One Thing Leads to Another...

Sometimes one thing leads to another.

• A little over two weeks ago I posted about being frustrated with On30 and narrow gauge and that I was beginning to look at HO as a more "practical" direction
• I didn't know much about mainline railroads which lead me to Caboose Hobbies to look for a good book on general mainline railroads through the US.
• While there I found Tony Koester's Prototype to Layout which I began reading that weekend.
• I then spent many hours pouring over railroads trying to decide on what I liked
• I finally wound up on Wikipidia's railroad list where I ended up getting distracted by the list of all narrow gauge railroads in the US (I'm a narrow gauge'r after all...)
• From there, really liking ocean front scenery I clicked on Washington where I discovered the IR&N railroad as I mentioned previously.
• I then spent several more hours working on a track plan, attempting to apply things I learned from Prototype to Layout.
• One problem I kept running into was I didn't have enough space to include all of the stops from the prototype, or at least all of the stops I wanted to include.  There are three ways to solve this:  1.) cut out stops, 2.) abbreviate each stop more than would be realistic, 3.) move to a smaller scale.
• I started seriously considering #3.  I've mentioned my interested in HOn3 before but I never particularly had a project for which it fit.  However the IR&N was a 3 foot gauge line so HOn3 was suddenly looking very attractive.
• To jump in with both feet, I joined the HOn3 group on Yahoo Groups.
• While there I noticed there was a "Mountain Module Group" based in the Denver area.  I have been really interested in the idea of a narrow gauge module group for a few years now but I've mainly been looking for an On30 one.  It didn't hit me to check other scale/gauge combinations.
• I asked about that module group and received an invite to the "Narrow Sighted Narrow Gauge"

I'm still going to continue to plan my Nahcotta & Baker's Bay (I actually have an update about it I need to post).  In fact, the wife and I are planning a trip to the North Beach peninsula for next summer.  However, more immediately I'm looking to build an HOn3 "free-mo" module and to get more experience operating on a larger layout -- experience which will hopefully flow into the design of my own basement layout.

Most of the modules in the group are themed around the Rocky mountains.  I've started designing 2 consecutive modules based on the Iron City Mill area of Black Hawk, one location where the Colorado & Southern met the Gilpin Tramway.

First Draft of Module Track Plan

These modules will feature a spur with 4 spots for either boxcar or gondola 30' cars.  Also of interest is the Gilpin line snaking along the top of the mountain which I'm planning to model at HOz, HO on 6.5mm gauge using some code 55 loose rail I've got lying around.

The nice thing about modules is it's an opportunity to build something that's lower cost and manageable that still gets you in the door for lots of operation.  Granted, I was just getting comfortable with 1:48 scale and now I need to re-learn my sense of scale for 1:87.  However, it's a price I'm willing to pay to be part of an active narrow gauge module club.