Cuspidor & Southern Railroad 2021 Onwards

My freelance adventures in Colorado in Hon3. Buildings, scenery, details and character are my interests with operation well down my priorities. The layout is a scant 8x12 ft so compromises have been made to squeeze in the scenic and building work I love. Influenced by Allen, Olsen and Furlow along with Earl Smallshaw, John Swanson and latterly Sam Swanson. I make no claim to authenticity and retain my tongue firmly in cheek while modelling. Any questions - just ask.

New beginnings

Stop Press

History Archive of all previous posts from the beginning of time!

Reality

I try to include family and friends in the life of Cuspidor and you’ll find references to them below. I endeavour to fit them tongue-in-cheek into the most suitable positions, such as our dear friends Malcolm and Cathy who once treated us to a disastrous grand weekend tour in Derbyshire. In the spirit of never letting a good turn go unpunished I conceived of them running the world’s worst bus tour company. I enjoy creating little vignettes that bring the viewer into my strange little world. Building Cuspidor is a long term retirement project and I will try to keep adding to the story.

My World

The little known Rocky Mountain town of Cuspidor lies at an elevation of 8,639 feet somewhere between the Uncomphagre and San Juan ranges. It sits in the Rio Bozo valley amidst hard granite cliffs. It’s pretty hard to find nowadays as the valuable metals ran out in the fifties and people mostly just drifted away leaving what was a once prosperous town to just fade into obscurity. Diehard exploring types have been known to stumble across it when following the old abandoned narrow gauge railroad line through the brush or hiking along the Rio Bozo up to the fabled Plughole Falls.

Here we view it in 1932 at the end of the glory days but while the railroad still ran serving the almost played out gold, silver and lead mines.

The upper town of Cuspidor sits on a series of steep, narrow switchback roads reminiscent of Jerome AZ. A fairly recent addition is the magnificent stone City Hall and Courthouse built in 1918, at great public expense, by over ambitious and short sighted city fathers.

Notable buildings include the Golden Cuspidor saloon and hotel up on the bluff, the aforementioned City Hall, Miss Anna’s Pleasure Palace, the Miner’s and Cattlemen’s Association Hall and a magnificent F W Woolworth store. Dan Webb’s auto repairs does a good trade thanks to the awful roads and Miss Sarah’s little car is seen there rather frequently causing tongues to wag. The Lady’s Temperance Group, if not protesting about miner’s and stockhands carousing and frequenting the saloon and Miss Anna’s on a Saturday night, often speculate that it’s about time young Dan did the right thing and popped the question. There are still some tiny miner’s shacks in and around the town along with a few old shops that struggle to compete with a Woolworth’s that won’t stay long once they check the turnover at head office. Below the town you can just see a corner of Wiggin Field where Captain JJ Wiggin valiantly tries to keep his old biplane flying with air circus shows and crop dusting duties.

Overlooking the picturesque Plughole Falls is Desport’s tiny diner where the occasional, intrepid tourist takes ham and eggs along with miners from the Rio Bozo Mine. The poor chaps up at the Devil’s Drop goldmine don’t get down there too often. Now and then you can see the Pritchard’s Intrepid Scenic Tours (PIST) charabanc approaching the view point, usually with their last passenger hurling herself out of the open window in a desperate attempt to escape.

The Cuspidor and Southern Railroad depot and yard bake in the summer sun and freeze in the winter along with everyone else (work in progress). many mines and related mining industries keep the old line rattling on. Enjoy.

My Musical Adventures

My other hobby - only for the brave: https://barrykingsbeer.bandcamp.com/releases

Tuesday, 25 November 2025

From the bottom of my treasure chest, arrrr!!

Time to add another loco to the roster.

Several years ago I purchased a Roundhouse kit for a two-truck shay. I opened the box, looked inside and hastily put it away. After a while I had another look and thank goodness with some foresight (not one of my usual traits), I bought the NSWL upgrade kits for the drive train.

Yesterday I pulled out the box and took a deep breath. Quick as a flash I realised that I only had the original 5 pole motor. Blast! Tonight, though I bagged a new old-stock Sagami can motor for £25 on Ebay and it's on its way. That should help with the drive train issues, although I still expect it to be a bit of work to get it up to snuff and eventually fitted with a decoder. That will happen in time as I'm now waiting for my new dcc controller to arrive and provide hours of fun trying to make head or tail of that.

I've started fettling the components and have undercoated the metal chassis and boiler and next up is the cab and bunker and assorted other bits. That's for tomorrow.

Here is a couple of pics of the work so far and to do.....................

I've also just purchased a dpdt switch so I can energise the turntable in two directions. That should lessen the number of derailments in Cuspidor yard and am about to embark upon a major illumination onslaught to brighten those long winter evenings that the residents dread so much.

To that end, I bought a large bag of smallish, low power LEDs and will be installing them progressively in or outside as many buildings as I can. I intend to have a selection of lighting scenarios so that the whole valley doesn't just explode into light when I throw a switch. I look forward to making lots of very small tinfoil lampshades and getting my fingers superglued together. Happy Days!

Thursday, 13 November 2025

Late Autumn 2025 Progress at last!

Trackwork gets a much needed overhaul.

After yet another summer away from the loft, I'm back in the harness again. I've been working to properly electrify the depot sidings and upgrade the switches. Switch machines and controls are being installed to facilitate something akin to proper operation. I'll be very glad when I've finished as I loathe trackwork more than anything on the layout!

I was waiting on a new capacitance discharge unit, which arrived today, so will hopefully have the switch machines live tomorrow. Then the fun can commence. The turntable needs to be wired up but will not be motorized in the short term.

I put some simple ground cover over the bare boards and look forward to some proper modelling to follow.

Turntable end

Depot area

Mining district

Some new rolling stock arrives

Two much need stock cars.

I bought these on Ebay from a chap who is downsizing his layout, nicely made and decorated and they were a bargain. The beautifully finished piece of wood is my coupling alignment fixture and short test track. I've also started to finish all my unfinished rolling stock ready for proper operations.

Thursday, 27 February 2025

Isabella Mining Co HQ. The story so far...

Having completed the gallery of the Isabella mine for my young friend, she decided she needed a full scale operation in Cuspidor and wanted to build a structure of her own too. I found some plastic wall components in my scrapbox that were marketed years ago by Roundhouse MDC. I believe they were probably made in Turkey and imported to the US, (you can see the Arabic inscription over the doorway in the shot below). They are beautifully moulded and I bought up a whole load of them some time ago and have used them in several structures since. I managed to forget to take pics all during the build but here are a few and the nearly finished article, almost ready to go on the layout.

The basic shell, Bella helped me assemble it and painted it herself.

The fireplace which will eventually receive an amber flickering bulb.

Fireplace awaiting grate and fire and a window.

The structure is complete with interior which Bella helped on and the yard develops.

Let there be light!!

Bella is seated at her desk beavering away, no doubt.

You can see the fire in the grate here, it flickers away most realistically, pity it will be quite hard to see when installed.

Some photos with the roof off

Sunday, 16 February 2025

Real progress at last!

I've spent a couple of weeks tearing out what's left of my hair trying to fit crummy British made backscenes and have now, finally, managed it. It isn't perfect but it is going to have to do. If only you could buy backscenes over here wider than 3 feet and taller than 15 inches...........

At least now I can start the proper work of ballasting and land forming so that I can resume the interesting part of the hobby. The new, connected trackage is now tested and working pretty well, just need to get a switch for the turntable and then that can go in followed by installing and wiring the switch machines. Here are some pics of where we are now.

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

New trackage and backscene for Cuspidor depot -some progress!

Laying and wiring track has to be absolutely the worst job on the railroad and I loathe it. However I am making progress and can't wait to get it finished. Work under the baseboard is trying right now as my knee continues to collapse. Had it scanned yesterday and we'll see the consultant on Friday this week for the glad tidings. Here are some progress shots. The backscene is on its way after a couple of expensive false starts. It will be nice to get that sorted. This is where I'm at today 5th Feb 2025. Right now I think I need one more switch and motor to complete the trackwork. Next job is to join up track where I can and do the wiring including under baseboard switch machines. I also need to carve and repaint the tunnel portal that I had to destroy to relay the track in there.