Hi Y'all
I decided to quit procrastinating and start a blog. I'll probably post mainly about my main interest which is modeling prototype freight cars, but for my first post I figured I would introduce myself and my layout.
About me: I live in the Nashville TN area. I have a lovely wife and son. I'm self-employed as a cabinetmaker. My other interests are deer hunting and bass tournaments. This is my fourth layout (second layout that wasn't sectional track on a sheet of plywood).
About my layout: I model the SP Shasta route in the 1980's HO scale. The area I model is from uptown Dunsmuir, CA to Grass Lake, CA. My layout is in the basement of our home and is about 24x14 with a helix in it's own space. The layout is triple decked point-to-point(sort of) with staging. Benchwork is 1x4 grid on 16" centers. Track is mostly Atlas code83 laid on masonite spline ala Joef. There is Atlas code 100 in staging and hidden tracks and some Microengineering code 70 on spurs. Turnouts are mostly walthers #6 & #8 code 83. Minimum radius is 33" with most 48" or more. I use Digitrax Super Chief Radio for command.
Why I model the SP and the Shasta Route: Well I guess it started when I was a kid with that first trainset, which was a Lionel BTW. I grew up on the coast in Northern California at the northern end of the Northwestern Pacific line. All I knew was SP. I can remember seeing lashups of SD9's leaving Eureka for points south and the local SW1500 peddling cars to mills in the area (this is around circa 1978-1982). About the only place we went as a family where trains were was to visit relatives in Santa Rosa, Ca which was served by the NWP and the same SD9's and switchers, etc. The exception to this was when our family would go up to the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon every fall to camp and duck hunt. We would head east over the coast range and drop into Redding, CA where we would intercept SP's I-5 corridor mainline from LA to Portland, OR. There the trains were longer, faster, and more frequent. This made an impression on me as a young boy. Pacing alongside a long drag freight with 5 big turbocharged SD's blasting up the Sacramento river was more fascinating to me than the mundane local freight plodding along worn out rail back home. Then there were the duck marshes we hunted, which were right alongside the SP main before it got to Klamath Falls. I had fun hunting, but also got to watch a parade of freights all day, it seemed like one after another. Then there is the scenery on the Shasta Route. It varies from low-elevation ponderosa and fir forests to high desert, with everything in between, and then back to forest again. And all this in less than 30 rail miles! This is due to microclimates, which are more prevalent out west than here in Tennessee. Here the trees are the same, the humidity is the same, and the terrain is different, but similar enough. The microclimates on the shasta route are heavily influenced by the volcano Mount Shasta itself. The mountain casts a huge rain shadow over the north and east quadrants near the mountain. This is where the Shasta Route skirts right at Shasta's base. Sage brush and juniper trees predominate here, while 20 miles westbound (geographically south) is forested. This microclimate phenomenon also exists on Joe Fugates Coos Bay branch. Notice how the scenery changes as the line leaves the coast and heads for Roseburg.
Ok, on to the pictures:
We'll start here. This view shows the three decks of my layout. You will see the staging yard on the lowest level of the peninsula on the left. On the right you will see Dunsmuir on the low deck, the Sacramento canyon on the middle deck, and the Dry Canyon Viaduct and Grass Lake on the upper deck and far wall. Say a train leaves staging (left), travels around the curve behind the camera, and pulls up to the depot at dunsmuir (right). All trains stop at Dunsmuir, as they do on the prototype, to change crews and add/remove any helpers. With a fresh crew the train leaves Dunsmuir eastbound and begins climbing the grade up out of the Sacramento canyon and on to the summit at Grass Lake. On my layout the train would leave Dunsmuir (lower right) and around that curve and along the far wall to the left and into the lower level of the helix. The train would climb three revs. and exit the helix via a turnout to the Sacramento canyon deck (middle deck). After the helix it would emerge heading left-to-right along the far wall and towards the camera as this train my brother's running is doing. It would then negotiate the horseshoe curve at Cantara (behind the camera) and begin climbing along the canyon wall represented by the middle deck on the left. The upper deck on the left is Weed, CA on the Siskyou line branch of my layout.
here is the opposite view of the previous picture. Now the camera is where my brother was, and you can see the transition from staging to Dunsmuir on the low deck, Cantara on the middle deck, and the upper deck, which we'll get to later. Here a heavy lumber drag is negotiating the 2.2% grade descending to the river crossing at Cantara, where it will reduce to a 1.2% grade.
Here is a blurry shot of two swing helpers crossing the bridge at Cantara. The bridge, abutments and tower were scratchbuilt. This scene lacks foreground detail and water in the river.
In this shot we see the WCEUM grinding up the grade rounding the horseshoe known as Sawmill Curve on the prototype. This is the blob on the end of the peninsula as seen in the previous photos. The basic track arrangement here is actually fairly faithful to the prototype though drastically compressed. There is a horseshoe curve back at Cantatra, and another here at Sawmill Curve. This is known and the Cantara Loops on the prototype. BTW. This train had 61 cars and 6 locos counting swing helpers. It was the longest train I've attempted to run on my layout! You can see the rear cars of the train on the middle deck across the aisle and several inches lower.
