History: Introduction

Welcome to my world of model railroading. I model a fictional railroad called the Wolverine Lynx Railroad (report markings: WLX). The railroad is modeled in HO scale and occupies a room 35'x37'. With my previous layouts I found that I concentrated on modeling Santa Fe but became bored running the same roadname all the time; I needed some variety since I like other railroads and paint schemes. In order to run a variety of roadmanes on my layout I developed a railroad concept that would allow me to run through freights with a variety of roadnames and leave the units of WLX to do the switching in the main yard and run the wayfreights. What follows is a History of the WLX (i.e. the concept). Enjoy!

History of the Railroad (Fictional)

The Wolverine Lynx Railroad (WLX) was founded in 1851 under the name The Wolverine Railroad. It was financed and owned by the Northwest Logging Co. who discovered a valley containing a rich forest of various spruce, pine and fur trees in southwestern Alberta near the Canadian-US border. The Hoodoo River, which flows through this valley, unfortunately flows south into the US, therefore the Northwest Logging Co. (being wholly Canadian) did not want to send their logs down the Hoodoo River into the US and decided to build their own railway to transport the logs over the Rocky Mountains into the next valley in which the Rattlesnake River flows north and remains in Canada. The logs were to be shipped from Lynx City to the Rattlesnake River at Wolverine Falls by train, dumped into the river, and transported 50 miles downstream to the processing plant in the town of Buzzsaw, B.C.. Construction on the railroad commenced in May 1851 and was completed 3 years later in August 1854. The mainline is 152 miles in length and climbs through the majestic Keay pass (named after the surveyor). The line passes over many bridges and through many tunnels.

The Keay pass turns out to be now (present day) the lowest pass (in elevation) of all the railroad passes built through the Rocky Mountains. The highest elevation attained is 4245 feet and the grades from both ends of the pass are 2% or less. Because of the lower elevation, ease of grades, large curve radii, and being near the US border, many US railroads decided to use the Wolverine Lynx railroad as a link railroad rather than building their own line through the Rocky Mountains. Hence many railroads such as SP, SOO/CP, BN, MRL, CNW, BNSF and UP, use this line as a route through the Rockies and also interchange traffic with the WLX. The WLX made it clear that all towns enroute through Keay pass were to be switched by the WLX. Hence because of the heavy traffic 132 lb. rail is found on the mainline.

The Wolverine Railroad was named due to the high abundance of the now extinct White Spotted Wolverine present in the valley in 1851. These were very vicious animals often attacking loggers for no apparent reason. Wolverines were therefore hunted and their pelts traded at the local fur trading outlet in Lynx City (formerly called Mudflat, the name was changed in 1910). The wolverines were killed off and the last reported sighting was in October of 1895. With loss of the wolverines the green eyed lynx moved into the valley since they were not longer threatened by the wolverines, so in 1949 the railroad changed its name to the Wolverine Lynx Railroad and adopted the following marking:

In the early 1970's the railroad decided to invent a logo for the railroad. Since it primarily operates as a link railroad for many other US and Canadian railways, the following was adopted as the official logo:

"the best LYNX in Canada"

Quite a few rail cars have been purchased from other railroads and painted with Wolverine Lynx markings. The official colour of the railroad's cars is Weyerhauser Green as seen here. This car also sports the above logo:

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In keeping with the changing times, the railroad markings were changed in 1990 to the shorter WLX. Here is a wood chip car showing the newer logo.

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The older railroad markings had the 'L' common to both 'Wolverine' and 'Lynx' as seen here

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While the locomotives and cabooses are Light Blue, with white ends and white cab faces. There have been three paint schemes for engines since the conception of the railroad. The first is shown here

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in which the "L" was common to both Wolverine and Lynx. As mentioned above, in 1990 the indentification markings was shortened to WLX. Both a RS11 and RS12 were the first to be painted with the new markings.

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In 1993 the WLX adopted a new paint design in which the engines sport a light blue, white and black paint scheme.

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So thats the history of the WLX. Visit some of the other web pages for more information and photos.

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