Roger Russell’s Locomotives

Roger Russell’s Shay locomotive won first place at the Narrow Gauge Convention. It’s a 20 to 22 ton Jerry Hunt Shay construction of the C-28. He did all the research and development on it and sent it to his custom builder. After some more finishing by him, he brought it to the show.

The chain drive locomotive on his layout was scratch built by himself, which was a real challenge. The boiler was made from a PC tubing, the castings are O standard gauge scale, the figure is 1/32nd and he combined them all together. He looked at old photos for inspiration, combining and freelancing it so it was not an exact copy of anything. PFM sound was installed in it. It is a slick operating locomotive.

For his detailed scenes, he gets ideas from photos and tries to duplicate them in his modeling. One of his favorite detailed scenes includes a figure cutting down some trees. There was no room for a full oxen team, but he could show how loggers used to drag the logs out of the woods to a rollway ramp. Roger enjoyed building the camp at Romers Point and detailing and mixing parts to make a scene.

The ON-3 Colorado and Southern uses a different method than most modelers. In this layout, he didn’t use any plaster. Instead, he would find rock and see what he wanted to do with it in his mind. He mashed the rock up with a hammer or another rock and yellow glued it on the scene, filling it with dirt and backfill. It weighs a good amount, but Roger looks at it as using natural materials and nothing looks better than the real thing.