Introducing the Olympic Peninsula Railroad


RRShutterbug

RRShutterbug

The Railroad Shutterbug
Here is the first look at my new layout... the Olympic Peninsula Railroad. It is a freelanced HO scale railroad that is set in western Washington in 1975. The modeled portion of the railroad is Port Townsend. The railroad serves a paper mill, a scrap metal shipper, an export grain elevator, a packaging manufacturer, a cold storage company and a brewery.

The layout is 9'6" x 6'0" and sits 5' above the floor (to make room for shelves and other storage below). Current power is a Digitrax Empire Builder DCC system.

Operations see two trains per day coming into Port Townsend - the Mill Job and the Port Townsend Local. The mill job switches the 4 tracks in the mill while the local switches all other customers.

Most of these buildings are stand-ins that I've borrowed from a friend. All trains originate/terminate in staging behind the mill.

The first 3 photos are of the Raven Pulp & Paper mill area.
 
These views show the industrial area with K&J Brewing, Watkins Packaging (formerly Wolf Bags), Peninsula Cold Storage and a couple other non-rail buildings.
 
Last four views:

Pacific Coast Grain export elevator and the yard area. It's two complete tracks with the 3rd being a stub (I am debating on whether or not to connect it in at the other end). Also shown - a stand in building for Matt's Steel Salvage.
 
Looks great so far. :) You might want to move the light fixture though.

Who makes the brewery (?) in your second post, first picture? It has a very Seattle vibe to it.
 
the gray building is something I got from my friend Ted who loaned me the structures so not sure who made it. It is plastic, although I can't find any manufacturer info on it. I'm guessing it is a kitbash or scratchbuild of some sort.. The brewery is actually the light colored building in the back of that photo. It is a cardstock mock-up that I scratchbuilt.
 
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The shelves are 18" deep.

Oh - and the light fixture issue... no can do. I'm renting the apartment. One of the little things I have to live with.
 
You could temporarily replace the fixture with something more flush and integrate it into a background image as The Sun :D

Anyway, looks great. Do you only have the one run around? I wonder if it would be helpful to integrate a second on the left end of the layout somewhere.
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Fix ps3
 
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Great start, love the switching possibilities!
Also like how it wraps around the corner to give that feeling of going somewhere.
 
Rico said:
Great start, love the switching possibilities!
Also like how it wraps around the corner to give that feeling of going somewhere.
Click to expand...

I was going to comment on this as well. At first glance I thought it was a typical corner of a room with the operator on the 'inside' of the L. Later pictures revealed it in fact wraps around the outside of a corner and the operator is outside of the L. I think that's super. So many layouts are geared toward wrapping around the operator so they don't have to move much and can see everything, but there's theory behind "hide and reveal" to create the illusion of distance and travel. By going around a corner you're hiding and revealing half the layout.

Great stuff :)
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Tsd Competition Grade Plastic Airsoft 0 28G
 
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Yes, there is only the one run-around. There just really isn't enough room to put a second one in.

I also agree with the outside L giving a feel of distance. I really enjoy standing at the end of the layout (post 2, photo 3) with the tracks at eye-level and watching the train come around the corner. It really gives it a whole new dimension to it.
 
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