Trains and Ghost Towns

I don’t really have the space to build a full layout but I enjoy building dioramas … mini, non-operational layouts. Not too long ago, I built an engine house scene. I had pieces of an old kit in a zip-lock bag from a garage sale so I decided to see what I could do with it. Turned out to be an old 1960s/70s era engine house along the lines of the old Revell Engine House but from a different unknown manufacturer.

What’s an engine house diorama without a few engines laying around? – some on standby, some under repair or maintenance, some just passing by.

I looked around a bit – there are some very fine locomotive models available – but couldn’t find what I was looking for. Many of the engine types I was looking for either did not exist or were far too state-of-art expensive. Don’t need excellent motors, DCC control, exquisite detailing … I can’t see tying up a thousand or more dollars to place several fine-running engines in a static display.

Brain?, says I.
Why are you bothering me again? Says brain.
I have an idea.
Oh, no.
Let’s see if I can 3D print up a “good-enough” engine model for that diorama.

Say, one engine sitting inside the engine house. One being scrapped out for parts on a side track. That engine sitting on the back tracks of the yard. At the ash pit, water tower, industrial siding.

So I started planning and constructing static background models of engines using 3D resins.

And began to think others might be interested but not have the time, desire, or equipment to construct such on their own from scratch but might be interested in buying a kit.

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I’ve always been interested in the period of US history called the “Gilded Age” – roughly 1875 to 1915. The industrial development of that period created the world we live in today. I also lived in Nevada for many years and got involved in exploring the remains of old mining camps and the railroads that served them – Virginia & Truckee being the most well-known. I wander around old ghost towns; walk along old railroad beds. A few structures – standing and ruins – hold my attention … so I take opportunities to visit such sites with a camera and tape measure. Take oodles of photos and started scratch-building some of them.

Somewhere during this process, I decided to turn some of these into kits as well – something not from over-saturated Colorado, much as I love wandering around the San Juan Mountains.

To build kits and offer them to others requires a “business” with all the trappings … such as this web site. So I abandoned the original diorama considerations and turned my focus into the design, manufacturing, and business aspects of this adventure.

So after a bit of this and that, Payette Valley Models was formed.

We focus on HO scale models.

An interesting fact about Promontory: Rocket fuel is produced less than 10 miles from these engines – less than the length of track the CPRR crews laid in one day around Promontory Point.