George,
I saw the PBS documentary recently (In HD!) and was similarly impressed. There's an abundance of modeling potential, including a Willys railcar. Maybe Bachmann will release them in HOn3 as well.
WP&Y had quite a number of railcars & buses over the years.
Nelson
Ex-Southern 385 Being Hoisted
BR60103 wrote: George: Tonight, please sit quietly down in front ofthe TV and watch a video on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Narrow-gauge madness can be cured.
George: Tonight, please sit quietly down in front ofthe TV and watch a video on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Narrow-gauge madness can be cured.
I grew up a stone's throw from Whitford Station on the PRR's Philly to Harrisburg main. If tomorrow the White Pass were to string catenary and start running a narrow gauge version of the GG1 I'd think I had died and gone to heaven!
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
--David
The White Pass shut down for a brief time in the 80s (1982-88 I think) when it reopened it did so as a passenger only tourist type operation.
Prior to 1982 the White Pass was a common carrier. It was one of the pioneers in intermodal freight. It ran its own containers on COFC from the port of Skagway to the interior of the Yukon. It also ran mineral trains (lead, copper and zinc) from the interior to the port at Skagway. The mineral trains consisted of short open top containers which were set on the same type flat cars that carried the box containers - the flats had mounting points for both types of containers.
http://narrowmind.railfan.net/WPYR/freight/containerflat-20ft.jpg
Novierr,
My wife and I were stationed in Alaska (NAS Adak) for 4 years in the early 90's and I got to do some limited rail fanning of the standard gauge Alaska RR. Getting back to Alaska and riding both the WP&Y and ARR are definitely on our "to do" list.
Ironrooster,
I was (briefly) tempted to switch to Sn3 and if I had just a little more space, it would have been a no-brainer! However, I like the challenge of modelling the White Pass in HOn3 - and I want the mountains to dwarf the trains. (If my eyesight were a little better, I would have gone to N scale! LOL)
I had just completed the benchwork in the first (and smaller) of the two rooms in my basement which will host my model railroad empire. I was about to start adding the subroadbed (1/2" ply) but first I decided to treat myself to a railroad video.
Not long ago I had bought a bunch of prototype railroad videos from an estate sale, I had not gotten around to viewing them and, I figured that now was the time. The one I chose was about the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Alaska.
What can I say? I was totally blown away!
This is a wonderful little narrow gauge railroad that is still in operation! Diesels! COFC! Mine runs! Mixed freight and passenger service! Straight passenger service. Steep grades with helper service! Fantastic mountain scenery as well as a quaint port operation - this little 3 foot road has everything!
More specifically, it had many of the things (steep grades, helper service and traffic density) that were missing from my Port Able and Eastern.
So, I dug through my back issues of model railroad magazines and my track plan books to find everything I could on the WP&Y. In More Railroads You Can Model, I found a track plan for a steam era WP&R and I found that I had even bought a book years ago on the road. I searched the internet for everything I could find on the WP&Y.
All work on my layout stopped as I pulled down the track plan for the PA&ERR that I had taped to the wall of my layout room and attacked it with my eraser (thankful it was drawn in pencil). All I really had to do was make sure the new layout design fit the foot print of the finished benchwork in the first room, the rest was up for grabs.
When the dust (and eraser shavings settled) I had a plan for a prototype railroad with fantastic scenery and operating possiblities. No changes needed to be made to the existing benchwork and, thanks to the smaller radius curves, the rest of layout fit the space available much better.
The down side is that there is not a lot of RTR stuff out there for HOn3 let alone specifically for the WP&Y. This doesn't really bother me as have always liked to kitbash cars and engines. (Some of my favorite MR articles were the deisel kitbashing articles by Tom Busack) And, of course everything seems to be that much more expensive.
Anyhow, as of this writing I have the subroadbed for Skagway yard in place and have about 1/2 of the grade from Skagway to Steel Brigde (where the tracks pass from one room to the next - about 40 real feet of run) in place. I'm waiting on my first order of Micro Engineeering code 70 HOn3 flex track.
I'll keep you all posted and hope to post some pics in the near future.