Durango & Rio Grande Southern Railroad

HOn3 by Laurie McLean MMR #417

How’dy folks & welcome to “Fabulous Silverton”, the town where there’s always something happening. The layout is called the Durango & Rio Grande Southern Railroad.

This lil’ol narrow gauge RR was started mid 2007 to represent the tracks of the D&RGW RR in the mountains of Colorado. It is Hon3 scale/gauge & runs on Durango Wheat Beer & DCC.

This layout is a little different than most as there is a bunch of “Little Folk” who are becoming famous.

See, there was a “Great Train Robbery”, the Outlaw & his gang of desperate desperado’s stole the “Fourteener” gold nugget that was loaded on a train along with a whore’ll stack of gold top DW’s (Durango Wheat’s – beer). When the Mayor & townsfolk heard the train was stolen they got another train, formed a posse with the Sheriff, Brewer, Spike, Scoop (Silverton Sub-Standard Gazette), Snappy (the photographer), Madam Lash (runs the bordello), Inspector, Professor, RooDy (the kangaroo), Chief Suntraxx & his daughter Minidekoda, Barkeep, Pianoman, Sparky (radio K-HON3) & Toyman.

Ya’see, DW’s are viewed as valuable consumption, some say more valuable than the gold ore mined near town. This train chase has left Silverton & gone on to “other layouts” where photos have been taken showing the posse chasin’ thar Outlaw’s stolen train. They left Australia some months back & are tourin’ through Callyfornya & Coloradie, goin to Alaska, Kansas, New York & on to England – so them’s havin’ a world tour see.

Back at home while the “Little Folk” posse is chasin’ them bandits a whore’ll lot more is hap’nin.

Silverton International Airport jest git it’z new second hand bi-plane, a new town called “Noname City” just sprung up where Laura Norda runds the saloon – sellin’ DW’s of coor’s! The mexican’s keep wanting to steal the DW’s so Jason DeVillian the deputy sheriff is kept busy. The girls at Madam Lash’s pleasure parlor are always involved in the adventures & so is the Durango Wheat traveling truck with the “Singing Hobo’s” onboard.

Yes’siree, evey little figure on this layout has a name, a job & plays jest as important part as them trains.

The injun’s are fitted with Tsunami’s & their lights are beautiful lil’ surface mount device LED’s to make em look pretty. The other injun’s in the tribe at Tomahawk run a casino & have their tee-pees alongside the tracks.

The layout is in a single car garage with a painted backdrop all the way around including the door being painted. Most of the structures are scratchbuilt or kit-bashed, all the trees are handmade & the scenery is plaster & super-detailed.

CVP Easy DCC with wireless throttles runs the trains with brass locomotives & mostly kit built rolling stock that represent the D&RGW narrow gauge that still runs in south-west Colorado.

You can keep up with the adventures of this railroad & its “Little Folk” through the Silverton Sub-Standard Gazette which publishes regular updates on this website & has radio broadcasts also to be listened to – but we printed them out here for slow listeners!

This narrow gauge railroading is sure a lot of fun. Some of the articles with information about how the things were built / modified or made can also be found in the Hints & Tips here.