Camas Prairie - Lewiston 2004

11/26/04: Added photos for all the 2004 operating sessions.

To see older photos, click here.

Welcome to my switching layout's photo page. I started working on this layout in August 2002, and it has made slow progress.  The layout sat for several months with no track or structures while I worked on the plan. Some general information about the layout:

Scale: HO

Theme: Lewiston, ID - main city on the Camas Prairie

Room: 23'X20' formal living room. The goal is to have a duel use room, keep the furniture and dress the layout up.

Benchwork Height: 45.5" This is set by the 41" tall bookcases that I get at Target. I started with 48" tall cases, but I didn't like the overall height.

Subroadbed: Homasoate on 1/2" plywood - sealed with Latex paint.

Backdrop: Masonite ripped into 2' wide sheets, primed and painted blue.

Track: Code 83 Atlas and code 75 Peco

Turnouts: #6 Atlas and Peco mediums.

Switch machines: There are 8 Tortoise on the main and 3 Peco solenoids in the staging yard.

Command: Digitrax DCC. One DCS-100 and one DB-150. Radio throttles.

Drawn with 3rd Planit

 

On Feb 18, 2004 Pearre, Norm, Blair and Lance made it over

Pearre, Norm and Blair look on approvingly as Lance plans his move.

The yard started out as visible staging, but is enough work to keep one guy busy usually.

On Febuary 25, 2004 Jerry, Bart, Dwayne and Alf came over from the South Side club to operate.

I usually take the yard job when there are 4 guest operators, so I'm not sure what these Yahoos are doing in my yard.

It looks like Alf is cleaning wheels on his power.

On April 23, 2004 Frolin Marek and Sean Emery visited from San Antonio.

I had recently painted the backdrop here. I was trying to get away from the flying through the clouds feel I get on so many layouts.

This was the first operating session where I ran three one man jobs.

Frolin is busy with Zone 1.

While Sean works Zone 2.

I had also reworked the siding in Zone 1 before this operating session. Before, it was vary short, now you can actually get a train on it.

One of my favorite areas of Lewiston is at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers.

The print in the photo shows what the confluence area looked like in the 50s.

Since I don't have a roundhouse, I hostle power by hand in East Lewiston. Here is RDC B-30 getting ready to run to Spokane.

Two weathering extremes for Potlatch Thrall cars. I gave the lightly weathered car to a friend that models the early 80s.

This shows how I reworked the Prairie Flour spur. The BN power went back in its box afterwords.

I'm currently planning an expansion. The first improvement will be to enlarge the yard and have a real ice house and round house.

Shane, Tim and Alf are seen here on Jun 30, 2004 for the seventh operating session. Pearre was also there, but is off camera.

Donovan came up from Dallas to operate on Aug 25, 2004 to operate with another first timer Steve.

I have taken all the furniture out of the living room in order to expand the layout.

Here Steve is switching Zone 2.

And Donovan is working Zone 1.

Katy is the only one in the family who can negotiate the duck under at full speed.

The small P2K 0-6-0 switchers have trouble pulling 10 cars up over the bridge.

 

Drawing courtesy Donovan Furin