B&M New Hampshire Division and Layout Tour: The Town of Woodsriver

The Tour of the B&M New Hampshire Division and layout starts in the town of Woodsriver at the South end of the layout. Its inspiration comes from Woodsville, New Hampshire, a division point on the prototype’s New Hampshire Division. Like the prototype, there is a medium sized passenger facility and a freight yard. The name for the location is Woodsriver, which is a combination of the prototype town names of Woodsville and Wells River located a half mile away across the state line in Vermont.

The arriving northbound freight is JD-1. On the prototype JD-1 originated in White River Junction, 40 miles South in a town in New Hampshire where the railroad’s big customers the Brown Company Paper Mill was located. The model train comes out of hidden staging tracks under the town of Woodsriver. Some of the consists of JD-1 will be cut off here for locals that originate in Woodsriver to distribute to nearby customers. The Woodsriver yard crew handles the switching and JD-1 will also pick up cars to take through to Berlin, New Hampshire – an unmodeled town in staging.

Naming the town Woodsriver was one of the many liberties the owner took in making his layout. It is a prototype model using freelancing to make things fit in a modest space. His layout is seen as a historical novel and not a history textbook. This means towns were free to move around to better use the space and to distribute the points of interest. The prototype is duplicated as much as possible, but the model also took on a life of its own.

While the yard crew works the yard of JD-1, some of the other freight facilities are shown. Behind the yard is a long industrial setting with six small retail industries. Most of the structures are freelanced but they are typical of such enterprises. The Twin State Fruit Corp, however is based a real structure in White River Junction, Vermont. To learn more about the facilities, watch the video.