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Buildings on the Colorado & Wyoming Railway


Jump to The Riverside Lumber Company, Mill #1
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The Riverside Lumber Company, Mill #1

The lumber mill is located on the lower level of the layout across the river from the main town. The primary transportation to and from the lumber mill is by of the Colorado and Wyoming Railway using both rail bus for passenger service and Porter locomotives for freight movements both around the plant and for car transfer with the Colorado & Southern Railway in town.

The construction of the mill itself is a product of my own drawings based on various articles, images and mills I have visited over the years. Although I am not following any one prototype my plan is to selectively choose the features for my mill so as to give the impression of a fully functional mill. The main building will occupy a footprint of 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep. The main floor of the mill will be raised above the ground level to allow for rail access under the building. One of the rail accesses will be used for both loading finished rough cut lumber to be loaded onto cars. The second rail access line will be used for unloading mill supplies that can be almost any product. The office for the mill is located above the main floor of the mill allowing for the bosses to get a good view of the operations.

The main structure of the mill is of post and beam construction. The floors are wooden planking and the walls are of a construction method I have not decided on. To start the construction process I needed to create a base for the building and a template used for the actual construction of the building remote of the layout as room is limited for this work. Shown in the images below is the first steps to completing the structure.

Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1

In these images the base on the layout has been installed with 1/2" plywood. Also lath nails have been installed to align the posts of the new lumber mill.

Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1

In these images you can see the template that was made using 1/4" foam core. I have also installed lath nails in the template to align the posts. These lath nails are lined up exactly in the same position as the lath nails on the layout. In the third image I have placed one of the stained posts in place on the template over the lath nail.

Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1

In these images above progress can be seen in the structure. In the first image from this group all of the upright post and all of the floor framing of the main floor is in place. The next step in the construction will be to add the wood flooring over this entire surface. The second and third images show openings that have been left in the floor. Hoists will be located over these openings to allow for the loading of materials and equipment into the building on the track located closest to the front of the building while the two openings over the second track will be used to load cut lumber onto flat car for shipment. The last image in this group shows the progress of the track work on the layout that will be under the completed lumber mill. The road bed and ties are in place. Next the ties will be stained and rail spiked into place.

Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1

The flooring on the main level of the lumber mill is starting to be laid onto of the floor joists. As seen in the images this is board by board construction. And just to mimic real life everyone just seems to be standing around hoping that the floor will just lay itself.

Lumber Mill #1 Lumber Mill #1

The flooring has now been laid, almost 10,000 scale square feet. I'm now starting to install some of the wall framing including openings for the custom made windows as seen in the above images.

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C&S and CWRy Trestle

The main bridge on my railway is the wooden trestle that crosses the river. This bridge is used by both the Colorado & Southern Railroad and my Colorado & Wyoming Railway to access the town along the river. For the CWRy this is a vital link to access the lumber mill and the rest of the operations. Below are images showing the span that needs to be bridged and the trestle that has been built to span this gap. I will add more images showing the details as the work is completed. The bridge started life as a "S" scale Hunterline kit that was modified for On30.

Gap across the river Wooden Trestle

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Lumber Mill Log Car Extension Bridge

Located at the lumber mill near the log off loading area are two log storage tracks. These tracks came to an end at a gulley that has been formed by a feeder creek into the river. The problem was that the storage track was too short and needed to be extended. Building a Queen's Post bridge to span the gap seemed nessasary. This allowed for the tracks to be continued on the other side increasing the usage each of the storage track to double. Each track will now hold 6 log cars as opposed to 3. This bridge cam as kit made by Hunterline© as a S scale kit. I modified the kit for my On30 scale and guage as well as making the bridge wider to accommodate the double track. Here are some images of the progress.

Queen's Bridge Queen's Bridge Queen's Bridge

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