RCGRS 2017 Tour: Colorado & Southern Railroad

The final stop on my Rose City Garden Railway Society 2017 summer tour was the Colorado & Southern Railroad in Beaverton. It is a very large layout that is still growing over time with some major projects currently underway. The theme is a 1930's mountain railroad with a single track mainline and multiple turnouts to allow the operation of multiple trains. There is a large water feature near the middle creating a waterfall which, of course, requires plenty of bridges to cross.

Overview showing some of the rock work and landscaping. Imagine how beautiful these trees will be in another ten years or so.

A train is passing one of the buildings along the route, a leather works.

The rock work is amazing. I have no idea how many tons of rock were hauled into place.

Here's a view of a couple of the bridges near the waterfall.

Train heading into one of the many tunnels.

There's a large train yard at the lowest point of the layout, featuring a coaling tower, turntable and roundhouse in progress.

A close-up view of the turntable.

And a view of the beautiful seven-stall roundhouse under constructions. The back and side walls are up, including detailed window work. Can't wait to see this when it's done.

Also near the train yards is an ice production and loading facility under constructions. 

Track construction is still underway around the yard area which gives you a chance to see how the roadbed is being built.

RCGRS 2017 Tour: The Blueberry Mountain Railroad

The penultimate stop on my Portland area garden railroad tour was the Blueberry Mountain Railroad in Beaverton. This is an example of where the garden came first and the railroad had to work within the available space between the existing large garden elements. As the railroad was built many more plants were added that were scale appropriate for the railroad, including both dwarf species as well as full size plants. And a fun element was the inclusion of blueberry bushes which is where the railroad gets its name.

In addition to the beautifully maintained plants, there are some truly amazing buildings which fit perfectly into the landscape. I was so distracted by the plants and scale buildings that I realized after the fact I had hardly taken any pictures of the trains!

At the lumber mill we see an open-air storage shed in the foreground for protecting the cut lumber before it's shipped out. In the background is the sawmill building, also open air.

Here's another view showing the sawmill and the workers pulling logs out of the world's smallest mill pond. Also notice the teepee burner in the background.

This was my favorite structure -- an ice house and reefer loading facility.

Another view showing ice blocks being loaded into the waiting reefer.

This was a very nice idea—a wood-sided reefer on a siding that had been converted to a house. It looks very inviting!

A small farm complete with windmill.

On a siding by an engine barn we see an Porter 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive pulling a steam donkey on a flatcar.

These two diesels, seen here passing at a siding, were the trains in operation when I was there.

One of my favorite trees was this beautiful Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Spiralis'. Also notice in the lower right the former flatcar being used as a footbridge.

The blueberry bushes may not be to scale but they fit right in. The plump blueberries are starting to ripen up.

A variety of colors and textures throughout the garden encourages the eyes to wander and explore.

With so many miniature trees around, it only makes sense to have a miniature fire lookout tower to keep watch over the forest.

Caroline, the gardener-in-chief, was so kind as to send me home with clippings from a few of the plants. I had a cup with some melted ice water in the car which I thought would keep them fresh until I could get them back home. 

Once I was back at Melody and Dave's in Beaverton, we dipped the bottom half-inch of each cutting in rooting powder and stuck them in some peat pellets. Not sure how successful it will be but hopefully at least a couple of these will take. I'll provide an update once I see which ones survive.

RCGRS 2017 Tour: The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad

Next stop on my tour was a fun change of pace. While many garden railroads are fanciful creations of imagination, this one was modeled on a specific place and time. And it’s a place I’ve been to before! So in addition to sharing photos of the garden railroad I'll also include a couple pictures of the real place and spend some time talking about its history.

The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad is loosely based on the Creston Division of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q) from the 1930's through the 1960's, prior to the Burlington Northern Merger in 1970. This garden railroad includes around 600 feet of mainline track running in a continuous loop around three sides of the house, and in the middle is the city of Creston, Iowa, including a large train yard, an absolutely beautiful replica of the train station, and several dozen more buildings, some of which are also modeled after actual structures in the town.

Needless to say, all the locomotives and almost all the rolling stock were CB&Q.

The central feature of the layout is a replica of the CB&Q Station in Creston. And stopped in front is a Zephyr, which looks ready to speed westbound out of town at any moment. Zephyr service was introduced by the CB&Q in 1934 in an effort to modernize passenger train travel. Burlington had nine Zephyr train sets which were used on its key passenger routes between major cities. Two Zephyr routes passed through Creston so these would have been seen frequently when they were in use.

A view of a freight passing through the train yard. The one-story freight building to the right (east) of the station was removed and replaced in 1969 with a small station that is used by Amtrak today.

A pair of silver box cars on a siding by another freight shed.

Every town needs a water tower with its name on it to remind residents where they are.

Here's another view of the all-CB&Q freight local. Remember my recent post when I was so excited just to have three pieces of CB&Q rolling stock? Clearly I need more.

At one end of the main line it makes a loop around a village which I believe is based on Emerson, another small town along the CB&Q mainline about 60 miles or so west of Creston.

There were also farms along the line including this cattle ranch. Note the two stock cars set out on the siding, waiting to take the week's haul to market.

