First off, welcome to the wonderfull world of logging railroads.
The first step in determining how you want to proceed with your layout is to decide where you want your operation to be (what part of the country). By that I mean west side of the Cascades, east side of the Cascades, West Virginia, Black Hills of South Dakota, etc. This decision will have a big effect on the type of trees and other vegetation you put model (Ponderosa pine for dry side models, firs and spruces for west (wetter) sides, etc.). Once you have a location picked learn as much about it as you can. There are a lot of books out there about specific logging railroads and logging operations, and looking through a couple of books that operated in the area you are interested in will often tell you a lot about how things worked in that area.
If you are in search of inspiration, there are a couple of really good general sources that provide a lot of general information.
Books- A couple good books to look for are Logging Railroads of the West by Kramer Adams and Railroads in the Woods by John Labbe. Logging Railroads of the West has been out of print for many years, but is readily available at decent prices in many used book dealers (my favorite source is
www.abebooks.com). Railroads in the Woods is still in print and is available from Oso Publishing (
www.osorail.com). I can't recommend Railroads in the Woods high enough to someone just getting their feet wet. Beyond that, let your interests develop, see where they take you, then look for books about that area.
Magazines- Two magazines exist that are entirely devoted to logging railroads and logging railroad models. They are Timber Times (
www.timbertimes.com) and Tall Timber Short Lines (also put out by Oso,
www.osorail.com). TTSL is a little bit more "professional" in appearance than TT, but the two magazines complement each other nicely. Both publishers also have a number of books each out about logging railroads. Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette does a lot with logging railroads as well, but quite often I find that one has to sift through a lot of Colorado narrow gauge to get to it.
If you are into logging on the Pacific Coast, then you would be well advised to find copies of the January, February, March and April issues of Railroad Model Craftsman. RMC ran a series of articles on Pacific Coast Logging Railroads by Robert Turner in those four issues. The January issue focused on the development of the timber industry in the western parts of the U.S. and Canada, including detailed descriptions on regional variations in forest types; the February issue featured the steam logging era, talking about how the various types of steam locomotives came to be and giving general descriptions of logging practices of the time; the March issue featured rolling stock used in steam era logging operations; and the April issue was about those logging railroads that survived long enough to be dieselized. CTC Board between 1986 and 1990 ran a seven part series about the seven diesel powered logging railroads that survived to that point in time.
Internet resources: Be sure to check out the extensive link thread on this board. I would also strongly suggest that you join the Yahoo 4L list (4L stands for Loyal Legion of Logged-On Loggers). You do have to get a Yahoo membership (it's free) to get into the group, but right now there are over 900 people in the group, and there are lots and lots of discussions about anything and everything logging railroad and lumber industry related. Lots of very knowlegeable people on the list willing to answer just about any question.
Every year, usually in early summer, there is a Northwest Logging Modelers Convention, usually held in western Washington or Oregon. This coming year is will be held in mid-June (June 11-13, I believe) at a La Quinta Inn in Tacoma. This will be the 10th annual convention. There is a website up about the convention at
http://www.nwlm.org. Lots of vendors show up to sell logging models, there are presentations and field trips and modeling contests. I have not been to one myself but plan to go this year.
As for what to model, what kind of space do you have? To be quite honest, most sawmill models commercially available are (in all reality) too small to support a logging railroad operation. However, if you really want to put a sawmill on your layout, this fact should not stop you. You do not need a sawmill; you can choose to model just the harvest/landing area, or you can choose to model a logging railroad line that lies between the harvest areas and the sawmill. There are also a lot of real cases out there where a logging company had a logging railroad that connected with a mainline railroad or in some cases even another logging railroad, and the company would operate their railroad from the interchange to the harvest operation, with the mainline road moving the log cars from the interchange to the sawmill (if you don't have room for a sawmill, that would be an almost ideal situation...you have a Shay or two that move cars back and forth from the interchange to the harvest area for loading, then back to the interchange where a mainline engine shows up to take the log loads "off to the mill"). Just a thought, take it or leave it...
The Bachmann Spectrum 3-truck Shay in HO scale is a model of a real Shay that was built in 1905 and is still in service on the Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia, but it is pretty close to a lot Shays built for western roads into the mid-teens. That would be my pick for a 1910-era operation, assuming you are talking about HO scale.
Don't hesitate to contact me on or off list if you have any specific questions or need information on anything. I am always willing to share whatever info I have.
Hope this helps.
JD Moore
http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails
blpc017@yahoo.com