Sloat Lumber Co. River Camp – an On30 switching layout

Click on the trackplan for a larger version

 The visible part of this small layout is 55 cm x 174 cm (22" x 68") with a two track sector plate hidden behind a door. Think of it as a photo stage with a bit of animation.

The key to making a reasonably credible layout in a small space is to focus on a specific part of a rail operation. If I try to represent too many aspects of a logging operation, each part will be shrunk to a Disneyland caricature. Inspired by Tom Beaton´s “Broak & Kantifordit” I have focused on the maintenance yard of a small logging camp. This gives me a reason to display a variety of funky logging equipment, which is my main modeling interest. Housing, mess hall etc, along with the log dump, are located off scene, east of the boat landing.

I love the primitive equipment used by early loggers, along with the sternwheel steamboats used to develop the Pacific northwest, so my logging camp is located on a river bank somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, around 1880-1900.  The loggers have exhausted the lumber within easy reach of the shore, and built a small narrow gauge railroad to reach farther. Regular railroad service is still in the future, so the logging operation's only connection with the outside world is by water.

Supplies for the logging operation and its crew are brought to the landing by steamboat. Logs are dumped into the river, and bundled into log rafts which are towed to  a sawmill on the Pacific coast, Finished lumber will be loaded on ocean-going lumber schooners for the booming economy of California.

I am considering to use a simplified form of link-and-pin couplers described by Harold Minky. Rolling stock is equipped with L&P coupler sockets, but for normal operations, I would couple equipment with a simple U-shaped wire staple. Proper links and pins can be added for display and photos.