2019 Sn3 Symposium

[Keith Hayes]

Your correspondent is enjoying the Sn3 Symposium in Seattle. Many ne'er do wells are in attendance.

Wednesday, Dave Woodrell hosted an ops session on his Northern Division of the RGS.

I spied this P1 stock car at Ridgeway. How close to the real thing is it?

Today we visited a couple nice layouts. First up was a On2 Gilpin Tram layout:

Check out the hanging helix!

Then on to the Everett and Monte Cristo.

Our own Jim Courtney enjoyed the smelter at the end of the line.

And if you want to model a funky bridge, here is one idea:

I ended the night operating this rig with Bill Hobbs as my Conductor.

[Mike Trent]

Thanks for keeping us updated, Keith. Enjoy your trip.

[Jeff Young]

Great stuff, Keith!  Thanks for posting those.

[Keith Hayes]

Sorry you can't make it. We spied some ex-C&S equipment in Alaska.

[Keith Hayes]

Oh boy. Russ told me to climb up into the cab and take the log train down to the lake. More fun than I expected!

[Lee Gustafson]

I appreciate and enjoy the photos and updates. Thanks for sharing keep the photos coming.

Lee Gustafson

[Keith Hayes]

And now there are at least two!

[Keith Hayes]

Pat Student continues to make the case for red stock cars.

A neat mine tram:

Russ Segner bought some of these AWESOME 3d printed tractors:

Problem was, people were oohing and aahing,  and you couldn't tell if it was over the tractor,  or that blasted Lima product in the background.

[Mike Trent]

Last April, our friend Jan Rons posted pictures here of his #537 in progress at that time.

He really did an excellent job on it, and had planned to show it off up there at the Symposium. Glad he made it. If you see him up there be sure to say hello. An excellent modeler and artist.

[Chris Walker]

Appreciate these pictures Keith, any chance you can post a larger view of the "Mine Tram" photo?

[Keith Hayes]

Like this Chris?

Or this.

[Keith Hayes]

Folks from the Republic of Texas were kind enough to let me ride with them to visit the Olympic Peninsula.

Bill Bussaca had made several changes to his layout.

The cattle drive is a favorite. This domestic scene is nice too.

Bill now has a loop that takes the track to a loop below staging.
Then on to Dale Kruetzer's.

This is a fine layout with code 55 rail which runs flawlessly.
Marc LaChey was all smiles!

Dale has a good handle on the turf cowlick.

Thanks to the whole crew for putting on a great event. And it was nice to see all the Sn3 brethren,  too.

[Jim Courtney]

Keith and I  (and Dale Kreutzer on Friday) shared some quality windshield time driving the back roads of east King County, visiting layouts that were open for the Sn3 Symposium.

Since I love to post photos here, join us as we retrace our travels on Thursday and Friday, April 4th and 5th . . .


Gary Jordan's "The Gilpin Tram" (On3/On2)



In a very limited space, Gary has captured the feel of Blackhawk and the Gilpin Tram tracks to the various mills, with Clear Creek winding through the scenes. How many of the mills do you recognize??








Gary's motive power consists of Overland brass imports for GT shays 3, 4 and 5. And there are lots and lots of Grandt Gilpin ore cars on Coronado trucks. The remaining 2 foot gauge rolling stock is all scratch built from C&S Folio drawings.




Didrik Voss's "Everett & Monte Christo Railway" (HO standard):

Didrick's layout was featured in the Gazette many years back. The E&MC was a real tun-of-the-century railroad built from Everett, on Puget Sound, up the south fork of the Stillaguamish River to reach the gold mining town of Monte Christo, high in the Cascades. The railroad was financed by Rockefeller, but the available ore wasn't economically feasible to mine. The railroad later passed into the possession of the Northern Pacific as a lumbering branch line.

In east Everett, the E&MC yards and shops are adjacent to a huge smelting complex:




The railroad interchanges with the Northern Pacific at Hartford, just to the east.




