Analysis Paralysis-Part 3: Exploring the prototype

Part 1
Part 2

Oakridge-Westfir, OR

The more I looked at real railroads using Bing maps and Google Earth, the more I got intrigued by designing something directly after the prototype.  First, I looked more closely at the UP Cascades line.  The town of Oakridge is an obvious choice and it has been added to many fine layouts.  Here’s what I really liked about Oakridge (all of these make this town quite modelable):

• The yard itself isn’t too big, and can almost be modeled track-by-track, albeit shortened. In other words, when you’re applying selective compression, you can get away with shortening the length only and not the total number of tracks.
• It has been used as a place for helper service, so there are modest engine facilities that can again be fully modeled.
• One end of the yard ends directly at a tunnel, so abruptly ending a yard at a tunnel like most modelers do because of space limitations is actually prototypical in this instance.
• At the other end of the yard, there is a horseshoe curve with the great looking Salmon Creek trestle at the middle of the curve.  These horseshoe curves are unavoidable on model railroads, and yet here again, it becomes prototypical.

You can find many pictures of Oakridge online, but here are a few shots from the mapping sites that highlight the features I talked about above:

Another town that is really great to model is Westfir, OR.  Once a busy logging community, it is now a small town nestled in the mountains. The railroad comes out of a tunnel here and curves around the town. There is a railroad crossing right after the tunnel.  There is a nice looking rail bridge in this town that crosses the river.  Right parallel to it is a gorgeous looking old covered bridge for road traffic.  But, it seems like the bridge only connects the town to a parking lot.  Again all of these features are stuff we do in model railroads, but here it is in real life!

I really wanted to capture all of these in a model.  At this time, I also found out about the Ro-Ro train elevator.  Because of the slanted ceiling of my train room, I could only use the 48” model. So, I tried to come up with a design that had Westfir and Oakridge in it, and used the Ro-Ro train elevator for staging.  This is the result:

I still like this layout very much.  The main problem is that the ruling radius on the plan is 11”; way too tight.  This is definitely the type of layout for a scenery enthusiast. One way to get around the tight radius would be to convert this into some sort of a twice around with a lift off section on the left.  The other problem with this layout is the 48” length limitation of the elevator.  Also, it is a scary proposition to park some mechanically complex stuff like the train elevator behind a backdrop where it’s not easily accessible. 

Lompoc-Guadalupe, CA

Designing the Oakridge-Westfir layout was so much fun, that I started looking for other interesting prototypical spots on the Union Pacific mainline to model.  One of the most interesting spots was Lompoc, CA.  In this small city by the ocean, the railroad runs directly into the city and ends in a run around that is tucked between streets.  Then, there is a head track and the branch continues South.

This is again something that is very easily transferrable to the model, almost 1:1. The line that continues South ends at Worldwide Minerals; a very large complex with several rail spurs and accepts many different types of rolling stock. 

It gets better. The mainline runs parallel to the Pacific coast, and right at the wye that goes into Lompoc, is an Amtrak station.  It would make a beautiful scene:

Going North, the mainline passes through the Vandenberg Air Force Base, which itself would be very interesting to model.  But, I’m not that into that, so I followed the line up north some more.  The next big town is Guadalupe, CA.  This is a great modeling opportunity too as it has a small yard and has some industries directly off of the yard.

So, I decided to see what I can do combining all of these and came up with this design:

I didn’t spend too much time on this and it can definitely be improved.  However, operationally this would be a very fun railroad to build and it would allow for some dramatic scenery.  I eventually scrapped this idea, because I really wanted to model the Pacific Northwest.  If you’re into ocean scenery, or Southern CA as your locale, you might want to take a look at the UP around Lompoc.

 

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