Roaring Creek Narrow Gauge: Genesis and Inspiration

Alright, to start things off it has actually been a while since I've worked on a blog. Mostly due to personal reasons that have limited or kept me from being able to make much progress on my various hobby and model railroad projects. So here we go for Round Three!!

The Roaring Creek Narrow Gauge railroad is a freelance HOn30 "Mini Layout" that is 18 inches by 5 feet. I'm actually more of an O scale guy and prefer modeling On30 and the the narrow gauge modeling niche of On20. However, it is next to impossible to model an O scale layout that would be continuous running on a space not much larger than the top of a dresser. However the reason for parcially switching over to HOn30 was not for practical reasons alone to save space, but also because a close friend of mine had given me one of the wonderful Minitrains F&C 0-4-0 locos as a gift!

In August of 2015 I visited my friend and also helped him on building a HO model railroad for his dad, which really gave me an itch to build my own layout. Seeing as I'm living in a small apartment I have limited space, and after seeing HOn30 for the first time I saw the potential it had for model railroaders with limited 'real estate'. So with this new inspiration I began plotting a new layout to be built in the not-too-distant future.

The overall theme of the layout is inspired by the majestic Cascade Mountains of Washington State. A very select few model railroads have been set here and even fewer narrow gauge model railroads. I chose the Cascades as it breaks the Colorado narrow gauge stereotype. Of course there's nothing wrong with CO Narrow Gauge, after all it's what got me hooked on Slim-Gauge railroading to begin with! However I wanted something that was a bit different and unique. Then inspiration for the railroad's name came from a different source. On another trip with another friend of mine we were heading to a live steam club and while on our way there we passed a street sign called "Roaring Creek Drive". I instantly thought it would make a great railroad name, so I took note of it. And two or three years later I found a use for it as the "Roaring Creek Narrow Gauge".

I have a very active imagination, so I can easily see small little engines with short, stubby rolling stock trundling through landscape such as this:

Unfortunately with my 18"x5' limitations I won't quite be able to capture the grandeur of the Cascades, but I hope to at least evoke the feel of them.

Rolling stock will be supplied by both Minitrains, with their awesome line of passenger equipment: 

And Marsh Creek Miniatures with their awesome line of 20' freight stock kits!

I'll go into more detail about the kits as I work on them, but I can tell you they are an exceptional value and very well done!

Below is a photo of the "Layout" in its early stages:

The layout is comprised of a pair of old, abandoned modules from a defunct model railroad club. Each is 18x30 inches, so I decided to permanently bolt them together to form the bench work. I've made some considerable progress to the layout since this photo and will make a more detailed post about it in the future.

Well, that's about it for now! I hope I've been able to capture your attention so far, so stay tuned for further updates!