Trains @ Station Studios

Of the major locations on the Key Valley Railway, Lost Channel was the obvious choice to study first.

One of the techniques I used with great success in the past was to use vintage aerial photographs to determine trackage patterns and building locations. For the Key valley Railway, I purchased a set of 1928 aerial photographs for the Lost Channel area. These photos are approximately 1:25000 scale, and can show a fair amount of detail. I’m fairly happy with the technique, although the 1920′s vintage photos are very grainy and lack a lot of detail. I’ve scanned one of the photographs in and annotated it with the important town features I’ve been able to determine so far.

It is clear from this aerial photo that the eastern terminus of the Key Valley Railway was literally the boardway at the sawmill. I had, at first, interpreted the buildings around the sawmill as a tramway structure. However, after closely reading John Macfie’s “Parry Sound Logging Days” book, I learned that the KVR loaded lumber directly from the sorting boardway onto flatcars for transfer to Pakesley, where the major KVR lumber yards were. Given the lack of real estate around the Lost Channel town site, this is hardly surprising that there was no large lumber yard there.

Macfie’s book mentions that there were 12 or 13 spurs running into the boardway. This is confirmed in the following photograph of the sawmill area:

Typical operations would have the Lost Channel yard engine (one of the Shays most probably) spot one flatcar on each spur, parked right up to the boardway floor. Each car was probably assigned to handle a specific grade and dimension of lumber. When the right grade and dimension of board came to a sorter, he would pick it up, turn and stack it on the appropriate flatcar. When a flatcar was filled, the yard engine would swap it with an empty. I assume that when enough cars were filled, a run would be made to Pakesley and an equal number of empties pulled back to Lost Channel.

Lying to the west of the sawmill was the station for Lost Channel. It served both the town site of Lost Channel as well as the local lake steamer, the “Kawigamog”. The following photograph shows a jumble of buildings wedged between the KVR mainline and the lake itself:

Further to the west where land was easier to clear and develop, the KVR built a small yard to service the sawmill and a wye to turn locomotives.

The two key locations on the KVR were, of course, Pakesley and Lost Channel. The major attributes of each village is given below:

Lost Channel

• the company sawmill;
• the company town site;
• a station serving both the townsite and the local lake steamer;
• a wye for turning locomotives;
• a small yard to support the local trackage.

Pakesley

• the interchange with the Canadian Pacific Railway;
• the main lumber storage yards;
• a station on the Canadina Pacific for passengers transferring to and from the KVR;
• a wye for turning locomotives;
• the likely location of the KVR engine facilities.

I have also found references to two other important KVR locations between Lost Channel and Pakesley. They are:

Camp Six (about half way between Pakesley and Lost Channel)

• one of the company’s logging camps, with a road connecting it to other camps lying to the north;
• a log loading area;
• possibly a passing siding.

Cole’s Siding (just west of Lost Channel)

• a connection to a short branch where log loading occurred;
• possibly a passing siding;
• possibly a spur to a sand/gravel quarry.

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.

The general location of the Key Valley is given in the following map obtained from Google. The Key Valley was just 12 miles long; the western end met the Canadian Pacific Railway at Pakesley; the eastern end was the company town of Lost Channel.

View The Key Valley Railway in a larger map

The construction of the standard gauge Key Valley Railway was started by the Lauder, Spears and Howland Company in 1914. Before the railway was built, the company used a rugged bush trail to haul lumber to a siding on the Canadian National Railway. Unfortunately, the trail was difficult to maintain and was often impassible. The new railroad, named the Key Valley Railway for the narrow valley in which the roadbed lay, would head directly west of Lost Channel to connect with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Pakesley. Unfortunately, the construction costs of the railway almost bankrupted the Lauder, Spears and Howland Company. In 1917, the Schroeder Mills and Timber Company bought up the financially troubled Lauder company and finished the railway.

In the 1920′s, Lost Channel was a bustling place. The sawmill there was the largest in the area. Within the town site proper, about 300 people lived. Along with the Schroeder Company’s bunkhouses and cookeries for its workers, Lost Channel had stores, a hospital and a school. They even had electrical power.

The railway also connected with the steamship “Kawigamog” which served various villages and resorts on the Pickerel River system. By the mid 1920′s, upwards of 1,200 hunters a year passed over the KVR and onto the “Kawigamog” to arrive the Kawigamog Lodge.

