My Layout in the Fall of 1997

I posted pictures of my layout on my old website beginning when I started it in November 2002. I never posted these pictures on my old website, but am including them now for completion.

These three pictures were taken in late October or early November of 1997. There is an odd mixture of motive power on the layout, as most of my locomotives were already packed to be operated on the Longview, Kelso & Rainier Model Railroad Club layout at the Triangle Mall train show, which took place on the first weekend in November. I took these pictures mainly just to use up the last of the film in my camera so I could put in a new roll of film for the train show. However, since I wasn’t trying to take close-ups, these pictures actually came out pretty well.

In the engine terminal starting on the left, we have a set of Train Miniature FAs, a Montana Rail Link SD40-2, a pair of Proto 2000 SD7s, an Athearn SW7 cow-calf set, a 4-6-2 Pacific by Mantua, an Athearn PA and a Walthers Russell Snow Plow, two Proto 2000 E8s and a Stewart Hobbies Baldwin AS-616 in the roundhouse, and in the servicing area an Athearn PA and PB and an A.H.M. Big Boy. Also, I rearranged the buildings in the town. I had added the Bachmann hobby shop and the California Model Works stores, and moved the motel to the other end of town. I rearranged the buildings several times before settling on an arrangement. The motel would later move back to its original location, and the hobby shop would move to the other end of the town.

Here are the Proto 2000 E8s pulling a freight train of modern cars past the yard. Another freight train is in the yard. I even posed a figure on the brass caboose (the brass cabooses didn’t go to train shows). In the background is an NW2 switcher. It seems odd to me now that I had the motel at this end of the town at one point.

Here is the Mantua 4-6-2 pulling a train of modern grain hoppers and the Big Boy pulling modern double-stack container cars. I was embracing the randomness of the equipment on the layout by intentionally setting up anachronisms. The double-stacked containers can’t even run on the layout as they are too tall for the tunnels.