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Coal Cars - 7
The Mt. Coffin & Columbia River
The layout in the cover photo is my Mt. Coffin & Columbia River,
a 23"x41" N-scale design based on the cannery industry along the
Columbia River of Oregon in the early 1900s.
This layout started as a "chunk" from an old layout. The dimensions
are based on this old chunk that screamed "don't throw me out!".
As someone who has moved about once a year for the past 12 years,
I'm very much into small, portable layouts.
11. Here's the final layout, just before it was disman-
tled. It served its purpose well as a test bed for learn-
ing various techniques.
11
I chose the Columbia River (Oregon) between Portland and Astoria
because my grandparents lived around there from the 1930s on, and
I really like the feel of the water and greenery of the area. I backed up
the era to the early 1900s because I like steam and wood.
I do have a specific future layout in mind, and so I thought this
"chainsaw layout" would allow me to develop certain skills: handlay-
ing curved and three-way turnouts, scratch building structures such
as mines, canneries, wooden truss bridges, and ore unloading docks,
building different kinds of trees, and so on.
It's funny how these temporary layouts soon become a time- and
skill-sink all their own! This layout that was supposed to be done in a
couple of months took over a year and a half to get somewhere near
“good enough”.
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MRH-Mar 2013