Lebanon Industrial Railway

[Justinmiller171]

Hi everyone,

This is going to be the build thread for my 10"x72" HO-scale Lebanon Industrial Railway (LIRY).

The LIRY is a very small short-line located in Lebanon, Oregon. The railroad was once a spur owned by the Southern Pacific, that served a local feed mill and trans-load track. In the late 80's, SP decided to abandon the spur, however the traffic to the feed-mill and the trans-load track were so important to the community that the city decided to purchase the track, as well as one of SP's NW-2 for a switcher.

Here is the track-plan:


I have the baseboard completed, and track is ready to be laid. My goal is to have track and wiring done by the end of December, if I am lucky I may also have some basic scenery done by that time.

[Brakie]

Very nice looking compact ISL..I like the name too.

Is the LIRY operated as needed?

[MountainMan]

Will this be stand alone, or will it be the genesis for an expansion of the local industries?

[mountaingoatgreg]

Justin

Have you seen the history of the Molla branch of the Oregon Pacific Railroad?

The SP loaned the startup railroad a SW1500 to get things going. It had only three customers and they were very diverse. Not sure if you are trying to immulate a real railroad but it may be worth looking at.

[Justinmiller171]

Larry, I imagine that the LIRY wouldn't handle a large enough amount of freight to have it operated on a regular basis, I would think it would be operated about once every other week.

MountainMan, The layout will be stand-alone, however when I have more space, I plan on building a larger and more realistic version with a few more industries.

Greg, Thanks for the link! I found it very interesting and it gave me some ideas for the back-story behind my railroad.

[Justinmiller171]

I was able to get all of the track laid and wired the other night, I still need to finish up a few things before I can start adding scenery, but if all goes well I should be able to start with the scenery sometime next month.

I have been reading up on the Molalla branch on the Oregon Pacific RR, and it's creation has given me inspiration for the back-story of my railroad. During the 1980's the Southern Pacific was selling off their unprofitable branch-lines, the Molalla branch was sold off to the Oregon Pacific and the SP was so glad to get rid of the line that they let the OPRR use their locomotive until they could buy their own.

On my railroad, I will have the SP drop off their locomotive to the right of the layout(near the office) when they are done dropping off cars at the interchange, the LIRY crew would then operate the locomotive.

If anyone else is interesting in reading about the OPRR Molalla branch you can visit their website here: http://www.oregonpacificrr.com/molallabranch.html

[mountaingoatgreg]

Justin,

Glad you were able to find some inspiration with the Oregon Pacific operation. During the time that many of these Shortlines started in Oregon it was very creative. Many of them begged borrowed, and maybe even used without permission to get things going. The SP was so happy to spin these operations off them seemed pretty willing to do whatever they needed to in order to get traffic moving. Since many of the operations signed exclusive switching agreements stating they could only interchange with the SP for a specific period of time, letting them borrow stuff was actually making them money.

As you can see with history, the SP had not done enough to keep themselves in the black and was gobbled up by the UP. I know that on some properties the UP was less then happy with what the SP had agreed to provide to some properties and some of the rates were also not to the UP liking. Also as time has moved on most shortlines have been able to open up their interchange options, including other class ones and even direct interchange with other Shortlines.

I look forward to seeing some photos of your layout in the near future!