A little bit more history

As mentioned in my earlier blog post I will be creating a model railroad based on the Southern Pacific.  This railroad will be set in the year 1984 because that is the year my employment with the SP Transportation Company ended.  Seems there was this little corporate merger that was proposed called the Santa Fe Southern Pacific which was announced in December of 1983.  It was during the next few months that I was repeatedly told when the merger was completed the department I was working in would be closed down and all functions were to be taken over by the duplicate department run by the Santa Fe.  It was my desire to keep a steady paycheck coming in that encouraged me to seek other employment, which I did in the summer of 1984.  For more information on the SPSF merger see this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe-Southern_Pacific_merger

On my previous layout, the California, Oregon & Western, I designed a railroad that would run from Klamath Falls, Oregon to Alturas, California.  This railroad was a bit of alternative history in that I envisioned the SP had declared its Modoc Line connecting Oregon with Ogden, Utah and beyond to be unnecessary and had petitioned to abandon it.  Local shippers in the towns along the line appealed to the Interstate Commerce Commission to allow them to purchase or lease the portion of the line between Klamath Falls and Alturas in order to continue local rail service.  This appeal was granted and the CO&W came into being.  Details on the design and construction of this railroad were published in issue 42 of the Layout Design Special Interest Group.  Back issues should still be available from the LDSIG website.  Here is their link:

http://www.ldsig.org/

But enough about my previous layout, this blog is supposed to be about my new layout.  As previously discussed I designed the CO&W to allow for the possibility of moving it to a new location.  Only problem is my new train room is not the same size or shape as my old one.  So even though I can re-use sections of the old railroad, including most of the Klamath Falls yard, I will not be able to re-use 100% of the old layout as is.  What I can do, however, is take up most of the track and switches in the old staging yard and use them to build the staging yards in the new design.  That coupled with the almost complete re-use of Klamath Falls yard will put me that much more ahead of the game in building what is designed to become the Klamath Falls Subdivision of the Southern Pacific railroad.

And yes, it will be set in 1984 and there will be no reference to Shouldn’t Paint So Fast.

Dennis Drury May 20, 2012