In front of the house the main line makes a graceful loop around the yard on a beautiful poured concrete viaduct. 

Also in the front yard is a nice grain elevator, complete with a pair of covered grain hoppers. And where are they from? The Creston, Iowa Farmers Co-Op Co. of course!

The real Creston was established by the Burlington & Missouri Railroad (which was eventually absorbed into the CB&Q) around 1868 and quickly became a significant railroad town and division point along their mainline across southern Iowa. Creston is the high point along the line between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and earned its named from being on the crest of the divide between the two drainage systems, although the town is not actually right on the divide but about mile or so to the west.

The Creston Division encompassed southwest Iowa including the CB&Q mainline between Creston and Council Bluffs plus several branch lines. As it was a division point, Creston had sizable train yards and shops, including one of the largest roundhouses in the entire CB&Q system. The remains of the roundhouse burned in 1981 but you can still make out the outline today on Google Earth as the area has not been redeveloped. Other railroad buildings have burned, been dismantled, or in some cases destroyed by tornado, leaving little physical evidence of what a significant railroad town this once was.

The most visible and beautiful remaining structure is the large station, built in 1899 at a cost of $75,000, at the time the largest and most significant station the CB&Q had built in Iowa. At that time, around 50 passenger trains a day passed through Creston. This building was significantly larger than what was needed for passengers, however, and the upper two floors were used as offices for numerous railroad departments and officials responsible for the Creston Division.

This building hasn’t been used for passenger service since 1969, when a small, one-story building was opened by the CB&Q just to the east of the old station. That small building is still used by Amtrak today and also houses a few BNSF offices. The main building was sold to the city and today it houses municipal offices as well as a senior center and gallery space on the ground floor. It has been on the National Register for Historic Places since 1974.

For more information if you're interested:

• A series of images of the Creston station preserved at the Library of Congress
• An article about the first Burlington Zephyr
• The Union County Historical Society Facebook page has some fun photos

Here's a picture of the real station in Creston which I took when passing through in July, 2005. This is the west end of the building.

This CB&Q caboose is preserved in a Creston park by the Union County Historical Society. They have preserved several historic structures that have been moved to the park, including this tiny train shed that once stood in Brooks, a local stop along the CB&Q mainline about 25 miles west of Creston.

Finally, for reference here is a detail of a 1967 map of the Creston Division of the CB&Q. The lines this Division were responsible for are shown in bold. Some CB&Q branch lines had already closed by this time. Note that you can identify both Emerson (in Mills County) and Brooks (in Adams County) on this map.

RCGRS 2017 Tour: The Underground Railroad

Next stop on the train tour was The Underground Railroad, so named as half of the layout is underneath the house. The covered "indoor" area was connected to an outdoor layout through a portal. There is an amazing amount of detail put into the modeling and it was easy to get lost in the many scenes, interrupted occasionally by a passing train. Many of the model buildings were phenomenal. The outdoor layout included a large water featured and the "indoor" layout also had a small stream running through the middle.

A stream meandered through the center of the layout underneath the tracks and among the farms.

The use of all the rock is a reminder this railroad is on the ground, just like the outdoor layout. There may be a roof over our heads but this is still a garden train.

A two-truck Climax comes round the corner hauling a load of large logs on skeleton cars.

I really like this feature, a rock retaining wall holding up a gravel road. I didn't even notice the amazing farm produce stand until I was looking at this picture later.

Outside, the small village of Canyon City is surrounded by a lush variety of beautiful, very well maintained trees.

Just east of Canyon City, a number of bridges cross a small creek.

A 38-ton two-truck Shay pulls a train similar to the one we saw inside.

Another scene I really liked -- a very weathered UP NW-2 idled under an open-air shed.

A garage had been converted to a workshop and train storage room that would make anyone jealous.

RCGRS 2017 Tour: WWWI Railroad

The fourth stop on my RCGRS tour was the WWWI Railroad in Milwaukie. The site is very steep and quickly drops down to the Willamette. The solution for a garden train was to embrace the slope and build a line that gradually snaked down the hill, with rather steep grades at certain points. Another reminder that a garden train can be built anywhere, and any obstacle should be seen as a design challenge.

There are over a 1,000 feet in track in place, some of it at ground level, some elevated on platforms, and much of it built on trestles or bridges to work with the slope.

Looking down toward the river from the highest point on the layout.

A prominent feature is the beautiful double-tracked Bascule type drawbridge. It was up to allow visitors to move between the upper and lower parts of the layout.

Another view of the bridge looking the other direction. Here you can see one of the tracks heading toward the bridge is descending from the upper level.

After crossing the drawbridge, the double tracks head across a long Howe truss bridge. Rather than being supported by piers, the bridge is actually suspended from the deck beams above.

And at the far end of the Howe truss bridge, the tracks are inset into the composite deck boards. 

Mine shaft and ore processing mill.

Part of the lower layout, including a couple of GN grain hoppers waiting at a grain elevator.

Along part off an elevated section, a roundtable and engine barn.

It wasn't in operation when I saw it, but of course I enjoyed seeing this GN RDC.