Dick Schaefer's Maple Valley and Western Railroad

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The Maple Valley and Western Railroad started life in 1952 in Florida, consisting of an HO gauge John English 0-4-0 locomotive pulling three all metal Roundhouse freight cars and a caboose over steel rails that were spiked directly to the hardwood floor of a spare bedroom without the benefit of ties.  (The wife voiced very strong objections) but what the heck, I was operational.

 The name came from the town of Maple Valley located 23 miles Southeast of Seattle, Washington.   The railroad is theoretically a transcontinental railroad with terminals in all cities that I have ever lived in during my thirty year career in the U.S. Air Force.   In 1962, I settled on the Mountain Division.  (After all a transcontinental railroad is difficult to model even in HO scale)

 The Mountain Division is a period pike modeled around the year 1926, (my year of birth) consisting of the Roaring Fork and Frying Pan Rivers and the Hagerman Pass regions of Colorado as serviced by the Colorado Midland Railroad from Glenwood  Springs in the West to Leadville in the East, including an interchange facility at Carbondale with the Rock Creek Southern Narrow gauge railroad.

 The Rock Creek Southern Railroad was born in 1962 when I was hit by the narrow gauge bug and I discovered the Crystal River Railroad.  It took several years of thought to arrive with the name, Rock Creek Southern.  The reporting marks 'RCS' are my initials.  Rock Creek was the original name of the Crystal River, and Crystal was my daughter's name.

 The trackage of the Rock Creek Southern is modeled after a proposed but never completed Crystal River Railroad route from Carbondale South to the city of Marble.  Then over the mountains through Schofield Pass to Crested Butt and on down to Gunnison for interchange with the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Colorado & Southern railroads. 

The 16 by 29 foot layout currently under construction is the third attempt to build my layout.  Several moves and much placed in storage until we built our retirement home.  The railroad room, approximately 1,000 square feet, is Air Conditioned and Heated with work shops at each end of the same room.

 Currently scenery has been started. Some is painted but most is white plaster The lower main line although not finished is operational by the use of "SHOO-FLY'S" through uncompleted switches.  All track is hand laid and all switches hand made, using code 100, 83, 70,  size rail. Grades are limited to a maximum of 2 percent. The dual gauge rails are being removed and the narrow gauge lines extended. Standard gauge main line  out and back, is approximately 445 feet long.  The lower level main line loop is 140 feet long and the upper  narrow gauge levels have not been calculated as they wind in and out of a seven foot plaster mountain

 When completed there will be five levels of operating  trackage.  The lower two levels are standard gauge while the  narrow gauge operate on the upper four levels, with the possibility of a "N" gauge loop winding around the top of the mountains to create a perspective of distance.  The layout is built over a base of book cases and storage shelving with an extensive collection of Railroad books and magazines. Eight operating cabs are proposed with a central control panel. Three cabs of DCC are being added to the system  Computer as well as a walk around controls are also in the plans.  An extensive twenty two channel sound system will provide much interest when combined with animations that are activated by visitors. 

Happy Railroading

 Richard C. Schaefer

Layout diagram not
available at this time