In this picture the train has rounded Sawmill Curve, is passing through Mott on the left, and through Mt. Shasta City on the right. We are now on the other side of the peninsula. The lead locos have entered the helix at the 6th rev. and are going up to Black Butte which is visible on the top deck to the right.
Here the WCEUM is passing through the yard at south Black Butte. The head of the train is out of the frame to the left. The grade has basically leveled off here, and we have reached the upper deck.
Here is the head end of the WCEUM passing the wye at Black Butte. The wye is the beginning of the Siskyou line, which is the old original mainline to Oregon. The train here will pass behind the stump of the peninsula and emerge back on the other side. This creates some difficulty in operations as the engineer has to walk around the peninsula to regain his train.
Here the WCEUM has passed the wye and rounded the curve. It is stepping out onto the Dry Canyon Viaduct. I recently finished this scene. The prototype bridge would scale to about 11' long in HO. My bridge is 5' long and slightly shorter than the prototype, but still impressive, capturing the feel of the location. The bridge was kitbashed and scratchbuilt from Microengineering tall steel viaduct towers. The decking was scratchbuilt. Don't ask me how long this took!
Here is an Intermodal drifting downgrade towards the Viaduct around the corner. The area represented here is Andesite/Upper Devil's Garden.
The next scene is known as Cougar. Here is the backdrop painting of the line's namesake mountain. I painted the mountain using the photocopy at the upper left. It is from the book "Southern Pacific's Oregon Division". I'm quite pleased with how the painting turned out, especially since I've never painted anything before. If I can do it, you can do it. This scene needs about 100 trees and lots of sagebrush etc to finish it.
Well, we've reached the summit at Grass Lake. Here a hotshot intermodal out of Eugene begins the long decent to Dunsmuir. I know the era is off, but I had the equipment, so what the hell. My cloud painting is not as good as my mountain painting IMO. This train has just emerged from the top of the helix, which is beyond those trees to the left. This scene needs a boatload of furnace filter trees and some grass in Grass Lake.
And finally here is the helix. There are ten revolutions spaced about 5 inches apart. Each rev. has about 19 feet of track (single track). On the bottom is the track coming from Dunsmuir. The Dunsmuir siding extends into the helix through the second revolution where it becoms single track via a curved turnout. The middle deck Sacramento canyon level exits the helix on the third rev. via a turnout. At the 6th rev. the middle deck rejoins the helix at Mt. Shasta City. The Siskyou line splits off on the seventh rev. This is the lower of the plexiglass encased tracks going off to the right. The Siskyou line then heads through hidden trackage to the far side of the peninsula where it emerges onto the third deck (peninsula) at Weed, CA. There will be a large lumber mill complex here eventually. Then it rounds the blob and winds it's way up to the wye at Black Butte. At the ninth rev. the single track splits via curved turnout to two tracks. These two tracks then split again becoming Grass Lake and siding, and Black Butte and siding. Black butte is the outermost and it begins to flatten out while Grass lake climbs one more rev. to reach the summit. Black butte can be seen here as the top plexiglass spoke with the string of boxcars in it. The helix can acommodate well powered trains of up to 35 cars without problems. Longer trains require mid-train swing helpers to keep the train from stringlining. I'm still working out the best way to operate helpers reliably, but most trips are uneventful. For a while I had no guardrails on the inside of the helix, and this cost me some very precious scratchbuilt cars that came to their demise on the concrete floor far below!
One thing I don't like with my arrangement is how all trains must pass through Dunsmuir twice. This is because an eastbound out of Dunsmuir that travels to Grass Lake via the Sac. canyon, Mott, Black Butte, etc. has to then go back down the helix to the bottom and back through Dunsmuir. The same for a westbound only backward. It leaves Klamath Falls (or Medford if it is a Siskyou freight) which is actually staging which means it goes through Dunsmuir then into the helix to the top, and then back down to Dunsmuir again. I don't like it, but I live with it.
What would I do differently? Lots of things, of course! I would build a smaller layout with less than three decks! I would try to have two staging yards. I would have a smaller helix with a gentler grade. Mine is about 3.8% which really taxes long freights. I would also hand lay my turnouts ala Joe Fugate's method, and use more Microengineering flextrack. My main interest in the hobby is building prototype rolling stock and locos. I really enjoy heavy kitbashing and scratchbuilding. About 25% of my fleet is at least custom painted and decaled, with most of those being heavily modified or made from styrene and parts. working on the layout and keeping it running cuts into too much of my modeling time. To me, my layout exists as a place to run my equipment. Don't get me wrong, I like having a big layout. I just wouldn't do it that big again.
I hope you've enjoyed the tour of the Shasta Route.
Mike Lozensky
