Not a photo, but a video. Was running at the Livingston Model Railroad club last Saturday and took this video of a Northern Pacific passenger train. This is a model of an actual train that used to run from Livingston, MT down to Gardiner, MT until 1955. The locomotive modeled was detailed to match one of the locomotives that made these trips. Here is a model of the station that the train used to take passengers to in Gardiner, MT to visit Yellowstone National Park. We let the train loose to run around the layout. It did have to slow down a bit because of the freight train in the background climbing the grade.
Did they actually model much of the branch line? Other stations south of Livingston? The full loop, with freight house, etc?
Due to space limitations, the mostly concentrated on the loop in Gardiner. In the first photo where they had to bore a hole through 24 inches of concrete in the basement of the depot from the main part of the layout. It is hard to see, but if you have ever driven from Livingston to Gardiner on US 89, there is a feature that is called the "Devils Slide" which is just to the left of where the tracks come into the room.There weren't any stops on the way down I don't believe, but the Northern Pacific did run trains to Gardiner year round to supply the town because the roads at the time between the two towns weren't the best. In the last photo, this is where the loop comes through town and runs along the Yellowstone River and joind the track to go through the wall back to the main part of the layout. Building in the town circa the 1930 were modeled from photos of Gardiner in that period of time. View attachment 181716 Again, there had to be some compression of the town due to the space that was available for the town. I think they did an awesome job of recreating the town.
Love all those antique trucks! Those orange and white barrels are kind of jarring though in that scene. Were they around in that era?
Have been busy and haven't had a chance to post until now, but enjoyed everyone's photos. In particular, Russell's photo really shows the potential for modeling big industries in N scale. I also like Rick's covered hopper. Unfortunately, rail service to Yuma was discontinued (cut back to Cadillac several years ago. This was due, I think, to declining traffic. (Too bad. One of my favorite railfan memories is of PM 1225 pounding up Boon hill with a long passenger train. Never to be repeated.) Jim showed us some great scenery this week and another of John's excellent night shots rounded it out. Candy, I'm not quite sure how to put this. Went home Friday night, rolled into town, and the first thing I saw was this: Then, I discovered your first post and was almost sure I'd crossed into a parallel universe. Seriously, I couldn't resist poking a little fun, but in both scenes your modeling and scene composition are excellent. Very nice!
