Arcadia & Betsey River Ry
Arcadia & Betsey River Ry
Logging In The Pacific Northwest In HO Scale
Logging In The Pacific Northwest In HO Scale
The New A&BR Ry.
The HO Scale A&BR Ry.
The HO Scale A&BR Ry.
A New Beginning
The A&BR begins anew after its shut down in Michigan when the railroad is purchased and moved to the Pacific Northwest. The new owner had timber holdings to harvest out there.
Shays, Heislers and Climax's
The topography of the new owners holdings dictates the road use primarily geared motive power though they are using a 2-6-2T to shuttle cars around the yard and mills in Arcadia.
A New Arcadia
The new mill, a large double band mill is situated on the shore of the new Bar Lake fed by, what else but the Betsey River. This area is of course known as Arcadia.
The Railroad
The tracks extend from Arcadia to Eagle Harbor, a distance of about 12 "smiles". Along the way there is a truck-to-rail reload and a skyline operation with a hayrack for loading the company's skeleton log cars.
There is also a branch line at Harbor Junction that extends the rails to Hill Camp and Camp 2 in the mountains above Eagle Harbor where two more sides supply the mill with logs. Located near Camp 2 is the Bottom Line Mine and the A&BR moves the mines ore and other freight between the mine and Arcadia.
At Eagle Harbor there is a landing where rafts of logs, cut on a nearby island, are loaded onto rail cars for the journey to the mill. Also located at Eagle Harbor is a branch line to Camp 3 and a railroad car ferry operation which creates bridge traffic for the A&BR between Eagle Harbor and the railroad interchange in Arcadia.