Layout Page
The California North Western
I've long had an interest in modeling the Northwestern Pacific line of the Southern Pacific Railroad and had collected models of  some of the equipment used on the line in the period from the late 1950's through the 1960's.
My goal is not necessarily to model exact features of the Northwestern Pacific, just to get the overall feeling of it. I call my layout the California Northwestern and use fictitious names rather than the real ones from the NWP. The layout started it in November of 2002 and is a simple track plan built on a 12 ft shelf set at a height of 54 inches along one wall of my train room. A Digitrax Chief DCC system is used for control, the track is Peco code 55.
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These 9 photos I took in 2006 using a Nikon Coolpix 5400 and Helicon Focus Software. The numbered black arrows on the overhead view above correspond to the numbers in the photo captions so you can have an idea where that particular photo is on the layout. Since these photos were taken I have added a few more details to the layout and stil have more I am working on.
1 - There are no automatic grade crossing signals, so all drivers stop and look, and the engineers make good use of the locomotives horn.
2 - In the part of California where the Northwestern Pacific operated logging is the mainstay of the economy followed by outdoor recreation. That's what I try to represent on the layout. Using N scale tree stumps that I got from California Freight & Detail I created a few clear cut areas that allow the back portions of the layout to be viewed and accessed.

3 - On the prototype Northwestern Pacific, while there was not a great deal of traffic there were some rather long freight trains. Here a four unit combination of SD7's and SD9's in all three Southern Pacific paint schemes is powering one of those long freights on the layout.
4 - Here SD7 number 5329 is making a meet with an opposing freight train of which the caboose is now passing. Number 5329 is an Atlas Classic release that takes a board type DCC decoder. I installed an MRC 1636 Brilliance sound decoder in this one.

5 - Here is SD7 number 5309 passing under a highway bridge and the long shadows of the surrounding forests. Number 5309 is like most of Southern Pacific's SD7's, it has no steam generator and no water tank. This gives these engines a noticeable gap between the front wheel set and the fuel tank. This is the only one I have like this. I made the modifications from a standard Atlas SD7 model.

6 - On this layout I really wanted to keep the look rural and have good stretches of the railroad passing through forested country. I needed a lot of trees to do this even on a small layout like this one. Lucky for me Bill Settle had given me many of the trees from his Santa Fe and Pacific layout when he dismantled it.

7 - The local switch job is being handled today by SD7 number 5308. They have just left some empty flat cars in the siding at Eagle River Mills and the crew is going to join the guys working at the mill for lunch. Number 5308 was the original SD7, being the EMD demonstrator number 990 that Southern Pacific purchased in 1952. The railroad went on the purchase over 40 more SD7's and many of them would work on the NWP throughout the 1950's and 1960's.

8 - The center of activity in the small mountain community of Nona Creek is the general store which includes a small restaurant, a bar, and a post office. It's a favorite stop for all sorts of folks. The building was made from parts of two Model Power houses with the roofing being made with the computer and printed on paper.

9 - During my modeled era, Southern Pacific had assigned it's only Budd RDC to the Northwestern Pacific. It made 3 trips per week between Willits and Eureka. SP#10 as the RDC was known, was rather unique after hitting a logging truck at a grade crossing and then being repaired. I have a stock Kato RDC and hope to model # 10 in the near future. Each town along the line had some sort of passenger station, some were quite interesting little stations. In the town of Nona Creek, I used a Bar Mills Models N scale Whistlestop Junction station kit.