Kingston Tennessee and Coal Wood ....

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P

pulaskius

New Member
My Wife and I have decided to make a train set from scratch of the area we live in. She loves to make model buildings and such and we live next to the Kingston Power Plant (coal burner) on the Clinch River here in Tennessee.

Just to the north of here is the area where the movie October Sky (The Rocket Boys) movie was filmed ... some of it anyways ... and we want to reproduce Coal Wood the mining town and the rails, yards, and such supplying our Power Plant.

We see these trains all the time and they still fascinate us. Just to the west of our town is a huge hill running north to south we call the Plateau ... the rails run along the bottom of that 1800 foot or so tall mountain ridge.

I visited my local train/hobby shop this morning and I am torn between HO scale and N scale. In our home we can have a 5' x 10' layout. The plateau will go along the wall and we will be able to walk around 2 sides of it. Coal Wood will be at the far end against the other wall (corner).

My last "train set" was 40 years ago and things sure have changed .. for the better I might add. So many choices !

Coal Wood will be steeped in snow and the valley will be dominated by the Emory/Clinch rivers and the smoke stacks of the TVA power plant at Kingston.

This will be a long and enjoyable project for the Wife and I to collaborate on ... but which scale do you think would be best for us to use for a coal mining town/coal burning power plant with the space we have ??

Thanks in Advance and my name is Wayne :D
 
View of the Plateau in the distance from downtown Harriman. This is one feature that dominates this area.

Other picture is of a fishing buddy of mine with the power plant in the back ground.
 
My local train/hobby shop had boxes of "coal cars" waiting to be sold. I smiled when I saw them as it really fits this area. They were Bachmann brand ... but I will have to do some research for period correct as we are looking for a 1950'-1960's era setting.
 


Welcome aboard!

With a 5x10 area, you could do either HO or N. Since that mountain is such a large scenic feature, I'd lean towards N since the scenery can really dominate the trains.

You're going to have a problem with your current setup. You can only reach about 33". Your main town will be at least 60" ffom you. You won't be able to reach over other obstacles and do something like re-rail a train very easily. If you went with N scale, you coud cut that space to 33" and still have room to reach things. It would also help if you could stretch the layout along the wall further so you end up with something like a 36" wide 6 foot long section and two 48" square sections on each end, something like a dogbone, if you can visualize that. Sounds like a great project and having your wife invilved will really help that along.
 
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