The Farthest North Garden Railway

The history & theory of the CRD model railroad

 
How my Great Northern (GN Phase II) line became the Alaska-Canadian Northern Expo Consolidated Railway System (ALCANEX)
 
The Alcan extension is markedly different from the original historic model railroad project because it involves a mix of  historic flag lines, a proposed rail extension to Alaska complete with a connection to Siberia, and a model town based on the immensely popular 1990s television series, Northern Exposure (NX).  NX was not even filmed in Alaska although most of the scenes take place in or around Cicely, Alaska.  Cicely is a mythical Alaskan  town whose exact location is deliberately obscured because there is no exact Alaska prototype. The filming location for NX was Roslyn, Washington, about 80-90 miles east of Seattle.  Roslyn has a distinctive "Main Street USA" appearance to it combined with a  western frontier flavor due to a number of wood false-front business structures within the two-block downtown area. Some of the Roslyn scenes, notably The Brick Tavern and the Roslyn Cafe,  are now instantly recognizable to the point of being genuine American icons.

Many people tend to confuse NX with the real Alaska. I decided to build a layout based on the NX filming site exactly for that reason.  That is,  to the average American visitor, Cicely is more recognizable than almost any part of Alaska, including Kennecott--Alaska's largest and most complete ghost town which I modeled in the late 1990s.

My CIcely town model was incorporated into a larger model railroad, originally known simply as the "Phase II line," with Phase I, of course, being the Chitina Local Branch of the Copper River & Northwestern Railway.  Phase II eventually evolved into the Alaska Canada Northern Expo Consolidated Railways System --ALCANEX.  I have spent almost as many hours researching Northern Exposure, Roslyn and the associated railroads and proposed rail lines as I did on the original CR&NW-Kennecott historic project.  Through 2009 I was still collecting data, purchasing relevant books, seeking new on-line related websites, and conducting interviews of those who were a part of the Roslyn-Cle Elum area.   I also personally visited the Roslyn-Cle Elum, Washington area In May 2007 and again in May of 2009 to do some follow-up research.

 In this project I merge the past with the future.   The project mixes television pop cultural icons with a genuine Alaskan backdrop that NX lacked.  After all, this Cicely really is in Alaska.  Primarily, though, this is a model railroad. I have incorporated several extinct railroad "flag lines" into this model.  These ride a new line that has long existed as a proposed rail connecting Canada to Alaska--the the name Alaska-Canada Northern Expo Consolidated Railways System.

   
  Here you see an old map showing the original rail routes in Alaska and the Yukon.  Of these, the rail lines out of Valdez and Katalla were started but never completed. I have highlighted the routes that become part of my new line that takes in old rails as well as ones proposed but not yet constructed. The upper part of the light green is an extension of the White Pass that ties in the Klondike Mines Railway--one ofthe lines destined to fall into  obscurity without ever realizing its potential. Yet in time the KMR will be represented on my layout in a way that presumes the extension of the line as seen on the map.     --RS  
 
Northern Exposure: You have to appreciate the genius behind that series.  This layout  takes in parts of the surroundings of Roslyn, complete with its coal-mining heritage and the existence of not one but two great railroad lines, one of which went right through the heart of Roslyn.   Regrettably, the Northern Pacific Railway was nowhere to be seen in the NX television episodes. But since this is a railroad model, I take advantage of that historic reality. 
Let's go back a few years to 2000.

Even as I was putting the final touches on the garden railroad segment of my new model of the historic CRNW Chitina Local Branch Railway one of the limitations became obvious.  The CRNW line was based on 8 foot curves, which when I purchased that rai.l was the widest available from Aristocraft and LGB. 

Since that time a new generation of locomotives was being produced by USA Trains, Aristocraft and others that were far larger than those of the mid-90s. One of these was the new USA 40-2.  I had purchased one of these large engines from another garden railroad enthusiast who had concluded that this engine was too large to perform well on his tracks. Guess what? He was right !  As it turned out, this new larger locomotive (1:29 scale) did not work well on my layout, either. If was now obvious that I would have to come up with either an entirely new line or I would have to re-engineer the existing one. That second option was not realistic.   I had no plans at that time to create a second layout, so I shelved the 40-2. 

