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Hogwart's Freight and Ferry
The Hogwarts Freight and Ferry was originally supposed to be a temporary layout--a fast and dirty 4 x 8 that I would throw together in a month or so to get the kids running while I set about designing my basement empire. 
I was brand new to model railroading and at this time envisioned a railroad set in 1885 in the redwoods that connected
with Hogwarts via a magical time portal. The basement empire was a two level pike with Hogwarts setting above a spiral
helix inside a mountain. Every time the train would come to the front portion of the helix, it would come out of a tunnel like
like a Disneyland ride.
On the lower level was a huge model of Kings Cross Station and the rest of the pike was a redwoods logging layout. The layout was half cartoonish, and half serious. I dare to say it would have been one of the biggest jokes in the model railroading community. 
I was very lucky, as you will see later that I designed the layout with the help of several of the people on the Model Railroader site who simply did not let me build a bad layout. Luckily I listened to them, especially one code-named "Jetrock," and I ended up with a decent layout. But frankly I wasn't looking for a decent layout, I wanted a kids layout with mountains and tunnels and bridges and lots of places to drive trains.   Amber drove the 4-4-0
shown to the right. I drove the 2-6-0 in the middle track and my son drove the 4-6-0 Hall, Hogwart's Special.
The layout was short lived as Amber lost interest--she was interested in Harry Potter, not trains. Shane lost interest when his Hogwart's Special broke. I built him an MDC 4-6-0 which wasn't good enough, then got him a 2-8-0 Bachmann Spectrum to which I added sound. Although he like the engine, he had lost interest in the layouts. This happened out of frustration because of derails early on. By the time I got the track working it was too late. 
The layout, which the MRR crew helped me design, was now going to become an Old West layout. The highlight of the Hogwarts Freight and Ferry was its engines and rolling stock. Be sure to take a look. 
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