Bass Lake Railroad, A Setting

When I was doing the weathering on that Sn3 tank car, I was thinking to myself that the weathering should tell a story about the car, instead of just being a recipe for how to make a car look.  That thought was, in large part, influenced by two things recently:

1. I went to a weathering workshop at Caboose Hobbies a few weekends ago, and my main takeaway was "always look at pictures of the real thing"
2. I was recently re-reading through Tony Koester's "Prototype to Layout" and noticed that in so many words, he basically says the exact same thing (except in that context he's referring to a layout, not just weathering of a specific car).

Where did this UTLX car come from and why does it look like this?  Why does it look horrible?  What has caused it to look this way?

I admire railroads like the Carabassett and Dead River or Pelican Bay Railway & Navigation Co. for how plausible they seem to be -- they could have existed.   To set the sage for my series of Sn3 kit builds, every story needs a setting, so here's a crack and creating a setting for my cars...

Begun in 1891 as the Pine Mountain & Cold Springs Railway Company, the line covers some 28 miles of northern California, pushing into the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountain range.  The original intent of the line was to reach Pine Mountain, home of the now world class Pine Mountain Lodge.  The line's inception was financed in large part by land and hotel barons interested in developing the area's tourist potential.  In 1922 the line was re-organized and renamed Bass Lake Railroad by the marketing department to emphasis the railroad's scenic aspect to tourists.

It's the 1930's now and most tourists arrive via an interchange with the Southern Pacific in Cold Springs with passenger trains running two trips daily between Pine Mountain and Cold Springs daily.  In the 1910's logging to the northeast began to increase, and an expansion was laid into the forests beyond Deadwood. Roads and trucks have taken over a good portion of the logging industry since then however and the tracks east of Deadwood are now abandoned.  The large lumber mill at Deadwood however remains a trickle of a revenue source as the once-a-week car load of cut lumber is shipped out over the lines primarily for building projects along the lake.

The railroad's spectacular lake scenery is halted in the middle by an oddity:  Because of the unique shape of the lake a way to pass between Woodcrest Bay and Blanchard was needed.  The cost of doing such a bridge project was beyond the budget of the small narrow gauge, so a railroad car float operation exists between those two cities.

The line north of Blanchard is the most scenic and primarily the tourist area of the line.  Woodcrest Bay, Larkrise, and Cold Springs are home to a number of area industries including quartz mining.  Freight trains on the line consist of lumber, oil, kerosene, quartz, and general merchandise with the occasional reefer with milk or meat as well (roads are still limited to Pine Mountain and as such the railroad is the best way to get fresh food in to the lodges quickly).

The headquarters and railroad shops are located in Cold Springs.  A roundhouse fire destroyed 5 of the line's 9 iron horses and it's been remarked as a "luxury" by railroad management to replace them.  The line's one mechanic manages to keep the remaining 4 engines in working order enough to keep the line working.

Like most depression era narrow gauge lines, the surplus of narrow gauge equipment available on the second hand market in the early 1900's has given the line enough equipment to survive, albeit a mixed bag of rolling stock.  In some cases, for cars not used in passenger service, the cars aren't even re-painted (example: a certain UTLX tank car purchased third hand from the Rio Grande Southern).

The line is managing to squeak by running a mixed freight daily in addition to the two passenger trips.  It's only a matter of time before WW2 does the line in for good.

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In case you missed it, this fictitious line is a bit like the passenger narrative of the Ilwaco Railway & Navigation with the physical location of the Lake Tahoe Railway & Transportation Co and the industry narrative of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge and the car float operation of the Sacramento Northern all mixed in.