks made by Steam Era Models or Hollywood Foundry. I’ve used both, for locos and cars, and I’ve been very happy with them. They’re reasonably powerful, quiet, and easily converted to DCC.
I didn’t know that Suydam made a model of Nr. 7 - I might have to look for one of those myself! [:D]
I’m not sure if it is Suydam but I have seen brass models of No. 7 (I think it was labeled as the original WB&A rather than CCT) before…rare beasties. Or did I merely dream of one?
I read that during WWII the steam power came back to the Sacramento Northern Railroad to fill the gap. It was written on the Sacramento Northern Yahoo Group. After the war they had to repair a lot of track.
Just FYI: the last post to this thread was in January of 2008.
(just in case you were waiting for the OP to respond–he might not!)
Also, this layout is discussed in detail in the upcoming Layout Design Journal (probably out in August 2015).
History, LDE selection, layout design, construction, operations, etc. all delved into detail by the author.
This transfer of the old MR Forums to a new platform, and rediscovery of old threads, certainly brings back some interesting memories! I posted this thread 16 years ago, with plans for what I wanted to do, and today, I’m still working on the same layout, but have also made a lot of progress! I built most of the layout planned back in 2008 over the course of the following 14 years, including scenery and structures, and built up a somewhat disturbing collection of traction motive power and rolling stock. I decided against hanging overhead wire, for ease of handling, allowing continued use of diesel locos, and to prevent slashing my hands open & ruining delicate overhead work while switching (I like to switch manually, and am a bit clumsy.) I also moved the entire layout in 2022, to a garage that was larger than the old train room but configured differently; the layout is sectional so it could be simply detached from its mountings and moved to the new place, but due to the different room dimensions I had to slice hunks out of a couple of sections. I’ve posted about the layout in other forums but could also follow up with some updates here.
