Porcupine Valley - February 26, 2010 (PPP)- By Captian Mike: This has been a very big week for the owners and the employees at the Porcupine Valley Lumber Company. Just as the Rio Grande Railroad was completing work on their Engine Service Complex a new contract deal was concluded between the management of the Rio Grande Railroad and the owners of the Porcupine Valley Lumber Company. This was a very complex agreement and also involved deals with the Central Grove Lumber Company in Lebanon, PA and another logging railroad just getting underway in Florida. So much happened so fast that most everybody in the valley was caught off guard and missed the chance for some good rumor telling at the Porcupine Pub & Grub.
It started with the offer by the Central Grove Lumber Company to sell three of their used Shay steam engines that the Porcupine Valley Lumber Company could not pass up. These engines were in excellent shape and perfect for the job they would be expected to do. It stands to reason since the engine design came from right here in Michigan. Ephraim Shay of Harbor Springs, besides building his first geared steam engine in 1876, also was a schoolteacher, physician, civil engineer, logger, merchant, railway owner and inventor. So when three of these became available the PV just had to have them.
That left the Rio Grande Railroad, which expected to have a much bigger roll in the logging and sawmill operation, with the decision to sell off four of the engines they had on the PV site to a new logging railroad being built in Boynton Beach, Florida. That only left the Rio Grande with one K-28 steam engine and their role was now reduced to daily passenger service and freight hauling in and out of the valley. This also meant they would not need to maintain a whole engine service operation there and as part of the deal sold it to the Porcupine Valley Railroad.
As the pre-owned Shay engines arrived in the valley, the first job was crew training and equipment testing. After this first training, there would only be safety meetings held weekly as required by the union. These were set up for Thursdays at the Porcupine Pub & Grub, which happened to be the only place in the valley big enough to handle the meetings and the union members needs. The rules required that during the Safety Meetings, not allowed to go over ten minutes, all bar service was suspended and that included the topless dancers. Other than the bar shutting down for that, the only other time the bar was closed was on Sunday mornings until noon. The reason for that was the place was used for the local church service and the local Blue Grass Band played their version of Gospel music at that time. Sunday was also the day off for the topless dancers and was considered Family Day.
Well that about gives you all the latest news from the Porcupine Valley for this week anyway. Nobody is in the jail, and the Company Clinic has not been busy. No special sales going on that we are aware of and the only good rumor floating around is that the company is talking about building a baseball field near the corner of Main Street and Porcupine Boulevard. That sure would be a great location, being that it would be right across the street from the Porcupine Pub & Grub and the Porcupine Press Publications World Headquarters Building. So until next week, we will leave you with this weeks tip from the PV Head Nurse (Lena), "Keep your zipper zipped up or Zippy-do-da could get you in real trouble."
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Porcupine Valley - February 19, 2010 (PPP)- By Captian Mike: It is the little things in life that sometimes can give you the most pleasure. So bringing your world down to a size of 1/4 inch equals a foot proves even more the point that size does matter. Being a little bit off when working in a scale world, you actually can be way off and for some reason it shows up even worse. So as a choice to create a model railroad, a great number of things had to come into play before you can even get started, in short the 7-Ps must be followed if you are going to achieve your goals; Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. So almost six months was spent drawing pictures before the first piece of wood was cut.
As the photo at the top shows, a lot of work and planning has gone into what you are looking at in that photo, but yet it is far from complete. Also the area that is lit up is only one of nine areas that are under construction, that together form the complete logging & saw mill operation known as the Porcupine Valley. The setting could be most anywhere, where there are mountains and valleys and of course lots and lots of trees. Being that this is not a scale model of some real place, than it is considered to be a freelance design and this allows for the imagination to control everything about the valley. Ideas from real saw mill operations, actual company towns, and in wood logging operations are all be combined into one U-shaped display, with a total length reaching about 50 feet.
The size of this, what is called a modular model train layout, because it is totally movable, was based on the trailer that was acquired to haul it around in. It measured out, that nine modules each being 7 foot four inches long would fit nicely in the trailer. This size would be easy to handle, even for one person to move around and load and unload from the trailer. So each modular unit was built was four 4" locking/swivel wheels attached. The other problem was total height and the door to the trailer set that standard at 59", so we started our base height at 30" off the floor, to allow for the logging operation to be in the mountains, while the town and saw mill and more in the central valley area. To add interest and to complicate things even further a deep valley was built into the design at a height of only six inches off the floor, to be as low as possible, in one area, and as high as possible in another.
This, as you might gather by now had grown into a massive undertaking and it became apparent, if it was going to be completed in some sort of a timely manner, there was going to have to be a group effort. So a loose knit group of modelers started to come together in an e-mail group and the Porcupine Valley Builders Association was born. Soon we had branch offices, so to speak, in six states and one in Canada. The branch offices would build structures at their locations and they would be shipped or picked up for assembly onto the modules at the Porcupine Press Publications World Headquarters Complex in Chatham, Michigan. So if you are ever in the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan and want to stop in and see how it is coming along, by all means stop in an say hello.
An area was set aside for the assembly and storage of the complete layout, on the lower level of our two story Production Center. The design of the modules was made to fit in the trailer, but how the modules were connected was determined by the size of the room, it had to be set up in. As you can imagine, this thing took a lot of space, but we were lucky to have an area big enough to still give us a nice size shop area, and another room off that, for my office and a place to build models and to do detail work. Plus having a door right there to be able to pull the trailer up to for loading and unloading, when it would be set up at a model train show someplace. We are hoping to have it ready for the 31st National Narrow Gauge Convention in the Fall of 2011 in Hickory, North Carolina. The following year we hope to be able to set it up at the National Model Railroad Convention to be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Right now, thinking of these kind of plans feels like putting the cart in front of the horse, as they say. There is a lot of work get to be done before this is ready for any major display on the road. One of the most interesting things for me and many of the other members of out builders association, is trying new things, using methods of modeling we have never done before, or for many working in scale sizes much different than they normally do. In my case, the number of things I am forcing myself to learn, are the things that are making this challenge most rewarding and fun. We don't want to copy what somebody else has done, but rather try to do as good as we can with own our design plan, and to capture the scene of logging in the woods, to transporting the logs through the company town to the saw mill making finished lumber. There will be well over a 1,000 individual scale sized railroad ties to be set into place, individual rails to be spiked into each tie, and hand made turnouts, for changing tracks. There will be sound effects coming from the saw mill and blacksmith shop and even some light hearted rowdiness coming from the local saloon, plus the woods will be alive with the sounds of a full logging operation
We have yet to build the complete railroad engine service center, with a round house, a roundtable for turning the engines and many service shops for blacksmiths and other important trades. At the present time our railroad has ten steam area locomotives that will all be controlled by one or more hand held remotes. The time period for our operation is in the mid fifties and do to the isolation of the Porcupine Valley and the by product of scape wood, this operation still functions with wood as the basic fuel for just about everything.
What happen, for me at least, as this Porcupine Valley takes shape it also takes on a life of it's own. As I turned on the lighting for the first time and the power plant lit up and the street lights came on, it crossed the line from being some plywood with some models mounted on it, to the actual start up of the Porcupine Valley and for me at least, it will never be the same again.... it is alive and will just grow from here. Each little bit of work, each new addition, will make it even more fun to visit.... come on by, we'll have the coffee on for ya, or as one motel chain says, we'll leave the lights on for ya!
