Riverside mainline

[csxengineer]

Is there any good layouts that feature the mainline running parallel to a river for the majority of it? Most I have seen only have a small creek or a small port scene.

 

[UP SD40-2]

csxengineer:wav: , cant say as i have seen a layout like that, HOWEVER, it IS very prototypical:winki: . the CNW mainline ran right along the river going out of Beloit WI, almost all the way to Janesville WI:thumb: ...sadly that part of the CNW line is now a....bikepath:madd: :frowns: .

 

[Ralph]

I recall seeing photos of a club layout like that in an old "How to" Model Railroading book. Sorry can't recall the title but I was impressed wth the scenes. The Twin Cities Model Railroad club has a good long scene on one side following a river (The Mississippi, of course) that looks terrific.
Ralph

 

[Jim Krause]

I would suspect that you would need a very arge space to make something like that work. It's certainly possible to have a portion of a river on your layout but would require selective compression to fit it in to any layout. It could be an interesting challange.

 

[Mountain Man]

D&RG through the Royal Gorge and along the Arkansas River.

most people don't model this sort of thing because:

a. It's a lot of water, and

b. It's more fun to croos on bridges and trestles than just run alongside, and

c. They want the space for switch yards, towns, industries, etc.

 

[60103]

I think John Armstrong had something like that. IIRC, he modelled just the river bank and a bit of water along the aisle, so that you were viewing from the river, but it made a super viewing/photography spot.

 

[Ralph]

Here's a picture from the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum with a nice long stretch of river:

http://www.tcmrm.org/images/steamboat.jpg

 

[railohio]

101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders by Linn Westcott on page 51 has a layout like this. It shows the Yosemite Valley paralleling the Merced River almost the whole way around the 10x18 HO scale layout.

~BS