Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Bedroom-sized layout, version 2: Walla Walla Valley #1


WWV Alco heads onto street trackage on Rose Street.

Walla Walla Valley, version 1.0
2002-2004:
The more I learned about
the Walla Walla Valley railway, the more my modeling shifted towards adopting a stricter prototype adherence. In the short term, that meant rebuilding portions of the WWTCo. to closer emulate the WWV. The layout shifted from a freelance to a "prototype freelance"--the locomotives and some of industry names copied those found on the WWV, but the track plans, rolling stock, and structures still had little basis in reality. But the layout was a blast to operate--and it ended up being featured in Kalmbach's "Great Model Railroads 2005", which was quite an honor. By the time the magazine appeared in print, though, we'd already moved to a bigger house, and a more fully realized prototype-based WWV layout was underway. . .

There's more than you'd probably ever want to know about the Walla Walla Valley Railway, prototype as well as model, on my website. Lots of historic photographs. A fairly extensive history. Equipment rosters of both the electric and diesel fleet. Recollections of those who worked for the railroad. And tons of stuff about my modeling the WWV, including how the layout was operated and sample paperwork items. . .all right here.




WWV's two HH660 Alcos ready for a day's work at the carbarn.


Leased Northern Pacific Baldwin works the cold storage spur.


WWV leaves Potlatch mill and enters Rose Street, passing the Baer scrap yard.


Side-by-side switching on Rose Street and the cannery lead.

5 comments:

South Coast Rail said...

Blair,
the snow must be melting over there and your coming out of your winter hiatus. All these posts of late.
SO whats the big idea of modelling the main north? Did you not see that we had already named a southern town Walla Walla already waiting for you? We even put a railway there so you could model it!!
http://www.nswrail.net/locations/show.php?name=NSW:Walla+Walla&line=NSW:corowa:0
Ah we'll let you off this time - at least Wee Waa has two double ewes in it.
Bob

B. Kooistra said...

I REALLY wanted to do a fictional NSW railway featuring Walla Walla, Wagga Wagga and Wee Waa. . . but I didn't want folks to think I was honoring our president W.. . .perish the thought.

As for all the posts, needed to keep busy while the scenery cement dried!

IainS said...

I like the HH660's - the early diesels seem to be more interesting than today's monsters. I have an Atlas HH660 which I am trying to (unsuccessfully) fit into some fiction about the Victorian Railways so I can run it with the rest of my models.

B. Kooistra said...

Iain, even an HH660 dwarfs a Y class Vic diesel, doesn't it?

And just to keep my fingers in the pot, I do have two WWV sound-equipped Atlas HH660s on order. . . one never knows!

Anonymous said...

Blair, the link to all the historical background about the Walla Walla Valley Railway, photos, rosters, etc. is broken. wwvrailway is redirected to someone wanting to sell the URL.

Any chance you can upload this material to a different address?