My HO layout, or to put it more properly the one I've been planning and am now starting to work on more intently, the 'C & S West-Short Line RR', is for all intent purposes is freelanced vision of what may have been in and around the turn of the 1900's with no particular location modeled precisley. I really enjoy all trains but I'm fondest of the early small locomotives and the trussrod cars and equipment of that early time period. I also fell in love with
the secnery of Colorado on the D&RGW Narrow Gauge as well as the RGS & C&S so I'm trying to merge these various aspects into my mainly Std Gauge operation with the possibility of the use of a little gem of an 0-6-0T RGS loco I have but I haven't yet got all the track work designed so time will tell.
I intend on basing my layout on operation and planning to incorporate these areas; Freight, Passenger, Logging and Mining of Coal, Silver/Gold & Copper.
Now the question becomes will I have the realestate to to fit it all in in a believeable way?? My origional track plan was fit into a 10'x10' area and now I'm expanding that area to a 10' x 21' area and want to not only have higher mountains with Pines and Red Woods for the Logging operations, two possibly,
but also some lower elevations of foothills with Oak trees and grasses. The other thing I'm trying to accomplish on my 30" shelf layout is as little as possible of straight track for too long a distance, of course even 21' isn't all that long of a distance but more than enough for me! Also my layout will be built on three different level which are all inter connected by 6% grades. The main elevation will be at a height of 45 3/8" the mountain town elevations are about 54" and the Logging areas will be about 62" from the floor, so when I pull a string of 10 cars up the mountain I actually need to double head to acheive the pull.