The Southern Pacific Division is located in the northeast of Connecticut on Andy Blacthleys Mountain Gorge R.R. I met Andy back in the middle 90`s through a mutual friend, and since then we have become great friends.  The results of that friendship with him and his wife Irene, Andy surprised me one night and said “would you like a section up against the wall to run your collection of Southern Pacific trains”are you sure that would be great, we could interchange east meets west.  I`am very greatful to him to have an outlet to run my trains.

So with the help of Andy’s regular running session guys coming together for work sessions, they banged out the frame work, lights and drywall.  Having the right guys in their trades helps out greatly, they had all the work done in a few short nights to where Andy and I could put track down and go from there.

The track plan we came up with is freelance in which it made it harder to settle on one plan because we put track down and ripped it up and put it back down several more times until we settled on this plan.   It’s a good plan for switching, you have to plan your moves to get your cars spotted in the right place before the nights out.  We operated on this plan to get all the kinks out before constructing the upper level to be called Stockdale. The big central building is Stockdale & Co. from laserkit.com known as Dabler Mill & Supply Co.  Below Stockdale is Sunrise Station which is a stopping off point before heading pass the town of Sherman Row then under and into the two reverse loops that come together under the main room below Willow Creek and Pfefferkorn Furniture from Bar Mills. The tracks merge together under willow creek just before breaking out back under Stockdale coming out under the bridge then back into another short tunnel and making its way into daylight again as it climbs its way up to the interchange building GI Tool & Die.

We wanted a big building there to interchange between the SP division and the main room. This is Andy`s main running area that he started out with before meeting up with a whole new group of guys that changed the way he used to run. Since meeting up with this new group he’s expanded his layout several times.  The main room is in Massachusetts, there is another area that breaks out of the main room into a double track tunnel then heads to New London yards, from there the train breaks down to smaller jobs and to the docks.

The main room interchanges with the SP division and also switches with New London using reefer trains, this is where we came up with east meets west for shipping loads.  We needed a big building up on the hill to interchange with the main room but I could not find a suitable building that would work.  But Walthers has something close to what we needed so we purchased to Prairie Star Millings from Walthers then I kitbashed both of them into one big backdrop building and came up with GI Tool & Die for which is named after my Dad’s old trucking company that he used to work for.  GI Trucking was formed from GI`s coming home from the war and they started this company.

Just below GI Tool & Die is a DPM Building called California Express they ship all kinds of goods, the reefer train gets made up here. In front of California Express is SP Petroleum and then the yard with small industries between the two companies.

Up in Stockdale is a small town still under construction and down the track a short way is ADM Grain Elevator from Walthers but renamed Prairie Star Milling, down and to the right is Bull’s Salvage, this building was taken from a Bar Mills limited run series kit, it also was kit basted as well.

When building craftsman kits I always try to do something to a building so it has my look to it.  By changing the roof line or changing walls or just adding shudders to your windows makes a big or small difference, details are a big deal.  Andy and I still have to add a lot of details to finishes, but you know a layout really never gets completed.

Case in point Andy just started a new steam narrow gauge from the SP division yard breaking through the back drop and up the out side of the main room wall why’ll doing switch backs to gain elevation to connect up to a saw mill or some kind of industries at the end of the line.  He also says this is it no more expanding after this!.   Photos coming soon. 

I will also be making more changes check back.

Thanks.
  Mark Doyon