Charlie Comstock hosted a rare Saturday daytime op session on the BC&SJ yesterday, and I got to be the Redland Yardmaster for both tricks. I only took one photo (Charlie took a lot more), and that with my smartphone:

But while any day operating on the BC&SJ is a treat, Charlie had asked if I could provide transportation for Tom Dill (Yes this Tom Dill: http://www.amazon.com/The-Southern-Pacific-Oregon-Austin/dp/0915713144),who hadn't been to Charlie's house before. I was more than happy to do so. After the op session I took Tom back to his house, and he invited me upstairs to see his layout, which is inspired by the Ashland, Oregon area on the Southern Pacific's Siskiyou Line. Ashland was a division point in the days of steam, and was therefore quite busy. Tom models the early Transition Era, between about 1949 and 1951, which means lots of steam engines.

These are mostly older brass locomotives, which means that trying to convert them to DCC would be an exercise in pain. Tom uses a walkaround DC system with three cabs (white, black, and red (hostler)).

This is the right side of the layout as you enter the room - there is a lumber mill in the end of the balloon and Ashland is straight ahead. On the edge of the photo to the right is a double-deck set of reversing loops used as staging.

The left side of the layout is Steinman, and consists of a house/team track and stock pens.

A closer view of Steinman, featuring structures in the classic Southern Pacific paint scheme.

Just past Steinman, showing the stock pens (Tom thought my idea that this should be a quarry was a good one) and a highway overpass.

This is the Siskiyou Line, which means semaphore signals. While they are connected to Tortoise motors, they are not yet hooked up to detection and automation hardware.

Even Tom's scenic dividers are scenic...

While the base structures for the sawmill are recognizable as a Walthers Cornerstone kit, Tom has modified these with paint, weathering, and additional details, such as the "hog fuel" conveyor coming out the right side of the mill and the under-construction wig-wam burner, which is much larger than the Walthers one.

Because this is Ashland, on the Siskiyou Line, there are water cars - the one above was built about 50 years ago.

The one in the shelter is a fairly new Westside brass model.

Tom was nice enough to turn the power on and run a couple of trains out for me - he's really worked those brass steamers over so they run smoothly: