My Northern Pacific Butte Montana Layout.

[NP2626]

The train is now heading past the Tower which controls the grade crossing. If you look ahead of #713, you can see the Deck Girder bridge that is the high point of the layout at Home Stake Pass. This view also gives a slight view of the Hoo Doo Gultch Trestle.

 

[NP2626]

With this photo, we are back at the West end of Butte Yard. This completes the trip around the layout. However, I still have more to describe, there is the spur at Whitehall with it's Packing plant, Icing Facility, Brewery and Freight House. Again all fictitious, I don't know if there even where industries in WhiteHall at the time period I model and if there where what type of industries they where.

 

[NP2626]

When I started my layout in 1988, I was going to model a Freelanced layout called the H.P. & N.W., a play on C&NW and the initials stood for Hard Play and No Work. About 5 years into the program, I purchased a Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association's Mainstreeter Magazine. When a kid my parents had a cabin near where I now live, in Central Minnesota. This area of Minnesota is called "Up North" as anything North of the twin Cities is considered to be "Up North". Anyway, the trip up North followed the N.P.'s mainline for most of the journey. So, the N.P. became my favorite railroad. Looking through the Mainstreeter, I found a deep interest in the line and decided to change from total freelancing to running N.P. equipment along some portion of the Northern Pacific's mountainous right of way. I remembered seeing John Allen's layout in Model Railroader as a kid and knew if I were to build a layout, I would model the Mountains. I surveyed the N.P.'s route out West and found that Butte had attributes that I thought would fit in with my goals. The track plan had been completed by 5 years into the project, so attempting to modify it to look like the Butte Short Line was not going to happen. Instead, I looked to find what was usable along the line from Logan, through Butte and onto Garrison. What I have shown on the past seven pages of posts here, describes what I have fit onto my layout. From the Get-Go I have stated that the layout is not reality and that other than the names of places being in sequence and named after places that really exist, there is no connection to the real Northern Pacific Butte Short Line. I never intended to make anything look like real places and don't care that they don't! My only intentions where to model things I liked and attempt to have reasons for my layout to exist.

 

[montanan]

Enjoying your photos. So many of the towns and areas you mentioned are right in my back yard. Going to Missoula on interstate 90, you go right through Garrison. Today the Butte Anaconda & Pacific runs into Garrison where it connects to the BNSF (MRL). When I was a kid I rode the NP with relatives from Livingston to Butte numerous times in the cabs of locomotives. West Yellowstone is about an hour south of where I live and you did get the colors right for the Absaroka Range. Here is a photo taken of the Beartooh Highway on US 212 which goes over the top of the range. Open summer only as the snow can get to 30 to 40 feet deep up there in the winter. I have seen people skiing there in August.



Some of my relatives who I rode with on the NP lived in Livingston which is a major division point on the NP. I live west of there just over Bozeman Pass. Here's some trivia for you. The Northern Pacific used to run a passenger train south from Livingston to Gardiner, MT which is the north entrance to Yellowstone Park. I never did ride on that train as the NP stopped running it in the mid 50's and we lived close enough to West Yellowstone that it was and easy drive even back then. Here's a post card photo of the Gardiner station.

I drove the old NP right of way from Livingston to Gardiner a few years ago. The old roadbed is easy to see on Google Earth.

I worked this tourist train to Yellowstone Park int my freelance railroad. The Milwaukee Road used to take passengers into Yellowstone Park from the Gallatin Gateway Inn, which happens to be less than a mile from me.

This service was discontinued in the early 50's.

Having my connection to West Yellowstone, the Northern Pacific runs a tourist train during the summer from Logan, MT with trackage rights to west Yellowstone and the park. In this photo you can see the passenger cars parked at my station in Logan, MT.



I am enjoying your photos and story. Keep them coming. The photos are great.

 

[NP2626]

here is a photo of what I call Whitehall on my layout. There are three spurs here A, B, and C. The Whitehall spurs are access from The track in the foreground, that crosses the trestle. Track is the farthest to the right and services the Walthers Champion Meat Packers model, although it is called Silver Creek Meat on my layout. Track A will hold two previously iced reefers having meat placed aboard. Sometimes there are chemical tanks cars delivered with the reefers for delivering chemicals and removing animal by-products from the packing plant. Just towards the camera is the stock yard by Walthers, also, where meat on the hoof is delivered for butchering. Delivering meat to the stock yard is via Track B. Track B is also where refrigerator cars are spotted for icing with a Walthers Ice house and platform. Track B will hold two reefers being iced and two stock cars delivering animals for processing. Track C services the Brewery (don't remember the manufacturer) and the Freight house (a kit bash of a couple building kits). The Brewery gets grains and beer making ingredients as well as iced reefers for hauling beer away. The freight house generally gets box car loads of fright. the second and third photos are another view of the Whitehall area. The Green Panel is the main panel left over from when the layout was DC operated. When I went DCC, I simply patched my Digitrax Zephyr into the location where one of my DC power packs had been. This has worked well for me and I saw no reason to change to a bus wire with drops along my tracks. Photo 2 shows the right side of the panel and just to the back of the two car cards is my GML throttle, The main shut off switch for the entire layout is just to the left of where the GML throttle is and my RRAMP meter is just under that. Photo 3 shows my Digitrax Zephyr.

 

[NP2626]

This photo has been repeated. I wanted to show another industry that is serviced and that is the long brick building made from a couple Model Power kits for the Belvadere Hotels. There are three freight doors which will line up with three 40 foot box cars. What this industry does and what it's needs are have not been disclosed. With the overhead passage between the two building, it's obvious that the white building is a part of the same company. It is rumored that the company builds highly classified defense products.

 

[NP2626]

Engine service at Butte requires partial trainloads of various commodities. In the first photo, in back of the coaling tower, we see a red Conoco tank car filling the diesel tank for my diesel locomotives. Beside the coaling tower we see #713 spotting a hopper to dump it's load of coal into the conveyor chute for lifting up into the coaling tower. Along side the loco to the left is a box car either loading; or, off loading freight at Bob's freight house. Then there is a Santa Fe Covered hopper dumping it's load of sand for the sanding facility in the lower left of this photo. In photo 2, we see a flat car with three International Harvester tractors for the local implement dealer, at the team track being readied for unloading. Finally, in photo 3, we see a box car taking a ride on the turntable to be parked along side the roundhouse, to unload lubricants and/or locomotive parts.

 

[NP2626]

Deepole Mining receives and ships Copper Ore in Ore cars on a daily basis and an occasional box car; or, gondola of parts, equipment and mining supplies.

 

[NP2626]

Again, showing the Spire Rock Mining area. This location receives empties in and loads out in both Copper Ore and logs from the logging camp or saw mill. I really haven't sorted out where the logs; or, ore loads from both Spire Rock Mine; or, Deepole Mine go to once loaded. With this, my description of the industries serviced by my railroad is complete. I do run daily passenger trains in both directions and I need to determine how/when to run a couple through freights from different directions.

 

[NP2626]

The following is Some Simple Ramblings, from a guy who has enjoyed model railroading most of his life. I hope you will continue to follow along:

1). I no longer have any plastic wheels on any cars. All wheels are now metal. When I built my first Proto 2000 freight car and saw how nice the P2K wheelsets looked and worked, I was sold on metal wheels. I have not cleaned the wheels of any rolling stock since switching to metal. Now that Walthers has discontinued the older P2K wheels, I have been searching for replacements. I have tried Kadees, Reboxx and Intermountain and still don't have a favorite like the old P2K.

2). I love my Digitrax Zephyr system and I am getting more and more into sound. Although I have installed dozens of non-sound decoders, installing sound decoders is a new experience and I am in the process of installing TCS WOW sound in a brass N.P. Y-1 consolidation. All I can say is it is a process and I need to work through it. I attempted to install a Digitrax SFX064D sound decoder and after installation I finally determined that this sound system also required a motor decoder. After a few weeks of fooling around, I tore this system out and sold it on Ebay. I just could not seem to get it to work right.

3). Don't be afraid to make changes! Making things better should be a goal you need to stick with!

4). Per Art Curren, I agree, I look at structure kits as a place to start, to get a building that is different than the stock building everyone will recognize and turn it into a building that more easily fits it's location and your needs. Kit bashing is fun!

5). Work to build bullet proof track. If a turnout is causing problems, keep working on it. Although less expensive that other manufacturers, I've found Atlas turnouts to become unreliable after 10 15 years. They can be made better and I would learn how to do this and do it before installation. Maybe Peco or Walthers make better track.

6). For my purposes Code 100 is fine. It needs to be painted to make it appear smaller in code.

As things come to my head I may add them farther down the line.

 

[santafewillie]

I am in complete agreement on the P2K wheelsets. A step above anything available today including their replacement.
Willie

 

[montanan]

Enjoyed the photos and narration Mark. You have a very interesting layout and seem to have worked in some interesting industries. I also try to have a lot of interaction with different industries on the layout, supplying good from one industry on the layout to another on the layout as weel as sending goods to points beyond the layout and having inbound freight to deliver to industries on the layout.

I will stick with my DC only controls. I am a lone operator and my layout is mainly a point to point. I had considered DCC years ago but being I only run one train at a time it really wouldn't be much of an advantage. If there were other modelers in the area to come and operate, that would be different.