Prior to that I had also obtained an Accucraft K-27. I had no idea how much larger in scale this engine was than my others. No one had explained to me that there was a significant difference in scales within the g-gauge group which I model.  This was before I joined any of the on-line large-scale forums that exist on the internet. I am not sure they even existed back then.   Anyway, just like the 40-2, the K-27 could not cross the switches without derailing on some of them, so I shelved that expensive piece of brass indefinitely. That was in May 2001. It still remains shelved awaiting the day that I build the long-anticipated Phase III narrow-gauge line. But that is another story. 

For at least three years these two locomotives sat on a siding inside the bar in public view (if one looked carefully, that is).  Finally I moved them into storage and out of sight.

 
About 2004 or 2005 a discussion took place on another large scale model railroad forum where the topic of discussion revolved around the question "which scale do you operate?"  I had never considered my original layout as anything but "g," but after reading through the posts I decided it was best to consider the CRNW layout as 1:24. In truth the scale is difficult to determine, especially since the main locomotives were two LGB moguls and a Bachmann Shay--both of indeterminate scale. Additionally,  the rolling stock which I had at the time dated to the mid-90s before the now dominant 1:29 scale really took off. 

Finally I was able to clearly understand the difference between the more generic 1:24 and the more specific 1:29 which was at that time rapidly becoming the common scale for the diesel locomotives and associated passenger cars thanks to USA Trains and Aristocraft, two predominant American-based manufacturers. It was also driven home to me at that time that 1.20.3 was its own scale that by its nature does not mix well with 1:29 or even 1:24. When I first started this project I did not truly grasp the distinction. But now I finally understood that if I wanted to ever make proper use of these two locomotives--the 1:29 and the 1:20.3,  I would have to build entirely new layouts to accommodate these as separate scales.

Considering the amount of unused property I had which was adjacent to existing CRD layout that was now incorporated into the Copper Rail Depot Saloon itself, I could see where I could readily build both lines, given enough time and resources.  Finally I realized that if I was to properly utilize these two scales--one smaller and one larger than my existing one, I would have to build two new layouts,.  These would tentatively be known as the Phase II and Phase III lines,  respectively in 1:29 and 1:20.3 scale. The former is a mainline scale. The latter is a narrow-gauge scale. As of 2010 I am still completing the Phase II line. Phase III has never been started, although I anticipate that it will eventually become a part of the larger model railroad. Phase III has been drawn up. It is a very ambitious plan that will take many more years to accomplish. I will deal with that phase later.

 
I had been intrigued with the name "Great Northern" for many years because that name is perfect for evoking the massiveness and the majesty which is Alaska.   Although I fully intended to model the Alaska Railroad, passenger rolling stock in 1:29 was not available then or even now. On the other hand, the Great Northern was a road name which could be readily obtained through USA Trains.

I spent years reading the comments and responding to the comments of many large-scale model railroad enthusiasts.  These were large-scale model railroaders who had already gone through the process of constructing their own layouts. I would use what I learned from this process to develop  the concept that became the Alaska-Canadian Northern-Expo Consolidated Railways System  (ALCANEX). Originally it only had the name "Phase II," which then evolved to "GN-Phase II" based on my love of the imagery behind the Great Northern Railroad. Eventually the project  evolved well beyond a single mainline layout into a multi-flag cooperative endeavor that would  theoretically  take place some time in the near future in the Great North Country of the Yukon and Alaska.

For my storyline behind the railroad, as I have already indicated,  I chose a combination of relatively-recent history and television-based pop culture to develop this particular scheme.  Then I went about to evolve a possible if somewhat unlikely scernio that ties Alaska to the stateside railroad system. But it all began with a television series called "Northern Exposure" in a now-familiar setting known to the television-viewing public as "Cicely, Alaska. "  

 
 

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