My name is Rich Mossholder. My friends call me Mossy. I have been a model railroader for many years. I recently joined the NMRA, and am diligently working to achieve the title of Master Model Railroader (MMR). Over the years several folks have suggested that I do this, but my reply was always the same, “I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that I am a good modeler.” It wasn’t until I was invited to a Tuesday night MMR zoom call and really got to know these guys. The point of the NMRA Achievement Program is not about getting another certificate to hang on the wall. It’s to help anyone who wants to, become a better modeller. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from this group, is that “Good enough, isn’t.” In other words, don’t settle for mediocrity. If it’s not correct, fix it. These simple statements have helped my modelling tremendously, and they can help you too.
This website is about the Silvertongue Southern Railroad. It is my freelanced HOn3 layout, set in the late 1920’s, when steam was king. Occupying the basement of my home, which consists of three rooms and a hallway, and measures about 16’X56′.
The first room, which is also my workshop, measures 8′ X 20′. This room has two levels. The lower deck will feature a waterfront city with a standard gauge interchange. The upper deck will represent a town at the end of a branch line. I might include some hidden staging tracks there as well with implied connections to friends layouts. This is for future, multi-day, inter-layout operating sessions.
The middle room is 9 1/2′ X 10 1/2′ and is the mountain room. As a kid I was awestruck by the dramatic scenic works of John Allen, Malcolm Furlow, and John Olsen. My plan calls for mountains from waist high to the ceiling, with a couple of small mountain towns hangin’ on for dear life. On the opposite wall from the mountains will be an end to another a branch line. This is the town of Vail. Named for my friend Jim Vail, not the Colorado ski town.
The third room, which I call the big room, is 12 1/2′ X 20′ and is where a lot is happening. All of the four branch lines for the layout originate here. There are two small yards, one in a small city, and the other in the town of Silvertongue, where the branch line splits off, and heads up grade, to the upper decks. There will be plenty of switching to make up the trains here, as well as serving the local industries.
The 24′ X 5 1/2′ hallway is the final area of the layout. On the wall adjacent to the big room there are two decks. The lower deck completes the reverse loop from the big room and is an extension of the city. The upper deck is the end of the logging branch. There are two hidden tracks for staging the trains in and out of the logging camps. On the opposite wall there are two other branch lines on the lower deck. These are accessed by a lift out section that crosses the hallway and forms a wye. The track that goes to the left ends at an oilfield. The track that goes to the right ends in the middle room at the town of Vail.
My love of varied scenery plays a roll here. My goal is to have a much higher scenery to track ratio. Try to imagine… Colorado meets the northern California coast. This might seem a little far fetched in practical terms, but I wanted the dramatic scenery that both areas offer. A small, rocky “dog hole” seaport, with soaring redwood trees, connected by rail with the dramatic mountain mining towns of the southern Rocky Mountains.
I like a wide variety of narrow gauge locomotives, which is why I don’t model any specific prototype. I can pick and choose my favorites without being stuck. My railroad, my rules, if you will. You might even see a diesel, or gas mechanical locomotive, just because I like it.
Structures are a a lot of fun for me. I really enjoy scratch building and kit bashing them. I take great pleasure in naming them after friends and family. Some of them are funny, or a little risque’; while others are simply a tribute to a loved one or mentor.
The layout is controlled with a Digitraxx DC100 Chief, and radio throttles. I’ve had this system for years now, and still works perfectly. Most of my turnouts are hand laid and manually controlled with switch stands like the prototype. There is circuitry attached to the switch stands , under the bench work, to control polarity of the frog. In difficult to reach areas the turnouts will be controlled by switch machines and Tam Valley frog juicers.