03-03-2012, 04:59 PM
Sumpter250 Wrote:pgandw Wrote:Theme is a free-lance Coastal Oregon logging line come common carrier. I'm modeling the line as I believe it would have looked in 1900. Planned scenes include a dog harbor for shipment of the lumber to California, the sawmill, a log landing in the forest, and the interchange with the standard gauge.
Fred W
The book "Mallets on the Mendocino Coast - Caspar Lumber Company", by Ted Wurm, ISBN 0-0650213-4-3, has some excellent photos of "Dogholes" ( dog harbor ). I am still kicking around the idea of using the 2' X 14' available space, in my basement, to build an On30 "Switchback to an under - the - wire loader, where a small ( 58' - 68' ) lumber schooner could be taking on a load of milled lumber, via "highline transfer". At 68' the schooner model would be 17".
I also have the book, "Mallets on the Mendocino Coast", and I've taken a lot of inspiration from that. The highline wire was actually used in more locations than piers or docks. My original inspiration for a lumber line terminating at a dog hole port was the book, "The Doghole Schooners" by Walter A. Jackson. Unfortunately, my copy was lost during the move to Colorado. The book is now out of print, and copies are rather expensive.
The track plan uses a variation of Chuck Yungkurth's Gum Stump & Snowshoe switchback layout. The doghole port (Port Orford in my case) is at the lower terminal of the track plan. The front-most track will be the wharf where an 80-90ft schooner (12" in HO) will be loading. Port Orford ended up working out very well as my prototype for the doghole port. It has some natural protection from NW winds, it's in Oregon, and today there is a small harbor at the base of a cliff on the NW shore which could be climbed with the switchbacks. The premium for Port Orford cedar over redwood - even in the 19th Century - would justify the longer sailing distance for the schooners. The final clincher was the discovery of abandoned log ponds on topo maps on the nearby Elk River where there had once been sawmills.
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
Port Orford & Elk River Railway & Navigation Co - Home of the Tall Cedars