At the other end of the KVR, Pakesley also grew. Here, the Schroeder Company kept its large lumber storage yards from which it supplied the Toronto, Detroit, Chicago and New York markets. In the 1920′s, Pakesley grew to include a post office and a hotel as well as receiving a new CPR station in 1924 to handle the increased passenger traffic to and from Lost Channel.

In 1927, the Schroeder Company, perhaps recognizing that their lumber limits were nearing exhaustion, sold the company to a new company, the Pakesley Lumber Company. In 1930, a devastating fire destroyed the Lost Channel mill, and by 1933, Lost Channel was a ghost town. Pakesley survived into the 1960′s as an important CPR section house, but by 1970, it too had become a ghost town.

March 8: The first version of the Lost Hollow Railway has been decommissioned due to a job-related move. I still hope to make it out to the various steamups in the southeast Texas area over the next few months and rebuild the LHR at our next place.

I learned many things on the first version of the Lost Hollow:

1. The hardiplank roadbed system I used worked great for the soil here in Houston. Everything was rock solid and I had no problems with track alignment. Thanks to John Frank for his advice in this area. Details on the hardiplank roadbed system are available here.
2. I put ground zero too low. I should have raised it about 1-2″ more than I did. I had some problems with the lowest level train getting filled in with earth from higher points of the layout.
3. I should have used a retaining wall between the the upper and lower mainlines. Through the center section of the layout, the upper and lower mainlines were separated by 3 inches in vertical height and about 9-12 inches horizontally. I had difficulties keeping the earth on the upper mainline from running down onto the lower mainline. A retaining wall or crib system would have helped.
4. Switches were mostly unnecessary for this live steam layout. The small radius Aristocraft ones that I used were probably too small anyways.
5. We should have put down a weed/plant barrier in the loop sections of the layout to get a handle on the weeds. The layout got very weedy in the last couple of years.

Once again, John Frank hosted a group of south Texas live steam fans at his house for the Spring 2008 Katy Steamup. I’ve made a photo set available on Flickr.

I was a little sad because I knew that this would be my last Texas steamup for a while. Thanks to John, Steve, Ed, Dave, Caleb and all the others for welcoming me into the live steam community.

January 14: Not much to report in early ’07. I did have problem with the Konrad at a steamup just before Christmas; it failed to light properly. After ripping things apart, it looks like that there was something plugging the fuel valve.

April 28: I’ve finally resolved my firing issues on the Regner Konrad; turns out the screw joint between the brass jet fitting and the steel jet holder was leaking, which was causing poor fuel delivery to the burner. A little Teflon tape and I’m back in business! The garden has got away from me again and I’ve got some weeding and cutting back to do.

May 6: I purchased another rolling stock kit from Twin Mountain Model Works; this time, a plantation-style boxcar. It should look good at the end of the logging train or with Coach No. 2.

June 2: Construction on the boxcar is complete and it has been put into service on the LHR.

October 12: You can watch several videos of the Lost Hollow in action at our Youtube account: stationstudios.

Robin and I visited my dad and stepmother at their house in Florida over the last week. While there, we were invited by a friend of my parents to visit the Ridge Live Steamers layout in Dundee. The Ridge Live Steamers have a large 7 1/2″ gauge layout covering several acres. Our host Allen Newcombe took us all for a tour of the facilities and a ride around the layout on his diesel-powered train. Very impressive. A photo set is available on Flickr.

I’ve now also put a short video up on YouTube.

Once again, John Frank hosted a group of south Texas live steam fans at his house for the Fall 2007 Katy Steamup. There was a good turnout today and the rain held off until late in the afternoon. A wide range of live steam locomotives were run including Fowlers, Russells, C-16′s, K28′s, K37′s, Konrads, Shays, and Heislers.

I ran my Konrad for a lap or two, but spent most of the day photographing John’s terrific layout and the passage of trains across it. I’ve made a photo set available on Flickr.

I’ve also made a short video which I put up on YouTube. Another fun day.

The Mark I version of the PM&TCo. has been abandoned. It was a good starting layout but I found it difficult to progress on the layout over the last four years with our living arrangements in Texas. I hope to restart work on it when we get a place with a more appropriate space for a layout.