Riverside mainline

Is there any good layouts that feature the mainline running parallel to a river for the majority of it? Most I have seen only have a small creek or a small port scene.
 

UP SD40-2

Senior Member
csxengineer:wav: , cant say as i have seen a layout like that, HOWEVER, it IS very prototypical:winki: . the CNW mainline ran right along the river going out of Beloit WI, almost all the way to Janesville WI:thumb: ...sadly that part of the CNW line is now a....bikepath:madd: :frowns: .
 

Ralph

Remember...it's for fun!
I recall seeing photos of a club layout like that in an old "How to" Model Railroading book. Sorry can't recall the title but I was impressed wth the scenes. The Twin Cities Model Railroad club has a good long scene on one side following a river (The Mississippi, of course) that looks terrific.
Ralph
 

Jim Krause

Active Member
I would suspect that you would need a very arge space to make something like that work. It's certainly possible to have a portion of a river on your layout but would require selective compression to fit it in to any layout. It could be an interesting challange.
 

Mountain Man

Active Member
D&RG through the Royal Gorge and along the Arkansas River.

most people don't model this sort of thing because:

a. It's a lot of water, and

b. It's more fun to croos on bridges and trestles than just run alongside, and

c. They want the space for switch yards, towns, industries, etc.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
I think John Armstrong had something like that. IIRC, he modelled just the river bank and a bit of water along the aisle, so that you were viewing from the river, but it made a super viewing/photography spot.
 

railohio

Active Member
101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders by Linn Westcott on page 51 has a layout like this. It shows the Yosemite Valley paralleling the Merced River almost the whole way around the 10x18 HO scale layout.

~BS
 
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