Heading east, the railroad crosses the river on this neat wood bridge, carefully constructed from prototype photos:




East of Granite Falls, is a large sawmill complex, fed by a logging railroad.




Further upstream, the river's canon narrows and both tunnels and snow/rock sheds were employed.






The final climb to Monte Christo required switch backs on trestles to reach the town and the gold concentrator. If the E&MC wasn't narrow gauge, it should have been.






The railroad facilities at Monte Christo were on the simple side -- there was never really a depot there. People just came down the plank road to the tracks, to catch the train.






It looks like Keith isn't the only one to use forced perspective to an advantage:




For more info on the real Everett & Monte Christo, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_and_Monte_Cristo_Railway
For a video of the layout, go here: https://vimeo.com/97887180


Steve Depolo's "Alaska Pacific Railway and Terminal Company" (Sn3):

Steve's layout is heavily influenced by the layout of his friend, the late Brian Ellerby, who gave the world Evergreen Styrene.

The Alaska Pacific is a "what if" layout. The real AP Rwy & T Co. was a standard gauge line that began construction in 1907, from Katalla, AK, toward an interior copper mining region. The real railroad never was completed, so Steve built it to 3 foot gauge instead.

The wharves at Katalla -- everywhere we looked, Keith and I noticed former C&S rolling stock:






In the railroad yard at Katalla, Keith and I discovered Derrell Poole's "Eight wheel caboose on the C&S", requisitioned by the US government for use on the AP, to help build a nearby segment of the ALCAN highway:




Little towns along the route were served by little depots:




The railroad descended into an interior glacial valley by tunnel and steel bridges:




I didn't ask Steve the name of this long, narrow glacial lake, but to me it will always be "Mirror Lake", due to the mirror at the far end that doubles its length. Can you see it?




A small depot and a spur to a wharf serve the barge traffic on the lake:






The mining region at the end of the railway includes a large processing mill, boarding house for workers, cottages for officials and offices for both the mines and the railroad.








And for those skeptics that find moving a depot from Denver to Como to be improbable, please explain how the Romley depot ended up in the Alaska interior.




I was so taken by the scenery and structures that I forgot to get photos of Steve's locomotives. The AP is powered by 2-8-0's, mostly outside frame. And some of Brian Ellerby's Copper River & Yukon locomotives are leased to meet the demands of increased traffic. Photos of Steve's locomotives can be found here:
https://www.sn3seattle.com/LayoutsTour/DePolo


Bruce Hanley's "Washo & Wind Gap" (Sn3):

The W&WG is a Colorado themed Sn3 layout built in a modest "bonus" room. Bruce made use of one of the "voids" in the attack for a loop staging yard and storage of equipment. The mainline is a simple oval, the rear part of the oval behind the backdrop being said staging yard.

A wye at the left end of the mainline loop leads to a branch line, and Bruce's primary interest, Colorado mining. Bruce and Chris Walker would hit it off fine.

On the mainline is Fudd's Fuels, a coal and petroleum distributor:






First stop on the branch line is this fascinating coke oven facility (or is it charcoal?):






The branch ends in a high mountain basin, reminiscent of Pandora, surrounded by various examples of hard rock mining:









Inspiring model building, our photos don't do the mill with its tramway/tram house justice!

______________


All three of us were famished after all this travel, so we stopped off at "Five Guys" hamburgers in Issaquah for a late lunch. Each of us consumed about 8,000 calories of burgers, fresh cut fries and milkshakes. Drowsy but determined, we visited the last layout of our two day tour . . .


Russ Segner's Coal Creek Lumber Company (Sn3):

Russ loves geared engines and has built a very nice, compact Sn3 layout, modeling the terrain around his home in Newcastle, in the Cascade foothills. The centerpiece of the layout is the sawmill complex built in an alcove of his bonus room, about 6 x 10 feet in dimension:




If Keith, in the cab of one of the shays, can control his log train coming down Tiger Mountain, he will end up spotting his train on the trestle of the A-frame log dump on the left.

