On April 27, 2004 , Arthur Raynolds posted the following “Mission Statement” on the internet to other model railroaders...
“It is my hope to honor The Southern Railway by recreating Southern’s conquest of the mountains here in Western N.C. The period of my recreation is from 1930 to around 1965 so that I can have both steam and diesel power. I cannot improve on the Southern name, so I’ve just added to it. The 1999 census taker saw our imaginative sign on our road and considered it an official name and now you can see it on Delorme’s computer maps. The full name is ‘Raynolds Ridge Mountain Southern Railway’.
It will feature the 5.4% (average 4.7%) Saluda Grade and the runaway track at Melrose,Old Fort Loops (2%) along with the Andrews Geyser, the wye at Biltmore and its station, and other features you can find in Western N.C. There will be a short logging branch called Toxaway, close to where I live, and I hear tell from the old timers there were places on it that were over 6%. My other favorite railroads are the Atlantic Coast Line/Seaboard Airline (ACL/SAL) I will have an interchange between the Southern Railway (SR) & SAL and have a Doodlebug to service the very short line to somewhere.
So far after the four years of construction, I have hand built 125 feet of track and this year the roadbeds are being dug under where the track is to be placed. There will be a 14 foot long curved trestle (phase 2), a pond dug last year will feed a stream and the geyser. The railroad will have no track power and willbe Remote Controlled and battery operated.
Here on Rocky Mountain, flat land is non-existent, so the hillside where I’m building the railroad hada gentle 15% slope. On the bottom is a built upterraced area. I am planning to build a seven footlong curved twin tracked tunnel and at this time it is planned to be level with hatch in the middle. So there you have it, the whys and wherefores of the Mountain Southern Railway. I hope to have Phase I, the lower loop, operational by Summer’s end 2004.” In the Spring of the year 2000, Arthur Raynolds broke ground on a designated section of our property to begin the construction of a “G Gauge” garden railroad and realize a lifelong dream. And Arthur will tell you this type of project is a lot of work, but for him, truly a labor of love. Here is our story.
In that first summer, perhaps the heaviest part of the job was preparing the land. As Arthur would tell you, “The area where the train would run started out at a 15% grade and we had to level the area to a maximum 2- 3% grade. In terms of real railroads anything more than 1% is considered steep.”
So the first step was to build a wall at the low end of the land. It was just like building a house: it had a foundation, drainage, cement forms, then cement blocks. To finish the wall we used a layer of cement on the outside like stucco and added a layer of white pebbles for decoration. On the top layer of the wall Arthur added two rows of old railroad ties that we purchased from the Brevard Railroad when the last section was dismantled on Railroad Avenue in downtown Brevard. Arthur also obtained an old switch and the cross buck sign from Brevard. So you could say, in our own way, we are keeping the memory of the old railroad by keeping these artifacts “in service.”
We worked all that first summer on the wall. And as the level grew higher and higher we wheelbarrowed in two truckloads of fill dirt to eventually bring the level of the lower end of the land up to the top of the wall and create a level area to lay the model railroad track. As with most train layouts, whether indoors or out, it is critical that the area be visitor friendly, so my job became focused on landscaping the guest walking path around the outside of the wall on both sides (when I wasn’t helping shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow).
For the next three years it would seem like there was no progress if you looked across our driveway to the railroad area. But actually, during all that time, when we were not serving as full time caregivers to elderly parents, Arthur was busily building the railroad track for his railroad. That’s correct. Every cross tie and every spike was being assembled by hand in Arthur’s workshop in the lower level of our home.
Arthur purchased six foot lengths of the rail from a company all the way in Oregon . The spikes come from a company in California . The wood is cut by hand by a local carpenter. “All my wood is pressure treated, and, after it is cut to size it is retreated and stained black to resemble creosote,” Arthur will tell you.
By the Spring of 2004, Arthur had hand built 170 feet of track and we were ready to take it outside and see how the track matched up on the land to his drawing. “The basic oval, distance around the outside track is 75 feet. Add in the twin diagonal tracks, the third leg of the wye and second track in the tunnel, plus the upper line and long bridge sections of the beginning of phase 2, that makes up the 170- foot total.”
So all this Summer, Arthur worked at laying the trackbed, revising, “tweaking,” re-leveling, returning to the workshop to reshape or add another few feet to bring the different sections of the railroad together.
In his plan, there was to be at least one tunnel and so Arthur designed a curved tunnel. With the help of James Toole, a talented carpenter in Rosman, Arthur has a beautiful curved tunnel large enough for trains to pass on the inside. To place the tunnel in its natural environment, a mountain was added to the scene by shoveling a lot of dirt and then plants. Around most of the elevated track we planted natural moss to hold the fine gravel in place.
There was something else that increased Arthur’s focus on finishing at least the first phase of his garden railroad. Part of the fun of a model railroad hobbiest is to travel around the country and visit other model railroads. We do that on a regular basis and get a lot of ideas from what we see on other layouts. This Spring we learned that there was a model railroaders show scheduled at Silvermont in Brevard in October. When Arthur spoke with the director of this show, he mentioned that he was working on one just outside of Brevard. The director was delighted to hear about it and told Arthur that he would love to include “tours to Toxaway” to see Arthur’s railroad.
With this impending “show” the pressure was on to take our “construction site” and turn it into a visitor-friendly model railroad park. That meant a lot more work than just laying track. Everyone knows that a garden railroad has to have a waterfall and a pond. Sound easy? Sure!
Get a rubber liner, tubing and a water pump, and a bunch of rock, dig a hole and you’re done! Not! We had some beautiful natural boulders on the land that had always been earmarked to create a gorge and cascade down from a rock-built waterfall. But after it was all in place, the water leaked out where it wasn’t supposed to and emptied the pond. The rocks and liner were repositioned over and over again and although better, there are still unfound leaks. This is not as easy as it may seem, as we learned.
The final stage in our preparations for the October show was landscaping; lots of landscaping. Neither of us are very good with plants, so we brought in a wonderful team from Rosman who actually helped with the stone work as well: Dale & Jan *- Whitmire, Sean Aiken, and Michael Galloway. I don’t think we could have put it all together without their help and a lot of patience. The good news is that Arthur will tell you that, “even tho there are details left to finish, the trains are finally running on Phase I of our ‘Mountain Southern Railway’ and we are looking forward to sharing the enjoyment of watching the trains run with family, friends and our neighbors.”
So there you have it: the whys and wherefores of the Mountain Southern Railway. As of the summer of 2004, Phase I, the lower loop, was in operation. Phase II is currently under construction...