Oregon Hootenanny

[davefoxx]

I don’t know why, Bryan, but I have always been fascinated by street trackage.  So, I will look forward to seeing your project get started.  Have fun!

DFF

[pdx1955]

But I have had some time to think about the layout and things have shifted.  I've decided to refocus, moving further south down the Willamette Valley, to the street trackage of Salem (and other towns) and industrial Albany, and I've fallen for the SP's Coos Bay line.  I've determined to go with a fictional, early version of the G&W lines, but all ALCO and minus the gaudy orange paint scheme.  This will allow me to focus on capturing the feel of 1970s Oregon, rather than fret about getting everything prototypical.


Stay tuned for some track planning.  My idea is to modular and start with the street trackage of Salem, and work towards a modular look to run trains on and expand from there, out and up.

Front Street is going to be your main source at least north of downtown for existing and the most evidence of past use although there was a spur on Highland Avenue (you can see some old rail-served docks). Also, there was tracks on  Union St from the bridge to the SP on 12th, and along Trade St along the line that punches through the Willamette University grounds. Some evidence is still there , but you'll need to refer to past books (like SP in Oregon) or old photos to see what was there including the industries.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

TTRAK it up man.

If you're gonna bury it, you might as well use Unitrack and make your life easy.

[sirenwerks]

Front Street is going to be your main source at least north of downtown for existing and the most evidence of past use although there was a spur on Highland Avenue (you can see some old rail-served docks). Also, there was tracks on  Union St from the bridge to the SP on 12th, and along Trade St along the line that punches through the Willamette University grounds. Some evidence is still there , but you'll need to refer to past books (like SP in Oregon) or old photos to see what was there including the industries.

The Truitt Brothers cannery will be a centerpiece of Salem, and I'll be bringing back Boise Cascade/Oregon Pulp & Paper, courtesy of artistic license.  One of the reasons I decided to move forward with a fictional line was because it is going to be too time consuming to amass enough historical information to prototypically reflect the prototype industries to my degree of perfection.  So I decided to take the painter's approach, rather than the photographer's, and have been studying Oregon historical industrial architecture and collecting references that are still standing in other places like Portland and Longview, to bring to the Willamette Valley.  I need to spend some more time in Albany and will be heading to Eugene and south some more as COVID eases to do some surveying.

repaired the micro-font -gfh

[dem34]

The Truitt Brothers cannery will be a centerpiece of Salem, and I'll be bringing back Boise Cascade/Oregon Pulp & Paper, courtesy of artistic license.  One of the reasons I decided to move forward with a fictional line was because it is going to be too time consuming to amass enough historical information to prototypically reflect the prototype industries to my degree of perfection.  So I decided to take the painter's approach, rather than the photographer's, and have been studying Oregon historical industrial architecture and collecting references that are still standing in other places like Portland and Longview, to bring to the Willamette Valley.  I need to spend some more time in Albany and will be heading to Eugene and south some more as COVID eases to do some surveying.

At least with that approach you can cherrypick stuff that is more interesting to you and omit stuff that that doesn't match the feel you want to go for. And by keeping stuff modular this gives the ability to swap things around if the proto bug bites. The "big layout" I've been planning has specific accommodations for a couple of hot swappable "what if" industry modules to spice up the traffic.

[davefoxx]

The Truitt Brothers cannery will be a centerpiece of Salem, and I'll be bringing back Boise Cascade/Oregon Pulp & Paper, courtesy of artistic license. One of the reasons I decided to move forward with a fictional line was because it is going to be too time consuming to amass enough historical information to prototypically reflect the prototype industries to my degree of perfection.  So I decided to take the painter's approach, rather than the photographer's, and have been studying Oregon historical industrial architecture and collecting references that are still standing in other places like Portland and Longview, to bring to the Willamette Valley.  I need to spend some more time in Albany and will be heading to Eugene and south some more as COVID eases to do some surveying.

Not sure Bryan's post reduced a chunk down to a font size of two, but here it is with that bug removed.

DFF