Joe Fugate's HO Siskiyou Line Model Railroad

After rolling through the town of Remote, our train crosses Slater Creek trestle. This location was featured on the cover of the January 1997 issue of Model Railroader magazine.

The Wolf Creek trestle on the SP Tillamook branch inspired this scene. I built this trestle completely out of styrene, which makes the structure very durable, and with careful painting and weathering, it looks just like wood.

The conifer trees make this scene look correct for southwestern Oregon. Now I just need to duplicate this scene on the rest of the layout with several thousand more trees!

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Here's another view of our train crossing Slater Creek trestle. I like this corner of the branch because the finished scenery illustrates how I want the entire layout to look eventually -- the dense foreground fir trees backed by forested mountains in the distance.

Since I am modeling the July-August time period (my favorite time of year), tall yellow grass is ubiquitious anywhere you don't find trees or bushes. Bare spots of dirt can rarely be found -- southwestern Oregon sees about 40 inches of rainfall annually, so vegetation covers practically everything.

I use light yellow-tan painted fake fur to simulate the yellow grass. Recently, I have started using silfor grass mat from Scenic Express, which works even better than the fake fur for simulating tall grass.

To see a full panoramic view of our 20-car train rolling across Slater Creek trestle, click here.

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We cross under highway 42 and see the lights of an opposing train waiting patiently on the siding for us. We have the main.

It's none other than our sister train, the Coos Bay Hauler west (we're the Coos Bay Hauler east, remember).

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Here we roll past the Coos Bay Hauler west while it sits in the hole. This is Camas Valley siding, a favorite place for dispatchers to stage meets since this is the longest siding on the branch.

As you can see, the backdrop mountains painting stops abruptly. Time to get out the ol' paint brushes and finish the backdrop!

The layout shelf at this location is about 12" wide. Directly to the left across the aisle is Coos Bay, which is where our train started. Coos Bay across the aisle is about 10" lower than Camas Valley on this shelf.

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After we leave Camas Valley, we enter tunnel number 2, the first of two tunnels in the climb over Camas Mountain in order to reach Roseburg.

What actually happens on the layout is the train climbs a two tier helix (40" radius at 1.75%) to reach the Siskiyou main line just outside Roseburg on the upper deck.

If you look carefully behind the tunnel portal you can see the top of the first turn of the helix (with a cardboard wall to keep derailments under control). In the far upper left is the top of the second turn of the helix as it leaves the helix area and heads toward Winston Junction where the branch joins the Siskiyou Line mainline.

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Page last updated on January 1, 2005
E-mail:  siskiyou@railfan.net