Large scale logging

 Click on trackplan to see a larger version

When Bachmann first released their ”G” scale Porter side tank, I noticed the resemblance to my favorite loco, Porter c/n 4350. An 18-ton side tank loco, delivered 6/09 to Standard Lumber Co. for the Empire City Ry. and later used by the Sloat Lumber Co. So I had to have it..

I had a photo of this loco, at the end of its life at Sloat, and decided to detail my Porter based on that photo. I enjoyed the experience so much that I ended up building a small fleet of logging cars for it.

But I had no intention of builing a garden empire. This trackplan was designed to explore the possibility of logging in a very small space, my usual 22” x 68” shelf, with a short staging track on one end. The simplest of switching track plans, a two track “tuning fork”, with an escape track added to hold a second loco.

The scene is a logging side somewhere out in the woods, with one track devoted to log loading, and a siding holding cars loaded with supplies for the logging operation. Loading is as basic as it gets: An early Dolbeer donkey hauls logs to the landing, and loggers with peavies manhandle  the logs across the rollway onto the waiting train, with no mechanical help..

The “donkey doctor” is so attached to his machine that he has his own camp car parked at the end of the siding.

Bachmann´s early products, including the Porter, were to 1/22.5 scale. But by the time their eagerly anticipated Shay was released, they had decided the American market wanted proper 3ft gauge, which meant 1/20,3 scale. And the Shay was a much larger prototype than I could accommodate anyway, so I shelved my large scale plans and returned to On30”..  But I still have them stashed somewhere.