Bear Creek to South Jackson

All of the lower deck, on both sides, is the Pocotello/Salem through staging. This is the B side, on the other side is, naturally enough, the A side. Physically they are two yards, although conceptually they're a single staging yard, albeit one that necks down to a single track in the middle. Above is Bear Creek Yard, which is still in a prototype concept stage - the track laid down is not the track that will be finally used, it's just there to work out how best to lay out the yard, how many tracks, how long the tracks need to be, where the crossovers should be, that sort of thing:

There is no getting around it - this is a lot of staging.

The A side, seen below, is beneath Junction City, which is little more than trackwork right now, although it has it's own train servicing it:

Junction City is located past the junction of the mainline with the Toledo Branch, still under construction near the backdrop:

The industries here are pretty basic:

A stop in Redland....

I keep having to remind myself that this isn't Redding (that's in California), nor is it Redmond (although it's probably meant to represent it...) it is definitely Jerry's territory though:

I don't think I've been to the BC&SJ where Jerry (he's the bearded one in the gray t-shirt) hasn't run the Redland Switch Job at least part of the night.

Here's Redland from the other end. When Charlie (above in the brown and white shirt) was asked about the scenery there, he simply stated that he wasn't going to put any more in until the top deck was finished, what with gravity and all.

Oakhill and surrounding...

I was surprised in looking through my photos that I didn't actually take any wide angle shots of Oakhill. Well, frankly, it's been photographed a lot, and it hasn't changed much. And I only ran one train through there as well, and.. well, the train went a bit faster than my shutter speed...

I was also experiencing some depth of field issues (aggravated by my trying to handle a throttle and a camera at the same time). Part of this was discovering that, even though brightly lit by a lot of 4300K fluorescent fixtures, cameras are never happy with the amount of light on a layout:
 

And of course, occasionally a tree jumps in the way:

Cool

I hope to get back and visit again.  Much has changed since I was there.

Deschutes Jct. and Mill Bend

So at the bottom of the hill sits Deschutes Jct. where the Deschutes Branch (which goes through Redland) and the BC&SJ mainline meet. We got to spend quite a while here, as the Deschutes Hauler East is officially an "Extra" and on a TT&TO layout, Extra's are the bottom feeding scum that get to wait for everyone else. Everyone else in this case being Train #101, which was running an hour late from Pocotello, the Oakhill Turn, which just sort of took advantage of knowing they were ahead of the 101 to go through the junction from Oakhill to Mill Bend crossing in front of us, and #21, a passenger train headed eastbound that first had to stop in South Jackson and Mill Bend, before clearing the junction on it's way to Pocotello. So I hauled out the camera (that's the Deschutes Hauler East waiting downhill off to the right of the mainline):

Sixth St. Warehouse and Storage:

The Oakhill Turn takes the siding in Mill Bend -

The #101 coming downhill from Oakhill through one of the tunnels:

The Deschutes Jct. tower -

The #101 approaches Deschutes Jct.:

South Jackson and TOH Jct (and the Helix)

Okay, South Jackson is a bit crowded, with a yardmaster, occasionally an assistant yardmaster, a Train Order Operator (officially the TOH (Top Of the Hill) Jct operator) and whatever train crews happen to be passing through at the time. So... not a good place to stand around shooting photos. So I only took a few. On the right is the end of Mill Bend and the beginning of the South Jackson Yard. On the left is Browning, which is little more than a place name and some ideas right now:

Charlie seems intent on keeping DCC Specialties in business, as I believe these are PSX-2 circuit breakers: 

There is a matching set across the aisle:

Here's a shot of TOH Jct. and the helix that it's the Top Of the Hill of. I wish I'd gotten a photo of the TOH Jct. indicator board in South Jackson - it has LED's to indicate where someone is on the Helix, if they are on the uphill or downhill track, which way the TOH Jct. switches (SJ, Browning, Toledo Branch) are thrown (that's the nearer set of Tortoises, the further set is Winston Jct, where the Siskiyou Line breaks off), and a few other useful tidbits of info. I think it's all fed through Arduinos from several optical and other sensors located around the helix and junction:

Great reporting

Jeff

Thank you for your coverage of the layout I always look forward to seeing progress on the BC&SJ. I hope to see it someday in person!

Bear Creek Hauler East

One of the trains I got to run (I seem to remember running three, all told), was the Bear Creek Hauler East. It had the nice property of being both a first class and eastbound train - there really wasn't anything on the railroad that had priority over it.

Here it passes through Deschutes Jct. on the way to Oakhill:

I forget if this area is named, [That's Baynes Valley, Jeff. --Horace Fithers] but it's one of the prettier places on the layout:

Heading uphill:

Okay, maybe I should have stopped the train for the photographs... Charlie is going to have some fantastic water features when he gets to finishing the scenery in this area:

My last decent shot, before the depth of focus issues caught up with me (and my camera started acting oddly) - the first of a doubleheaded steam train sticks it's nose out of the tunnel on it's way up the hill:

So, the Bear Creek will be open for operations and tours during the NMRA National Convention this August - why don't you come visit it (and many other wonderful layouts)?

BC&SJ

Isn't it about time for another BC&SJ OPS video?

I have OPS videos #3 and #4 and the Hot Alcos video.  Although Charlie has made significant changes/progress on the layout, I  continue to watch them.

Thank you Jeff for the photos.

Thank you Charlie for sharing your layout.

Great work Jeff, I always

Great work Jeff, I always love to see Charley's layout and the only thing that could have improved on your walking tour would have been video coverage as well as your nice photos. Thanks for including the well thought out narrative as well.

Thanks, Jeff!

I really enjoyed the posting on Charlie's layout!

The Bear Creek Hauler East - not quite

Here it passes through Deschutes Jct. on the way to Oakhill:

At this time the PDX2015 bus tour stopping at the Bear Creek and the BC&SJ op session are full. It's possible another bus may added if there is sufficient demand.

Charlie