Halfway up the grade to the logging camp on Tiger Mountain is the section town of Bunkers:




I didn't take as many photos of Russ's layout due to my elevated serum lipids from lunch and the serious need for a nap back at the hotel.

All in all a great two days visiting excellent model builder's work.

For more photos of these and other Sn3 Symposium layouts, visit https://www.sn3seattle.com/layouts

[Robert Stears]

Looks like great fun.

Wish I could have been there!

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 7, 2019, at 8:47 PM, Jim Courtney [via C&Sng Discussion Forum] <[hidden email]> wrote:

Keith and I  (and Dale Kreutzer on Friday) shared some quality windshield time driving the back roads of east King County, visiting layouts that were open for the Sn3 Symposium.

Since I love to post photos here, join us as we retrace our travels on Thursday and Friday, April 4th and 5th . . .


Gary Jordan's "The Gilpin Tram" (On3/On2)



In a very limited space, Gary has captured the feel of Blackhawk and the Gilpin Tram tracks to the various mills, with Clear Creek winding through the scenes. How many of the mills do you recognize??








Gary's motive power consists of Overland brass imports for GT shays 3, 4 and 5. And there are lots and lots of Grandt Gilpin ore cars on Coronado trucks. The remaining 2 foot gauge rolling stock is all scratch built from C&S Folio drawings.




Didrik Voss's "Everett & Monte Christo Railway" (HO standard):

Didrick's layout was featured in the Gazette many years back. The E&MC was a real tun-of-the-century railroad built from Everett, on Puget Sound, up the south fork of the Stillaguamish River to reach the gold mining town of Monte Christo, high in the Cascades. The railroad was financed by Rockefeller, but the available ore wasn't economically feasible to mine. The railroad later passed into the possession of the Northern Pacific as a lumbering branch line.

In east Everett, the E&MG yards and shops are adjacent to a huge smelting complex:




The railroad interchanges with the Northern Pacific at Hartford, just to the east.




Heading east, the railroad crosses the river on this neat wood bridge, carefully constructed from prototype photos:




East of Granite Fall, is a large sawmill complex, fed by a logging railroad.




Further upstream, the river's canon narrows and both tunnels and snow/rock sheds were employed.






The final climb to Monte Christo required switch backs on trestles to reach the town and the gold concentrator. If the E&MC wasn't narrow gauge, it should have been.






The railroad facilities at Monte Christo were on the simple side -- there was never really a depot there. People just came down the plank road to the tracks, to catch the train.






It looks like Keith isn't the only one to use forced perspective to an advantage:




For more info on the real Everett & Monte Christo, and lots of photos, go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_and_Monte_Cristo_Railway


Steve Depolo's "Alaska Pacific Railway and Terminal Company" (Sn3):

Steve's layout is heavily influenced by the layout of his friend, the late Brian Ellerby, who gave the world Evergreen Styrene.

The Alaska Pacific is a "what if" layout. The real AP Rwy & T Co. was a standard gauge line that began construction in 1907, from Katalla, AK, toward an interior copper mining region. The real railroad never was completed, so Steve built it to 3 foot gauge instead.

The wharves at Katalla -- everywhere we looked, Keith and I noticed former C&S rolling stock:






In the railroad yard at Katalla, Keith and I discovered Derrell Poole's "Eight wheel caboose on the C&S", requisitioned by the US government for use on the AP, to help build a nearby segment of the ALCAN highway:




Little towns along the route were served by little depots:




The railroad descended into an interior glacial valley by tunnel and steel bridges:




I didn't ask Steve the name of this long, narrow glacial lake, but to me it will always be "Mirror Lake", due to the mirror at the far end that doubles its length. Can you see it?




A small depot and a spur to a wharf serve the barge traffic on the lake:






The mining region at the end of the railway includes a large processing mill, boarding house for workers, cottages for officials and offices for both the mines and the railroad.








