An an early "under-construction" view of my new WWV layout, depicting HH660 775 rolling up N 13th St. and past the WWV carbarn. Construction on this new railroad began in November of 2004, and most of the trackage is in an operations have begun, though structure-building and scenery is virtually non-existant. This new layout is an attempt to duplicate scenes and operations on the WWV as faithfully as possible within space constraints. For a view of this scene from the prototype WWV, click here.

Modeling the Walla Walla Valley Railway

It was modeling the WWV that got me into all this historical research, and eventually, the desire for a model railroad closer to duplicating the prototype led to a new version of the WWV, replacing what I call "WWV v1.2" (seen in Kalmbach's "Great Model Railroads 2004"). It's a long-term project much larger that the previous bed-room sized layout, and I hope the freight equipment and structures, as well as the operations and "car handling" on the new layout will be as close to duplicating their prototypes as I can accomplish. While I plug along on the new railroad, there's still lots of information on this site about the previous WWV.  Would you like to take a look?

Click on one of the links below to get started:

• Why Model The Walla Walla Valley Railway?

• My current WWV layout (what I call "2.0), including plans and photographs as construction progresses.

• My first Walla Walla-based model railroad (2000-2001)

• The second  Walla Walla Valley layout (2001-2004), including a gallery of photographs

• Operating the WWV, including ideas for generating car movements

• A tour of shippers found on the second WWV layout

• The Timetable we used on the now-defunct second WWV layout

And here's a page of links for exploring some of my favorite model railroad websites, a list of inspiring model railroads, layouts I've visited and had the pleasure of operating on, manufacturers who produce some really cool stuff for the model railroader.

Original content copyright 2005 by Blair E. Kooistra. Comments or question?  bkooistra(at)sbcglobal.net