About
I’ve been interested in trains and model trains since I was a little kid. It must be because my mother’s father and brother both worked on the New York Central in St. Thomas, Ontario.
My first real model railroad was a N scale layout I built while a teenager. I then moved to O scale narrow gauge in university and later to large scale garden railroading while living in Texas.
As of 2011, my main prototype interests are:
The Key Valley Railway (KVR) was a standard gauge railway that ran between the villages of Pakesley and Lost Channel in Ontario between 1917 and 1933. It was constructed to transport logs, lumber and people to and from the company’s lumber mill at Lost Channel.
Since we purchased a house in Port Stanley, Ontario, I’ve started to research the railways in the St. Thomas area in more detail. These include the London & Port Stanley and the Canada Southern Railways.
My main modeling interests are:
The Pen y Fan Quarry Railway is the next evolution of garden railways for me. In 2011, I’ve stepped up to 7/8″ scale (1:13.7) after buying two new locomotives and will feature a Welsh slate railway theme.
The Lost Hollow Railway was a 1:20.3 garden railway using live steam locomotives that I built during our time in Texas. It was completely freelanced and featured small rolling stock.
The Pakesley Mill and Timber Company is a On3/On30 model railroad loosely based on the prototype Key Valley Railway. It was featured in the 2003 issue of Model Railroad Planning. As of 2010, like the Lost Hollow, the PM&TCo remains packed away due to a lack of room while we live here in Amsterdam.
Written by Barry Cott
May 17th, 2009 at 7:30 am
