This website describes a layout under construction by Brian Pate in HOn3 (HO scale, ie 3.5mm=1 foot, and 3-foot narrow gauge). It was designed to represent the geography of a particular area (the Klondike gold-mining region of Canada's Yukon Territory) within the space limits available, with all structures scatchbuilt via historical photographs and other data. The layout was also designed with the objective of providing interesting and enjoyable operation for a group of 8 or 10.

As will be seen, the prototype was of 3-foot gauge. However, the choice of HOn3 scale/gauge for the layout is perhaps surprising, for a layout built for operation. We discuss this question further in another section.

The layout is still under construction, and this website shows what we have completed by Spring of 2008. However, monthly operation sessions have been underway since 2002. We have also hosted special operating sessions for the local meets of the Pacific Northwest Region of the National Model Railroad Association, the Operations Special Interest Group of the NMRA, and most recently the Vanrail2007 operations invitational meet.

There is a lot of information in this website on various aspects of this project. We invite you to choose what will be of interest to you from the menu at left. Visitors interested in the historical aspects of the project may find the Structures section a good place to begin. Builders of layouts may find value in our comments in the Construction section, as to what we may have done right (and wrong!) First time visitors to the website may wish to start with the Tour.

This website was designed for a screen resolution of 1280x800, but may be read with lower resolutions with more use of scroll bars. Similarly, it was writtten for Internet Explorer 7, but has been checked with other browsers.

All of the pages in this website may be best viewed in full-page format. To get there, hit F11. Hitting F11 again returns you to the present format. Some readers prefer a larger font. In IE7 at least, this may be adjusted, under "Tools".

In any case, thank you for visiting. We hope you enjoy your stay. To contact us by email, click here. (we're at bpate@telus.net.)