New Bridge

New bridge

Bought a wooden bridge at the Woodstock Train Show. For the price I paid you couldn't even buy the lumber and to top that off, it was well built, nice find. After cutting in the bridge the road was repaired. The road surface and fences will be repaired later.

Repairs to road

Banded Tank Car

Bought a old time wooden tank car at the Woodstock Train Show, it was begging me to take it home and for $4.00 why not. A little research and I found out it is a Ye Olde Huff n Puff, 30' banded tank car, kit price $19.95, however it is missing the top dome. The bands are brass and unpainted and there  is nothing holding the tank in place.








Removed and painted the bands and added cradles and hold down chains.  The railings were painted and a dome was scratch built.  Added a brake wheel at one end and a tap to the other end. A hose was also glued to the deck. The car was then weathered, looks a lot better now. A nice little addition to my logging branch line.

Progress Continues

Bridges, roads, fences and scenery added to the Cave Junction area.

















The mainline was raised coming into O'Brien as was the trestle. The ground under the trestle also had to be raised so there is now 3 new water falls in the area.

Oregon Caves

The caves were discovered by Elijah Davidson in 1874 about 10 miles from Cave Junction. With 15,000 feet of passages and caverns, mostly neglected for many years, it has seen a couple of attempts at being a tourist destination, now government run as a National Monument and Preserve. On my layout, a planned gorge for the tracks to go over, with an unexpected hole in the back end of it, which somewhat resembles the cave entrance, has given me an unexpected opportunity to include the Caves on my layout. My interpretation will be of one of the first attempts but I have the advantage of it being within walking distance from the station. The visitor center will include an office, 1 of Bar Mills twin utility sheds, and a small pavilion made from part of the covered loading dock from the Farmers Market by Full Steam Ahead.


cave opening to right of the building



incomplete pavilion and visitors center structures

Elijah's House

Elijah Davidson's house started out as a Company House Kit 798 by LASERkit Xpress. I cut the front wall, where the wing started. The end wall of the wing was also cut about in half. The cut off piece was used to make a new wall to fill in the space between the front of the main house back to the narrower wing extension. I needed to add a strip of clapboard to the top of the new wall to reach the roof. The roof over the wing had to be cut down to fit the narrower wing, along with the roofing. The 1 piece front roof fascia had to be cut to fit the new roof lines. The extra corner boards were cut from the Small Parts carrier sheet. The house was painted and stained and then all the trim, doors and windows were installed, all of which had been pre-painted. After installing the windows I put on a layer of Gallery Glass to hold them in place and make them look old. A tree stump casting, a seated man and Blackie the dog complete the scene. An easy kit to assemble with good instructions, the hardest part are the peel and stick windows.

Slade's Office

completed building

I needed a small stone building for the new scene in Cave Junction and B.T.S.'s Slade's Office fit the bill, well almost. The door was on the wrong wall so rather than cutting the castings I made a mold of the and cast them in hydrocal. I then cut these castings to rearrange it so the front door was on the low wall (the original metal castings will be used to build an Ice House for my harbour scene later on.).  As it turned out my castings were not perfect but this building is in the background so they will be OK. After cutting off the peeked ends and gluing them to the other walls, the building was assembled and braced. This would not have worked if the building walls were not about the same length. I first painted individual stones various earth tones, then it was covered with a thinned brown wash which pulled all the colours together. The walls were then washed with a black wash to highlight the joints between the stones. Window frames were painted white and a black tarpaper roof was added. A little stable with a white horse completes the scene.



metal walls, mold, cast wall, other metal parts and box

Scenery added to Cave Junction

With the buildings nearing completion in the loop area, the scenery got some attention. Lots of trees, ground cover, and people were added. I like to have people placed in such a way that they would be stationary,not always possible though. Two people talking, or people sitting, even a person standing looking toward something, all work well. Trees are added in groups of odd numbers and of different heights with a lot of under growth on the ground.

