Visiting Jim LaBaugh's N Scale Narrow Gauge

Silver Springs on Jim LaBaugh's modular Nn3 layout. That foreground street scene is as full of character and as well executed as anything produced by George Sellios, Malcolm Furlow, or John Allen--despite the very small size.

NMRA Mid-Eastern Region Potomac Division sponsored an open house in August featuring Jim LaBaugh's Nn3 layout, which comprises modules built by Jim, John Drye, and Marc Sisk of the Nn3 division of the Northern Virginia NTRAK (NVNTRAK) club.

The layout uses N scale to full advantage to depict the lonely, sparse character of classic Colorado narrow gauge in the Rockies. Many narrow gauge layouts miss the low-density, ramshackle aspects of backwoods railroading, but to my eye, Jim and company got the ratio of track to scenery right, particularly in the rural parts of the layout I neglectfully didn't photograph. And where there is urban development on the layout, the craftsmanship is impressive. The structure and vehicle modeling is among the best I have seen in N scale, and accurately captures the look and feel of rural mountain Colorado in the 40s and 50s. The vehicles in particular have set a new standard for the Old Line Corridor.

A Rio Grande K-27 Mikado did laps around the layout while I visited with Jim and we swapped stories about the joys and travails of niche modeling in N scale. I learned a lot about how N scale narrow gauge has evolved and its relationship to Z scale. Nn3 modelers are an inventive and persistent bunch, and I look forward to seeing more of the NVNTRAK gang, including the Nn3ers, around in the near future.

Thompson Valley is located on a river. The number and quality of era-appropriate vehicles is remarkable--often a shortcoming on N scale layouts regardless of era or modeling subject.