Joe Fugate's HO Scale Siskiyou Line - Construction progress

Here's the progress to-date on my Siskiyou Line layout.

Construction progress by 1993 - Roseburg yard

I started construction on the Siskiyou Line layout in May 1991 with the lower deck. By 1993 construction had reached the upper deck, as this photo of Roseburg shows.

As you can see in this photo, lighting on the upper deck had yet to be installed -- until the permanent lighting was installed, we used light stands with reflectors when we worked on the upper deck.

Because of the mushroom configuration, the Roseburg yard is directly above the Coos Bay yard on the lower deck. You can see the lower deck lighting shining up from below, since the upper deck backdrop had not yet been installed when this photo was taken.

Construction progress by 1998 - Roseburg yard

A lot happens in 5 years time! Here is nearly the same spot on the layout, photographed in May 1998.

First, notice what a difference the permanent lighting and blue sky backdrop makes! Second, notice the difference full lighting makes. I use 15w and 25w incandescents spaced every two feet. This photo illustrates how the layout looks when you visit it. The low wattage incandescents provide plenty of light. Since they are such low wattage, the heat buildup in the room is minimal, perhaps a few degrees increase in 8 hours.

Although most of the trackwork was done, there was not much final scenery and only a few structures on the layout. And there's over a thousand feet of track to ballast! (The layout has some 1200 feet of track in total, with the mainline being about 350 feet in length).

Construction progress by 2001 - Roseburg yard and North Umpqua bridge

Over the next three years, some notable progress was made on scenery and bridges.

Here is the same general area as the other two photos, except here the focus is more on the bridge area than the yard proper. The yard can be seen in the far distance.

Also a visible change since the last photo is the fascia on the entire layout has been painted a dark green. Originally, the fascia color was to be black, but after seeing this color in place on some fascia, I felt it was too stark.

After some experimentation, I settled on a dark "conifer" green. I am much more satisfied with the dark green color and it compliments the western Oregon scenery nicely.

Construction progress by 2001 - North Umpqua bridge

If we focus on the North Umpqua bridge itself, you can see that it is a carefully done reproduction of the prototype bridge.

By kitbashing several Central Valley truss bridge model kits, was able to construct a model that captures the prototype's look. I also selectively compressed the bridge truss span's length and height, as well as cut the model down to two spans.

The prototype has three spans, but because of all the trees around the prototype bridge, it is difficult to see all three spans at once. For some more info on the model, click here.

Construction progress by 1997 - South Roseburg

This photo shows the south end of Roseburg yard in 1997. Also shown here is my masonite spline roadbed under construction.

This area is the one place on the layout where there is a short bit of traditional double deck with both decks facing the same direction. The other deck below is the east end of Camas Valley just before it enters the Camas Mountain helix.

Construction progress by 2002 - South Roseburg

Here is south Roseburg (same area as the photo above) in the fall of 2002. Add a painted backdrop, fascia (yes, that's still unpainted) and some scenery and what a difference!

The trees are the super trees from Scenic Express, and the grass is the new silfor grass mat, also from Scenic Express.

These are great scenery materials and make some effective scenes. Here is a closeup of this same scene.

Joe Fugate's HO Siskiyou Line Model Railroad

Here's the progress to-date on my Siskiyou Line layout.