The CM&S is a standard gauge, HO scale road set in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks during the early 1900s. While it hauls commodities of all sorts to the small towns nestled in the rugged hills and valleys of southern Missouri, its main sources of revenue come from serving nearby logging and milling operations. The Osage Valley Tie & Lumber Company, a wholly owned subsidiary, is also an important source of income for the CMS.
The Central Missouri & Southern Railroad Company was formed in the summer of 1999 after its owner abandoned more than 20 years worth of halfhearted and generally ill conceived attempts to replicate - at various times and in no particular order - portions of the Santa Fe, Katy, Frisco, and Missouri Pacific railroads. When completed (if the owner lives long enough to see completion!), the CMS and OVT&L together will occupy a 14 X 23 space in the basement.
Since yellow pine and white oak logging was a major Ozarks industry - along with railroad tie production - during the early 1900s, several highly detailed scenes are planned along the right of way. Operationally, no particular scheme has been decided upon beyond the decision to provide for continuous running in the ever-evolving track plan. In order to maintain some semblance of historical accuracy for the region, motive power consists of 2-8-0s, 2-6-0s, and a couple of 2-truck Shays.
A completed portion of the Central Missouri & Southern was featured in the March/April 2001 issue of Finescale Railroader magazine; individual photos of the layout and a scratchbuilt OVT&L tool caboose were published in the January/February 2000 and May/June 2001 issues of the same magazine. The OVT&L's machine shop was featured in an article in Finescale Railroader's "Narrow Gauge Annual" in Sept. 2002, and an article about how Faulks' Oil Company was built and weathered was published in FR's Sept. 2005 "Narrow Gauge Annual."
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