I will agree with you on the metal wheels. When I started my layout over 30 years ago, while laying track, I had bought a lot of undecorated Atheran blue box kits as well as some decorated ones and besides installing Kadee couplers, metal wheels if not sprung Kadee trucks were also installed. Kadee at the time were the easiest wheels to get a hold of. In more recent years other manugacturers have put out lines of metal wheels which I also use. They sure make a big difference.

I will also have to agree with you on the kit bashing. That is a lot of fun. I also enjoy scratch building. Years sgo there weren't as many quality kits s we have today and if I couldn't find what I wanted that would fit a certain spot, out came the scratch building materials. I'll use just about anything. I have a pretty good supply of scribed wood wheete and clap board siding as well as various size strip wood and also keep a good supply of Evergreen sheets of various kinds as well a a good supply of different size strips.

Keep the photos coming. I really am enjoying them and also the names of towns I know quite well.

By the way, here's what is sitting out in front of the Butte Civic Center today, not far from the old Northern Pacific passenger station.

 

[Iron Horseman]

1). I no longer have any plastic wheels on any cars. All wheels are now metal. When I built my first Proto 2000 freight car and saw how nice the P2K wheelsets looked and worked, I was sold on metal wheels. I have not cleaned the wheels of any rolling stock since switching to metal. Now that Walthers has discontinued the older P2K wheels, I have been searching for replacements. I have tried Kadees, Reboxx and Intermountain and still don't have a favorite like the old P2K.

I found the P2K wheel sets were too short for many cars including the Athearn blue box. What don't you like about the Intermountain? That is what I went to even while the P2Ks were still available.

By the way, here's what is sitting out in front of the Butte Civic Center today, not far from the old Northern Pacific passenger station.

I like the way they hung the Exxon sign between the smoke stack and the sand dome.

 

[montanan]

Here's a different angle.

The Exxon sign was behind the locomotive on the street.

I picked up this brass version over 25 years ago. I should have changed out the headlight and I could have matched this locomotive. This is the same class of consolidation, the Y-1.

 

[NP2626]

Chet and Iron Horseman, Although I mistakenly said I was installing a TCS WOW sound decoder in a Y-2, mine is actually a Pacific Fast Mail Y-1, just like I would guess yours is. I think the headlight on the Butte locomotive is wrong and what we have on ours is correct. By the way, I painted mine and numbered it 22, so you own 21 and I own 22. While I do have DCC on my layout and am also a lone wolf, I do run two trains at a time and enjoy not having to switch toggle switches! DCC gives me the feeling that I'm operating my locomotive and not operating my track. I also like all the tweeking you can do with each individual locomotive so that I can get them all to run at the same speeds starting a stopping momentum, etc. However, these are all personal choices and I can understand your wanting to stay DC.

Iron Horseman, I like chilled wheels and Intermountain doesn't make them. However, I have just received my first two dozen Intermountain wheel sets to try out. I had been seeing complaints about Kadee wheels picking up crude similar to plastic. My reboxx wheels have scale width treads and my track work might not be good enough for scale wheels.

 

[NP2626]

Next, I'm going to describe how I built the Hoo Doo Gulch Trestle.

Once I decided that the grade coming up from the staging yard for west bound trains was to steep and designed the loop to add distance to the grade, I knew I wanted to build a fairly deep chasm that would need a fairly tall trestle to cross. For probably close to 10 years there was no scenery in this location and all there was for a bridge to cross the open space where the trestle was going to be built was a 1/4 inch thick piece of Mahogany trim. Off either side of this stick it was 4 plus foot straight fall to the cement floor!

 

[montanan]

Like the trestle. I should have tried to put more bridges on my layout, but the terrain that I am crossing is fairly flat without many rivers. Nice photo.

We have the same Y-1 locomotive. Mine is also a PFM version. Nice running locomotive.

Here is a couple of photos I took years ago at the BN shop in Livingston, MT. I know Marvin Varnes who was the shop supervisor and he gave me a call one day letting me know that they had just completed restoring NP F-9 7012A and that it was being shipped west to Washington. I managed to get to the shops a couple of hours before it left. I was disappointed that they did a simplified paint scheme instead of the pine tree scheme which was later applied by the Mount Rainier Scenic Railway. This locomotive was used in the movie Runaway Train.



Here it is on the Mount Rainier Scenic Railway. Not quite as shiny. Guess you could call it a bit "weathered".

[video=youtube;OjSrMPG_c88]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjSrMPG_c88[/video]

Looks like she was rode hard and put away wet.

 

[NP2626]

The reason the place is called Hoo Doo Gulch. There are three Hoo Doos here. The third one is directly in between the other two; but, even with the top of the Hoo Doo on the left.

 

[montanan]

That's some nice looking rock work. Well done.

 

[tootnkumin]

Wazz'a HooDoo? (Then maybe I can find them )