Wondering if anyone has built Walthers Mountain Lumber Company kit and Northern Power & Light power house kit. I’m interested in seeing finished models and how they were set up. Any scale will do, but N scale is of particular interest since that’s what I model in. I’m trying to figure out how the saw mill is typically set up because it will all be on a narrow shelf, soley point-to-point and in a bedroom so no more than 18 inches deep, and still have room for woodland and water scenery. The whole area will be all layout (I’m using 10x12 foot as that seems to be a common apartment bedroom size in these parts) and staging/storage will all be on a second deck, like 6 inches or so below the top deck. Close enough to make the layout vertically compact (comfortable standing operating height for me is 48-50 inches) and still enough room where if I need to get in the stage area I will have room. The 6 inche figure comes from Ashlin Products who makes a 1.5 turn, 6 inch rise helix section although it is double track and rather large with 12.75 inch inside curve and 14 inch outside curve, more room than I want to devote.
I am not sure if this will help because it is on a 2.5ft wide module. Peter Smith, Memphis 
Something like this? I had to tuck it inside a loop …
Now see if Walthers would have just shown the model properly I would have known the log conveyor was supposed to go to the water. I will do mine slight different though. I’m not sure if I want to use the saw dust kiln, might just have it all hauled off. I know ‘scrap wood’ will be taken away by trucks to be used in the local towns as fire wood. I’m glad you posted though, I think I want to have the saw mill recieve logs by flat car instead of special made log cars. Logs could just be rolled off into the river. I’m also adding a second larger building. Either as a drying house to dehydrate the cut timbers a bit or just as a warehouse so the wood wouldn’t be left outside during snowy winer months and wet spring months. Just from using Deluxe Innovations cars I can have around 40-50 box cars in sets of different road numbers and road name, although I’m stuck with 40’ AAR style box cars. I plan to buy a few Model Power and Atlas 50’ rib sides and maybe throw in a few flat cars. Did they have plastic coverings for lumber in the 50’s? I had a logo planned out then realized they may not even have wrapped the lumber, otherwise that dry house/warehouse building wood be a lumber wrapping building. I plan to start operating with a pair of Model Power 2-6-0 Moguls, although I will have a small fleet of various diesels-electrics for use as I update the layout.
Since this picture was taken, I have added power poles and wires to connect to the power house in the background. Also, I have added a lot of stacks of drying lumber.
If you compare to the Walthers kit, you will see that I changed the log conveyor to make it look less modern. I just dropped the conveyor into the water, while the kit has you build a much different apparatus the rolls the logs out of the water and then slides them on a level bridge into the mill.
For a modern mill, I guess you can use forklifts to load the cars. For a 1920’s sawmill like mine, there really should be a wooden loading platform at the mill floor level, so workers can hand load box cars and flat cars at car floor level without having to lift the wood from ground level.
Plastic coverings in the 50’s? I don’t know. I would guess it came a little later, but hopefully soneone else will know.
Marty