Joe Fugate's HO Siskiyou Line Model Railroad

SP Dole turn rumbles into
south Roseburg

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The Dole turn, back from its work at the huge Roseburg Forest products facility in Dillard, rumbles into south Roseburg on a sultry August day.

This scene demonstrates how nicely silflor grass and supertrees work to model southern Oregon vegetation faithfully. For more details on how to use silflor to model tall realistic tall grass, click here. I also plan to cover the details on how I build my scenery in the Siskiyou Line video series.

You can see other details that help complete this scene to look realistic: telegraph poles from Rix, and superelevated Microengineering code 83 flex track.

I ballasted the track and painted the sides of the rails a greasy brown color. Finallly the SD9E 4408 has been weathered to give the appearance of a hard-working SP loco from the mid 1980s.

Coos Bay Hauler approaches Remote, OR

The Coos Bay Hauler East, one of the two regular daily freight trains between Roseburg and Coos Bay, can be seen her rolling over the King Creek truss span as it approaches the humble little burg of Remote, Oregon.

As it's name implies, Remote is located deep in the Oregon Coast mountains, and is little more than a Post Office and a grocery store.

The railroad services the Beaver State gravel pit in Remote. Most of the gravel shipped from the pit goes out by truck to customers in the region, but the railroad still gets gravel from the pit for its own use. The SP maintains the rail spur here althought it's the only rail customer the Beaver State operation has these days.

As the Hauler gets close to Camas Valley, it crosses Slater Creek on a tall curved trestle.

The slopes here in this area have been heavily logged throughout the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s.

A forest fire in the 1960s approached this trestle and for a while the railroad feared they might lose the trestle but the valiant firefighters were able to contain the fire before it reached the railroad. By the 1980s, much of the burned hills nearby Slater Creek are covered with second growth vegetation and trees, making it harder and harder to tell there was ever a serious forest fire that ravaged the region two decades ago.

Cotton Belt SD45 9058 approaches
Roseburg

Heading north out of Roseburg

The Seagull (the daily Roseburg to Eugene train) heads north out of Roseburg on its way to Sutherlin.

This part of the Siskiyou Line has grassy areas, with rolling grassy hills dotted with hardwoods. It is actually quite reminiscient of some areas on central - western California with the same golden grassy hills and the hardwoods dotting the hillsides. This scene on the model Siskiyou Line is coming along nicely, but it needs some more details yet.

I plan to add a few more bushes and trees in the foreground, along with some fencing and a few grazing cattle. Along the back side of the track I want to add some telegraph poles. But as it stands the scene is looking pretty good and I am eager to expand the scenery work to other parts of the modeled Siskiyou Line.

Highway 42 near Myrtle Point

Here the Coos Bay branch crosses Highway 42 just east of Myrtle Point (to learn more about how the road was modeled, click here). This is where the more open fields around Coquille and Myrtle Point give way to the rugged coast mountains.

The railroad follows the middle fork of the Coquille River through the coast mountains as it makes its way to Roseburg.

This scene is located on the model between the east end of Myrtle Point and the west end of the high steel bridge over the Coquille River. Just past the bridge is the first tunnel of the line.

Attacking the Oregon coast mountain range

This area, east of the scene above, is where the coast branch begins its assault of the Oregon Coast range. The steep scenery change helps drive that notion home as you operate on the layout. The terrain gently slopes up out of Coos Bay and into Myrtle Point -- but then east of Mytle Point you encounter this high steel trestle and the first tunnel on the branch. It all works to make some nice scenery that mirrors what you actually find in this region of Southwestern Oregon.

The steep slope of Sugarloaf Mountain combined with the high bridge gives you the sense that the reailroad is really earning its keep as trains climb away from the ocean.

Photographing this scene from well below eye level helps to make the photo seem more realistic, for you often see the prototype from this angle. This makes you think of the prototype's massive size when you see this model photo.

This somewhat dark photo illustrates what the layout looks like to visitors. Only the layout itself is lit, the aisles are dark. To me, this shadowbox look appears very attractive and focuses attention on the layout.

The layout lighting is low wattage incandescents (15w and 25w lights spaced every 2 feet). The low wattage incandescents work well when they are close to the railroad (no more than 18" above the layout), and the heat buildup in the room is minimal. Plus, incandescents can easily be dimmed for night effects.  

Slater Creek trestle on the Coos Bay branch



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This scene also illustrates how I need to scenic the entire Siskiyou Line layout, backed by "lots and lots of trees" just like what you really see in Southwestern Oregon.

The interesting thing about this scene is that it's only about 12" deep, and my ideas on how to model Western Oregon scenery appear to be working well. Basically, I paint trees on the backdrop, then put 1-2 lines of "bottle brush" trees, bushes, and grass (fake fur) in front. In between the trees I stuff spagnum moss died dark green. I discovered the moss trick purely by accident. It is surprising how dense even a sparse forest of trees suddenly looks when I stuff the moss in between!

Much of the Siskiyou Line scenery is not yet finished like this scene (even this scene is not quite finished -- if you look under the left end of the trestle, you can see a distinct end to the vegetation). To see what this scene looked like before the vegetation, click here. This same scene, from a different angle, was on the cover of the January 1997 Model Railroader.

Page last updated on January 16, 2005
E-mail:  siskiyou@railfan.net