New project: Lewis and Clark RR

[MadMike1024]

One of it's names anyway. It is now doing business as the 'Clark County Community RR'. It was originally started as the 'Vancouver and Yakima', a route to the East from Vancouver, WA to Yakima, WA and a connection to the UP East through the Cascade mountains. Once the line got to timber country, and the sawmill at Chelatchie Prairie, WA it started making a lot of money hauling finished lumber to Portland, OR during it's growth phase in the early 1900s and further development was tabled. Now, the sawmill is scrap, and it runs excursion trains and delivers bulk freight to local businesses along the route.

41 miles from the UP/BNSF connection to the old mill site.

Real crossing at the Lewis river

Virtual recreation


The grade from the UP/BNSF connection to the Minnehaha yard hits 2.5% a couple of times, but the rest of the run is 2.0% or less.

This one is going to be easy for me to research, as I can drive the length of the line in ~2 hours.

Track is laid, now leveling and putting in grade crossings. Will not be finished until the tree decals are here.

[Samwolf]

Looks good. Love the Pacific Northwest routes.

[Toripony]

Another scenic train for my bucket list after I move to the PacNW. Extra bonus, it doesn't sound like you'll run into RR Police out there on your survey/research/photo trip. Good justification for choosing an "old" line for modeling in RW.

Cool bridge! Looks like your creek is at flood stage, though.

Tori

[MadMike1024]

Another scenic train for my bucket list after I move to the PacNW. Extra bonus, it doesn't sound like you'll run into RR Police out there on your survey/research/photo trip. Good justification for choosing an "old" line for modeling in RW.

Cool bridge! Looks like your creek is at flood stage, though.

Tori

The Lewis drains a fair size piece of the Cascades foothills, and at spring freshet looks like that. I'm using the 'German River' and covering the shoulders so I can put in riffles and falls following the the terrain. I need to push it down a bit more for summer flow

[dogmouse]

What a fun project!
I think it would be really cool to see the old, scrapped, broken-down saw mill as a ghost of what it once was.
Best of luck on your CCCRR.

~Rich

[MadMike1024]

Here's how it looks now, basically a junkyard. The rail line comes in at the lower left...



on closer examination, I found these (highlighted on the map above):



Apparently the spares for the excursion NW2.

I am going to contact the current site owners and see if I can get into the area for some better pictures.

After the last visit I know I screwed this area up, and need to put the terrain tile back and redo the area.

[dogmouse]

I hope they let you in to take some ref pics of those gorgeous NW2's. We dont have anything like those, here in Santa Cruz.
If you can get in to take some cab shots, I will buy you a virtual beer.

After seeing your aerial pics you posted above, I was inspired to go for a fly-over in that area in Google Earth.

It looks like rust heaven!

~R

[dejoh]

http://www.railwayvideos.net/category/usa/
Saw another video where the whole line is shot from a speeder (maintenance vehicle on track)
But I can't seem to find it. Was on The Rail channel a few months ago.
Trees and more trees.

[MadMike1024]

http://www.railwayvideos.net/category/usa/
Saw another video where the whole line is shot from a speeder (maintenance vehicle on track)
But I can't seem to find it. Was on The Rail channel a few months ago.
Trees and more trees.

More on the excursion here:

http://www.bycx.com/index.html

Looks like the locos may be ALCOs , S2s or S3s even better for detail photos!!!!

[PapaXpress]

Are there S2's for RW?

[dogmouse]

I know of one in the works.

[PapaXpress]

Oh, you sly dogmouse, you...

[MadMike1024]

Progress continues, PapaExpress has joined on for the QA/QC part for now, and hopefully will be helping with the scenery later (read his blog 'The Grade Crossing' for more info). Right now the focus is on getting the rail all laid and getting the grades smooth with only minor vertical curves. At Papa's request, I am going to go through and put named markers at each of the junctions and main points of interest.

It's at the point that I'm going to ask for input: Right now, with the minimal scenery work that's done, it would be easy to backdate the line to the days when the sawmill was still running and the line was very active, including mixed train passenger service. The latest period that would be viable would be in the late 60's or early 70's when NP still owned it. This would limit the rolling stock to first and second gen diesels.

What do you think?

[MadMike1024]

Well poop! I got hit by the 'T" key error at Chelatchie. Whole area dropped to 0 altitude from about 480'.

I've had that happen before, so during the intial redem and route marker creation, I created a route, cloned it and am working on a clone of the route. That made it really simple to copy the default tiles back, and it only took about 45 minutes to regrade the yard and mill area.

Far better than having to go through the entire process again.

[MadMike1024]

Just a quick update:
Track is all laid and grade equalization and bump removal is going along nicely. Grade crossings are about half done. I've done some scenery and water work, and have the mile markers and siding identifiers in place.

Here's a shot from the Hwy 99 bridge looking towards Ross Substation.

I'm thinking I'll just do the trackside scenery and the Minehaha yard/industrial area for now and wait the xx days for the rest (miles and miles of trees!).