ANOTHER layout project?

Local kid on a bitchin' Sting Ray Schwinn ignores the hometown railroad, Lynden, Washington, December 31, 1979/Blair Kooistra photo

What? Another Model Railroad project?

Wasn't I just modeling rural New South Wales, Australia? I certainly was--in fact, i'd been modeling a bit of the land down under for the past ten years or so, off and on. I've decided to try something else and put the Australian model railroading on hold for awhile.

My Australian modeling certainly got a fair amount of attention. I know there were many American modelers who'd thought I'd flipped my noggin giving up a very well-researched and well underway pike recreating the Walla Walla Valley Railway in Washington and Oregon, circa late 1960s. And while Australians modeling US prototypes are quite common, there are only a handful of modelers in the United States who modeled Australia.

A number of personal issues had come up in the past couple of years which impacted time and, frankly, interest in working on the Australian model railroad in our Texas home. But aside from reasons unrelated to the hobby itself, it seemed like a good time to return to modeling a prototype I was a bit more familiar with, as well ease myself a bit more into the social aspects of American-prototype modeling and operations.


Choosing A Subject

I've always been a branchline or shortline guy. Not a busy mainline operation, but a relatively small, easy-to-grasp piece of a railroad that doesn't require a roomful of people to operate and a ton of equipment to fill the railroad with. This is what was behind choosing Walla Walla Valley in the first place.  And frankly, a THIRD version of WWV was certainly tempting, but the second version of the WWV I did was probably the best iteration of that railroad in the space available one could pull off. . .and I was looking to downsize further in available space.

While the layout room remains 19 X 17', I'm limiting myself to just two walls for this latest railroad. This, realistically, seems reasonable for me to build and "finish" in terms of equipment, scenery, and structures in 3-4 years then enjoy for a few more years before my anticipated retirement in 2025 and likely selling our residence and vacating the state.

Getting all misty-eyed nostalgic about my own youth--which many modelers do when they get to late middle-age--assured me I'd end up choosing a place, time and railroad I was at least passingly familiar with: it'd have to be in the Pacific Northwest, in the mid- to late-1970s. And that'd leave me two railroad choices, Burlington Northern or Milwaukee Road.

But hands down: it had to be Milwaukee Road.

The Milwaukee was THE railroad of my youth, and research and writing concentrating on my photography of the railroad's last few years in the Pacific Northwest before abandonment in 1980 reinforced just how much of a hold that railroad has on my heart. The main question, then, was WHAT part of the Milwaukee Road to model?

While spectacularly scenic and interesting, the Milwaukee Road was, from an operations standpoint of a model railroad in a fairly limited space, a difficult subject to distill. The Mainline was out, of course, so I'd have to choose a small terminal or branchline. I wanted a bit of variety in traffic. I had my favorites in rolling stock that HAD to be included: grain hoppers, insulated boxcars, and mechanical refrigerators. And I wanted to be able to model a variety of locomotives--I didn't want to choose a prototype to model that was limited to just an SW1200 or GP9. And I didn't want any one type of freight car or scenic element to be so onerous to model that it would crush my spirit: by that, I mean I didn't want to feel obligated to scratch build or resin cast 40 log flats or built hundreds of fir trees to model the Mineral/Morton lines.

With a determination to stick to a prototype, this narrowed my choices greatly.

Among the lines in consideration (and the factors weighing against modeling it)
--Enumclaw-Cedar Falls-Snoqualmie lines (not enough space)
--Raymond or Hoquiam branches (too limited in being primarily lumber/logging)
--Mineral to Morton (too many trees and log flats!)
--Seattle Waterfront (not enough space)
--Kent Valley/Andover Business Park (too cramped for the space I had)
--Bellingham-Sumas-Limestone line (now we're getting somewhere--but, again, not enough space to do this fascinating line justice)

I kept coming back to the Bellingham area. . . and I recalled the short branch into the small town of Lynden, which I'd visited once in late 1979 while chasing the Bellingham-Sumas turn on a grey, wet, cold afternoon. Light rail. . . weed-grown right of way. . .grain hoppers and boxcars and mechanical refrigerators. . . a small, compact cluster of industries. . . a single locomotive at a time. . . connecting to a branch where virtually any locomotive the Milwaukee Road was operating on the west coast was likely to turn up.

So. . .this was it: the stub-end branch into Lynden, in the final years of operation by Milwaukee Road, 1976-1979 or so. (Don't shed all your tears: This was one of the few pieces of Milwaukee Road to survive the abandonment, and was bought by Burlington Northern and remains in service today--with much better track--under BNSF).

This is the first post of yet another blog about one of my model railroads. There will be lots more to share in the years to come. . . I hope.