And for those skeptics that find moving a depot from Denver to Como to be improbable, please explain how the Romley depot ended up in the Alaska interior.




I was so taken by the scenery and structures that I forgot to get photos of Steve's locomotives. The AP is powered by 2-8-0's, mostly outside frame. And some of Brian Ellerby's Copper River & Yukon locomotives are leased to meet the demands of increased traffic. Photos of Steve's locomotives can be found here:
https://www.sn3seattle.com/LayoutsTour/DePolo


Bruce Hanley's "Washo & Wind Gap" (Sn3):

The W&WG is a Colorado themed Sn3 layout built in a modest "bonus" room. Bruce made use of one of the "voids" in the attack for a loop staging yard and storage of equipment. The mainline is a simple oval, the rear part of the oval behind the backdrop being said staging yard.

A wye at the left end of the mainline loop leads to a branch line, and Bruce's primary interest, Colorado mining. Bruce and Chris Walker would hit it off fine.

On the mainline is Fudd's Fuels, a coal and petroleum distributor:






First stop on the branch line is this fascinating coke oven facility (or is it charcoal?):






The branch ends in a high mountain basin, reminiscent of Pandora, surrounded by various examples of hard rock mining:









Inspiring model building, our photos don't do the mill with its tramway/tram house justice!

______________


All three of us were famished after all this travel, so we stopped off at "Five Guys" hamburgers in Issaquah for a late lunch. Each of us consumed about 8,000 calories of burgers, fresh cut fries and milkshakes. Drowsy but determined, we visited the last layout of our two day tour . . .


Russ Segner's Coal Creek Lumber Company (Sn3):

Russ loves geared engines and has built a very nice, compact Sn3 layout, modeling the terrain around his home in Newcastle, in the Cascade foothills. The centerpiece of the layout is the sawmill complex built in an alcove of his bonus room, about 6 x 10 feet in dimension:




If Keith, in the cab of one of the shays, can control his log train coming down Tiger Mountain, he will end up spotting his train on the trestle of the A-frame log dump on the left.

Halfway up the grade to the logging camp on Tiger Mountain is the section town of Bunkers:




I didn't take as many photos of Russ's layout due to my elevated serum lipids from lunch and the serious need for a nap back at the hotel.

All in all a great two days visiting excellent model builder's work.

For more photos of these and other Sn3 Symposium layouts, visit https://www.sn3seattle.com/layouts

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[Chris Walker]

Many Thanks to Keith and Jim for these brilliant pictures.  


The Seattle area sure has some fine Modellers there, I'm glad I was able to finish off my touring with the 2012 NNGC.  There's even a fine slice of NZR up there, with the Ex-Pat Kiwi owners from my locality to boot.  

[Jim Courtney]

Wow, Chris, I had no idea that Max McGuiness was from your neck of the woods.

Indeed, Max has a fine layout, one photo is here: https://www.sn3seattle.com/LayoutsTour/Maginess

[Don Gustavson II]

Wow! Great layouts.
Thanks for sharing all the pictures.
For some reason I want to leave work now and go work on the train layout.

[Jan P. Rons]

Kieth,
It was great to see you this past weekend. Thanks for taking the pic of #537. Perhaps I can "lease" the engine to you for a time so that you can take some pics of it on your layout. I saw you absorbing and appreciating all the modeling talent that's in Seattle. You are doing fine work as well.
Jan

[Mark Lewis]

Keith:

Thank you for posting so many great photos of some of the amazing layouts you visited during the 2019 Sn3 Symposium.

[Todd A Ferguson]

Thanks for sharing...great stuff.

I went to the Symposium in Seattle in about 1998 and got to run on Dale's RGS layout and the Pelican Bay of Paul Scoles. Good times.  Both layouts ran flawlessly.  We also got to operate on Brian Elerby's Copper River and Yukon layout.  Nighthawk as the only area complete at that time.  The rest was under construction largely.  Enjoyed the slower pace of the Symposium compared to the national conventions.