man plays with his dog Blackie and Mr. Davidson talks to his horse

a guest talks to the manager as his wife waits on the porch

man and boy on steps and Mrs. Green greets Mr. Black

lots of trees

two workers wait for the train

Logging branch upgraded

The Cougar Ridge Lumber Co. decided while the mainline turnout was being replaced, they would upgrade some track. The code 70 rail up to and including the switchback turnout, was replaced with code 83 track. Most of the switchback track to the first trestle was also replaced. The grade in this area was levelled as well. The rock cut was replaced and blended into the remaining scenery, which created an overhang above the lower level mainline.

new mainline

overhang create to give room for wider radius on second level

new code 83 track on switchback

Out with the "S" curve

I only had a right hand turnout for the junction with the logging branch, so I put it in, even though Don Pearce has preached about not doing that. Well the "S" curve this made on the mainline caused problems, did I just hear "I told you so?". Well now I get to do it over with a left hand turnout. At the same time some scenery was removed to widen the curve. The added space will allow more detail on the Waldo road.

even looks better

Narrow gauge junction

My experiment in joining narrow gauge to standard gauge using an N scale turnout.  I cut out about 2/3 of each of the hand laid ties, enough to put in the turnout. It seems to work just fine.

McDonald's farm

The scenery is now taking shape around the new Cave Junction. I had to start from the back, so McDonald's farm was set up with fences a wind mill and cows. A few more details and it will be done. Now I have to wait for Slade's Assay Office to arrive.

The cows look happy this evening.

More scenery added

Painted the river that now runs through Cave Junction and did a base coat in the new town area. Cut stone abutments were added for a new trestle over Trappers Gulch and areas for the bents were created there. Next the Anderson Creek area was worked on. As it stood the trestle would have looked like a box, with all the bents the same height. This didn't look right to me so the landscape was revised.  First the old road bed was removed and terraces were added to both side of the gorge. Now the bents will step down in a more natural fashion. The terraces were created by placing smaller and smaller pieces of ceiling tiles on top of each other, like the tiers on a cake. These were then plastered over and stone ridges were cut in as the plaster dried, giving a shale like look. Anderson creek was repaired and now has a small waterfall that tumbles down into the McDonald farm area.

had to add more land to support track

refitting the stamping plant

new trestle and approaches

revised Anderson Creek area and trestle

painted river through Cave Junction

New buildings for Cave Junction

There will be 7 or so new buildings added to Cave Junction area. The landscape has been set up to put them in place and the new stream channel finished.

birds eye view

track level view

Natural stone wall

I wanted to create the natural stone river crossing in the puzzle, Silver Belle Run so I used a piece from a tin foil tray, as it is quite heavy, to hand draw in the stones. I used the back of a small paint brush to burnish in the stones. I cast two walls before I remembered that they needed to be curved, so I cast 2 more. Fitting them in place was the hardest part.

tin foil mold

a little too big

fitted into place

got to use one of the straight ones

in place and first coat of paint

Main line reopened

It was almost like the real thing, cutting and hacking, levelling and regrading, down the back side of Eight Dollar Mountain to O'Brien. Need to build 3 new trestles and 2 road bridges and a lot of scenery to be redone. Now that this protect is well underway I am pleased with the results so far, at first I had may doubts, but I love building on the fly.

start of the down hill to O'Brien

still need to remove old road bed

new rock took up some of the farm land

this section is waiting on a cut stone wall

Cave Junction update

For the most part the track is back down. The new streams and roads are roughed in and I'm happy with their placement. Flat areas, most at different levels have been created. I think it now looks more like the landscape of a town in the mountains. I still have to repair and scenic the hole in the wall.

new town layout

rock wall extended for turn into the new tunnel

holes I the wall need to repaired and tunnel entrance designed

Silver Belle Run

It all started innocently enough, looking at a puzzle by Ted Blaylock called Silver Belle Run. There it was, a crazy thought that it would be nice to have a railroad built around Blaylocks series of train puzzles.  Not that I could pull that off, but I have never liked the fact that I can't follow my train around the middle peninsula, as it goes through a tunnel back to the other side.  After a couple of false starts, I came up with the plan to use a loop back behind Cave Junction, connecting to the logging branch. This loop will have a place for the stone bridge featured in the puzzle, now how to build it.

The track loops around through the wall and back out on the right side of the picture.