The Frazier Borate Mini Layout

When my shelf layout was about 95 percent complete, I started thinking I wanted to build something I could actually run. One serious possibility was an HO shelf switching layout, but then my wife made an offhand remark about displaying some of my On30 trains in the living room at Christmas. That inspired me to spend several weeks playing with track plans for 2x4 foot and smaller micro layouts.

About that time I was reorganizing my garage and came across the 30x60 HOn30 layout I had started several years earlier. It wasn't that much bigger that the micros I'd been designing, and naturally I got to thinking about reusing the bones of that layout for a small On30 railroad. Too big for the living room, but space to do a bit more.

To make a long story short, I removed the N scale track and replaced it with Atlas HO flex that I had on hand, and some Peco switches, to create an On30 mini layout for the Lockwood & San Emigdio. 

I'm calling the town here Amargosa. There is a small creek about a mile west of the old Frazier borax mine called Bitter Creek or Amargosa Creek, and there was some small-scale mining activity there in the very early 1900s. I'm supposing that evolved into a bigger operation, and spawned its own small town.

The track here is owned and operated by the Frazier Borate Co., using their own little tank engines. L&SE's equipment might show up from time to time, but for the most part the L&SE road engines are too large for the mining line's tight curves.

Construction is somewhat different than the shelf. I built the original HOn30 layout before the current trend of building layouts on EPS foam, so I used good, old-fashioned cookie cutter-style construction with 1/2 inch plywood and 1 x 3 and 1 x 2 framing. I am building the mountains with stacks of foam, which will be covered with Sculptamold, then either Sculptamold or plaster rock castings.

Here are some work-in progress pictures. They're in reverse order:

The Amargosa Mine and north tunnel portal. The mountain is mostly cheap beadboard foam. The buildings are borrowed from the shelf layout.

This siding, on the opposite side of the hill, will eventually be the engine service area, with a small engine shed and water tank. I may need to relocate the siding an inch toward the front (camera side) to fit the engine house. Notice the mine track on the upper level layer of pink foam.

An On18 mine track goes from the ore bin to this mine entrance on the hillside above the south tunnel portal.

Higher level view of the mine and the north side of the hill.

This shot, from the "south" side of the layout, shows the overall track plan. The track on the left is the interchange with the L&SE. The left spur, inside the oval, will serve a couple of small industries. The one at the right front, which has since been relocated slightly, will be the engine service area, possibly including a tiny turntable.

This was the HOn30 layout before I removed the original N scale track. The oval mainline stayed mostly the same, and the interchange is in roughly the same place, but everything else is different than the HOn30 plan.