My Northern Pacific Butte Montana Layout.

[NP2626]

I will show photos; but, am not in a place where I can do that at present. My layout is essentially a three times around loop. The main line is 152 feet in length and there are 4 passing sidings. The layout begins in a staging yard and ends at the same staging yard, only coming in from the other side. Butte Montana is on the east bound first loop of the layout. My Butte is not actually modeled after the Real Butte. However, there is a main yard, depot, turntable and roundhouse with water tank, coaling tower and sanding facility and a few businesses to support. About 1/2 the distance around the layout there is a small town with a meat packing business, Icing platform, brewery and REA facility. Beyond this is Homestake pass with a siding. A large loop down to the staging yard with a passing siding. My layout has 4 tunnels and 16 bridges, including two wood trestles. Photos to follow!

 

[santafewillie]

Looking forward to the photos.

Willie

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Looking forward to photos.

 

[montanan]

Sounds interesting. I'll also be waiting for photos. By the way, if you're uploading photos, you can only post four in each post. You'll have to make additional post for more photos.

 

[NP2626]

Chet, Good to know!

 

[montanan]

No problem. By the way, here's a picture of the North Coast Limited just after AmTrack took over climbing up Homestake (the railroad called it Pipestone) Pass with Butte in the background.

 

[tootnkumin]

That rock looks to be some of the most unstable stuff you can imagine, likely to shear off in an instant.

 

[Rico]

I'm also looking forward to the pics Mark!
And Toot, you're right about the rocks. I never stop to look up at them for that reason, unlike some tourists!

 

[NP2626]

The above photo is looking eastward at Butte, the main town on my layout. The photo shows the east end of Butte Yard, and a partial view of the Turntable.

 

[NP2626]

This photo shows the turntable to better detail. The Turntable is a Bowser Kit. I do not have any type of indexing equipment on the turntable and align the bridge with the tracks visually. The roundhouse has seven stalls and is a kit-bash made from one Walthers Roundhouse kit. The white building at the rear is scratch built from a Strathmore type of paper/cardboard type of material. The brick building just to the right of the white building is a Model Power? kit bash per Art Curren's book on kit bashing buildings. The tall-long building in the corner is a kit bash from two Belvadier Hotel kits. You can see the passing siding at Homestake pass passing behind the tall-long building.

Please note: Nothing in these photos is supposed to look like anything actually in Butte Montana.

 

[NP2626]

Another view of the center portion of Butte Yard with the engine service area. This view shows the Coaling tower, Water tank and some of the Sanding facility. It also shows the yard panel for Butte Yard.

 

[montanan]

Nice photos Mark. I always enjoy seeing photos of different layouts. Keep them coming.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

As Chet said ... keep the photos coming. I really like the narrative on your construction methods and materials used, AND ... you have done some very nice planning and work on the various structures.

 

[NP2626]

Another photo of the center of Butte Yard, showing the Sanding Facility a bit of the depot and Team track. Beneath the Team Track is the control panel for the staging yard.

 

[NP2626]

Here is a pretty good photo of my Roundhouse. You can count the doors and see that the roundhouse has seven stalls with two more tracks outside on either side.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

Last photo of roundhouse failed to load?

 

[NP2626]

A train has left Butte Yard, gone under a highway overpass, passed through the backdrop and passed out of a tunnel headed up to Home Stake Pass. The mine you see in the for ground is the Deepole Mining company. A small flag stop depot is where mine workers get off to go to work.

 

[NP2626]

What is going on here? I download photos, quit the website and the next time I come back the photos are gone! Please help, what am I doing wrong?

 

[NP2626]

Here we can see the East Bound train passing by the lead for the Deepole Mining spur. The train is passing over a canyon and has entered another tunnel on the main. This train is heading up grade to Home Stake Pass.

The whiteness on the right side of the photo is because this part of the layout is unfinished and therefore the color of the plaster.

 

[NP2626]

The train is now on the other side of the tunnel it entered in the past photo. The Alco S-4 is crossing a Campbell Scale Models "Tall Straight Timber Trestle". However, when I built the model I needed to have it curve a bit, so built a slight curve into this trestle. If you look to the back wall in this photo, you see most of Butte Yard.