I would like some information on the Silverton & Telluride layout featured in the january 1986 Model Railroader,specifically,the track plan.I have been looking for a suitable plan for four years and this looks like the best one yet.Please help!
That issue was my first one. My next door neighbor gave it to me when he finished reading it and I read it over and over again until it fell apart. I don’t recall a layout with the name “Silverton and Telluride,” but if I remember correctly, there was a layout called “The San Juan Central” and the series of articles was written by Malcom Furlow. There was a book put out by Kalmbach with all the articles combined. I don’t know if you can still get that book, but this web site would certainly be the best place to start. I am a flatlander Texan, and all these years I thought the scenery on that layout was exaggerated. But now that I live in Durango, I believe it. I drove through Silverton last weekend and I couldn’t believe how much it looked like a model to me. I agree that The San Juan Central is a great design, and this area is truly one of the gems of railroading. Good luck with your search.
Ryan
Durango, CO
Hello Earle,
That January 1986 article was all that was ever published in MODEL RAILROADER about Mike Sigmon’s Silverton & Telluride layout . We never did have a detailed track plan. The renedering on page 68 of that 1986 article was apparently based on sketches and/or photos supplied by Malcolm Furlow, the author of the article. Sigmon also published articles in the “Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette” in 1985 and '86 – see the Model Train Magazine Index on the MR home page – but I don’t know if they included track plans or not. since then we haven’t heard anything of Mike Sigmon. I saw Malcolm Furlow in New Mexico just last month, but the Silverton & Telluride didn’t come up in our conversation.
So long,
Andy Sperandeo
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
I think that layout was one of the best I’ve ever seen. I still read that article quite frequently along with other Furlow layout articles.
I’m wondering if anyone has any info on Malcom’s Denver and Rio Chama? I have a couple of very old and worn MR mags with a little info on that layout but I want more!
Silver Canyon and the picture where the building hangs out over the track never ceases to inspire me.
Please let me know if there is any info available at all on the Demver and Rio Chama.
I am now in own home with a big room for a layout which will be heavily inspired by the D&RC and the S&T.
Short Line and Narrow Gauge Gazette did atricles on these layouts back in the late 1980’s. I know I have the issue with the Rio Chama layout, mostly B&W pics. I’d have to check and see if I had the Silverton & Telluride in any back issues.
A quick search using Kalmbachs magazine index will give you any published stories on them. I dig Furlough, I’m anxiously awaiting the finish of his latest large scale layout, the El Rio de las Mantañas Railroad.
Has anone had any luck “tracking” down Mike Sigmon or his Silverton & Telluride plan? I just moved to Colorado and have become enamored of narrow gauge. I’m bashing some HOn3 locos and rolling stock now. I’ve been all over the CO RR Museum and plan trips to the Cumbres & Toltec and Durango & Silverton.
Hi Andy,
While we are talking about great track plans your San Jacinto District is one of the best small area layout designs ever. Its perfect for any narrow gauge railroad, shortline or a branchline as it was intended to represent. Bend it to fit any space, connect it to have a continuous run, add staging at beyond San Jacinto if you have the room. Lots of flexibility with out changing the basic design, great operation, easy to work on, enough complication to keep it interesting and modest enough that almost anyone could build it and afford to at the same time.
This design is not only excellent its a realistic possibility for many people who either don’t have the space, don’t have a big budget, just want a really good small layout or for some who has lots of room who can just stretch it out. You guys at MR should bring it back as a project layout that could even be built in modules. That would be a layout series that I would love to see. I like that plan so well I bought two copies of the Feb 1980 issue because I knew that I would wear one out. I’ve showed the San J
Lots of information on the San Juan narrow gauge roads, histories, pictures, locomotives, rolling stock, structures, grades, etc. here:
Finding prototype steam locomotives in HO will be difficult and probably costly. Most of the equipment was either owned by or leased from the Denver and Rio Grande, mostly Baldwin 2-8-0 Consolidations, models 50 and 60, and they’re not in production anywhere I’ve found except in limited run brass of unknown running quality.
Options are severely limited across the board for old time steam in HO, prototype or not. IHC made a 4-4-0 American, some iterations of which look nice, and MDC had a generic 2-8-0, in both kit form and RTR, that wasn’t prototype for the D&RG, but bashable, but neither are listed on their websites as being in production any more, and even claims to availability on the net are scarce. Train shows might yield up a few.
After that, things drop off fast. General consensus for the Bachman 4-4-0’s is that they’re not reliable runners, in general, more problems than they’re worth.
The Silverton RR purchased a 37 ton two truck Shay, new, ran it for a while on the Rio Grande Southern during construction, tried it out on the Red Mountain grade, and swapped it back to the RGS for a 2-8-0 Baldwin because it was too slow. Options here are limited too.
Keystone Locomotive works offers an unpowered model,
http://www.internethobbies.com/internethobbies/kehoshlo.html
which can be driven by a North West Short Lines kit:
http://pws.prserv.net/jltrain/northwest_short_line.htm
MDC makes a two truck Shay, but it has a reputation for eating gears, and most who claim run run it successfully have repowered with the NWSL kit. Per most accounts, some machining in necessary.
Bachman makes a nice three truck Shay, but it’s not prototype for the San Juan railroads, and operations built around it will proceed slowly. On t