The original bridge is just a plywood base.

An arched culvert is added to the scene

Cardboard is used as a base for plaster

Plaster is applied

As the plaster sets, the stone is carved

Jerry works on carving details in the stone

The finished product, a stone arch bridge.

Several of our bridges were installed as basic plywood and roadbed, knowing that we would come back someday and upgrade them to more prototypical versions.

The old plywood bridge and roadbed have been separated from the rails and dropped out of place.

Doug inspects the new bridge for a smooth rail transition across the gap.

Rolling stock is tested for smooth operation

Rock work added to support the scenery and abutments

Rock has been painted and the first train crosses the new bridge!

Doug decommissions the old bridge by eating McDonalds fries with ketchup.

Doug is making progress on the water front. This shipbuilding scene is highly detailed and will be an eye catcher for visitors.

Work continues on the town of Beaver Falls. Some new details have been added. Street improvements have been made. And, unfortunately, crime is on the rise.

Officer Landrock frisks “Doug”, the local town hooligan, outside the Green Door Tavern.

Chief Brock gives a treat to the firehouse dog, while local hounds harass Gene the mailman.

Citizens of Beaver Falls line up for the matinee showing of Cinderella

Annoyed at the local deputy for her jaywalking ticket last week, Miss Violet takes her time crossing the street while he waits in his car.

Doug, the town hooligan, is sent on his way with a bus ticket to some other town far from Beaver Falls.

Gene sets up train for operation in the yard, while on the other side, Randy works on some electrical issues

Some rock patching has begun on a spliced section of layout

Basic cardboard is being used as a base for the rock wall along the upper mainline

Is it a double-deck bridge? Jerry is working to upgrade the upper mainline bridge. His new bridge sits below its future installation site.

Amtrak 375 rounds the point

An unexpected meet as Amtrak 375 rounds the corner. This is what happens when there is no dispatch and the Western Pacific crew decides its time for a pizza break.

Work continues on the CSME railroad. Several members (the retired ones) attend work sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays. The rest of us attend on Wednesday evenings. Quite a bit of progress has been made. The lower and upper mainlines are now operational and members have begun to run some trains. We still have electrical work to do, mainly connecting switch machines and power to track sidings.

Larry and Dan figuring out a fascia project on the helix.

Landrock Shipbuilders in the making

View of the north room

View of the south room

Amtrak 375 makes a test run through the helix tunnel

It’s been a long time since we have been able to update this page. A lot of work has continued on the layout, despite Covid. We chose to cancel our November Open House weekends and have high hopes to be open to the public in 2022.

We hope to do our best to do weekly updates.

4/24/21

The last report was quite technical and there were more colorful developments this week in addition to DCC documentation.  One of these included a major step in helix construction.  George has worked diligently for several weeks to wrap a fascia around the lower frame of this part of the layout.  This fascia wrap created a tunnel almost 15 feet long and covered up Larry’s hard work on the rock liner.   George’s framing included uprights to support outside edges of the subroadbed.  On the lower level these uprights also provided a router guide allowing us to use a laminate bit to route out windows.  These windows can be used for viewing trains inside the tunnel and good access to the tunnel interior. 

We had a sneak work session to rout out these windows.  Larry and I did this on Saturday because we knew it would be extremely dusty and noisy.  Gabe, a 6^th grader from Redmond, Oregon came by to visit.  Larry was cleaning up from the routing job and he drafted Gabe into running the “suckulator”.  Even though we put him right to work, Gabe said he wanted to come by again.

Not only has great progress been made on the south helix but also our drive-in movie has found a home.  With great frustration and challenge, Doug successfully modified existing framing in Corvallis to fit the theater module into a corner.  We’ve been concerned about how we might locate this icon.  For those of you who don’t know, this diorama was made by member Lyle Friese who has since passed on.  The featured film, 3:10 To Yuma, was the movie playing when Lyle took his wife on their first date.

We have mystery dance steps with directions appearing on the floor between George’s Gorge and Eagle Point.  It may be that CSME is the first model railroad club in America to have foot placement dance diagrams affixed to the floor complete with labels for “L” and “R” feet.  During lunch this week a lively discussion developed about who the author of this artwork might be.  Doug quickly defended himself against any allegations advising all present that it wasn’t him because he couldn’t spell “L” or “R”.  Current evidence points to Lonnie.

Hopefully this progress report reads a bit easier than the last one and provides some exoneration for the infliction of such a highly technical document upon the membership.