Building the Idaho Northern
I had wanted to build a garden railroad since about 1990, but I was put off by two things; the cost of the equipment and the fact that I wasn't making that much money at the time.
By 1998 I was making enough money, but had been distracted away from garden railroading by other things, plus I had moved to an apartment. Then in December, while I was looking for Christmas decorations in a local Pick-n-Pack
clearance store, I found a stack of Aristo-Craft 0-4-0 Freight sets done up as RC Cola Special Editions; they were only
$30 each! I quickly grabbed 2 of them and ran for the door laughing like a madman.
Over the next six months I began to buy more cars, track and engines, setting them up on the living room floor.
In August of '99 I moved to my current home which has a huge back yard. During the fall I began building my layout
with a 14' by 10' loop with a passing siding and a couple of stub sidings.
The Idaho Northern Spur Line is named for and loosely based on the Union Pacific spur running from Nampa, Idaho to McCall, Idaho.
Over the winter I collected rock for landscaping and as soon as the weather allowed I resumed work. By April I had
enough of the track laid to start putting in plantings and by May the main loop (150') was completed and trains were running.
I have been putting in plants of various kinds and working on a scratch built passenger station since the track was finished.
The layout consists of the original loop contained in one end of a much larger loop that includes an upgrade, a Howe truss bridge, a tunnel through a concrete and rock "mountain", a trestle, and a down grade that loops under the bridge and behind the mountain.
I am planning to add at least one more spur leading through a future western town to a mine head in the side of the
mountain. In the mean time I'm working on collecting the buildings, vehicles and other materials needed for the scenery; and of course I'm adding more plants at every opportunity.
The track is laid on a prepared bare dirt road bed using chicken grit for ballast. The track is all Aristo-Craft with a 5 foot minimum radius on the main line. The track is bolted together with conductive grease in all joints. So far this
combination has run perfectly, with no dead spots anywhere.
The loop formed by the track circling back under the bridge surrounds a concrete fish pond fed by a waterfall down the side of the mountain.
As I improve and add to the layout I will include more pictures and descriptions of any problems I run into.
January 21, 2001
We had our first good snow storm of the winter here in the valley a couple of days ago; the picture above shows the results.
The photo was taken with a low cost Agfa digital camera, it shows why you should always pay more and go for quality.
February 14, 2001
I've seen a number of sites where people discuss the pulling power of different engines, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents worth.
The main loop of my layout includes an upgrade of somewhere between 2% and 3%. The GP9 pulls 15 cars up this slope wihout even slowing down. The Pacific can handle 10 or 11 cars without any problem.
February 18, 2001
Yesterday and today were the first days since mid-October that the weather has been warm enough to do any yard work. As I guess has been the case all over the country, we've had the hardest winter (at least as measured by average temperatures) in many years.
I left on a business trip to Baltimore in October with the intention of raking up the last of the leaves and mowing the lawn for the last time when I returned the following week end. I returned, however to freezing temperatures, rain and snow that haven't cleared out completely even yet.
I was able to rake the leaves out of about half the railroad garden today, and if the weather holds, I should be able to clear the rest next weekend. Then the next project will be to clean and paint the pond.
The only construction projects I have scheduled for the railroad this spring is laying in a buried power cable from the garage to the layout's central island to provide power outlets for the pond pump and the RR Power supplies, and laying about 30 feet of track and a couple of switches leading from the main line to the future mining area.
April 1, 2001
I spent the last the last couple of weekends cleaning up the yard and garden, and placing new plants in the garden. I have added 3 Dwarf Alberta spruce, a Dwarf Boxwood, a couple of Euonymous, a Rhododendron, and an Azalia, around the outside of the pond. I put in a lot of small (six packs) ground cover plants in between, including Scotch and Irish mosses, several varieties of thyme and Blue Star Creeper. The intent is to provide the appearance of a lightly wooded meadow. Later this week I'll be cleaning out the pond prior to painting it with swimming pool paint. I'm planning to place pieces of slate around the outside edge of the pond, hopefully next weekend.
Last night I installed Kadee couplers on the Pacific, both diesels and a transition car (Kadee on one end, Aristo on the other.). I've ordered more and will be working my way back through the cars. The car spacing that body mounted
couplers allow looks so much better it's almost absurd. If the radius of your layout's curves allow it, I highly recommend the change. I'm using Kadee 1835 couplers for the project (except for the diesel conversions, which have special conversion kits.) Details on making coupler conversions can be found at
April 29. 2001
Planted a lot of ground covers. Baby's Tears, Scotch Moss, Irish Moss, Rock Cress, Peppermint, several types of Alyssum, and an Azalia. I also checked the placement of my new farm house and water tower. Next project is to work on the pond. After the winter it needs a skim coat of Quick-crete; then I will place slates around the rim, paint the inside and get the pump running. With luck sometime next month I'll be ready to run trains again. A railroad garden is a lot of work, but as it starts to come together and the plants mature, you see that it's all worthwhile.
May 28. 2001
I got quite a bit done this weekend. In between regular yard work and visiting family cemeteries, I managed to put in a number of new plants and ground covers, set slate around the pond, clean out the pond, and buried a power cable from the garage to the center of the garden. The next projects on the board are filling the center of the garden area with inch and a half river rock, skim coating then painting the inside of the pond (this will include improvments to the water fall), and finishing the wiring of the power cable. The goal is to have everything back up and running by the 4th of July.
This past month I joined a new G Scale railroading club; The Southern Idaho G-Scalers. It's a new group, formed in April, and in the future, as we have meetings at members homes, I will include photos of the members railroad gardens.