Mat
Thompson’s HO scale Oregon Coast Railroad (OCRR) smacks of
authenticity. As you approach it through a sliding glass door, it's
easy to think that you're going out from the house and looking at a
real world scene—the mountainous and very heavily forested areas of
Oregon west of the Cascades. Actually, the layout is in a 36’ X 32’
room. The time is the mid-1950s. The configuration is walk around loops
where everything is readily accessible and well equipped for DCC
operation using car cards and following Time Table Train Order (TT/TO)
switching operations. Hosting and attending operating sessions are
among Mat’s current hobby activities.
There
are numerous beautifully executed scenes, including lumber and paper
mills, seaside fishing towns, highlighted by a Swift meat packing
plant. You can find the instructions for switching the plant online. As
Bob Rosenberg wrote on a previous visit, “the weathered seaside
buildings, commercial businesses assembled from kits as well as
kit-bashed and scratch built depending on the requirements of the site,
look typical of structures found in cold, windy coastal areas (think
Maine), with freighters and tug boats docked around them, even a small
car float operation, and trees; enormous numbers of trees everywhere -
mostly spruce trees – so many that you have to look carefully to see
the intimate scenic touches that Mat has included in his layout; the
colony of seals on the small, rocky beach, or the saw mill and its logs
in the adjacent mill pond being rounded up by two mill workers in a
small, steam powered boat, the cattle in pens waiting to being shipped
to market, and the older wooden box cars parked on a siding nearby.
It’s this devotion to the details that enhances any model railroad,
regardless of the local being modeled.”
Since
the Potomac Division last visited the OCRR in March of 2016 there have
been several additions and changes:
·
The biggest addition is a large harbor in Tillamook. The six by six
addition holds a three track oil depot, a two track spur serving a
lumber dock and four more tracks serving a freight house.
·
Details, tanks of all sizes and kinds and signs have been added to
paper mill in Tillamook.
·
Passing under the paper mill is a track that leads into another room
which now holds Wheeler, a combination staging area and interchange
yard.
·
Adding the harbor in Tillamook eliminated space for the passenger
station that had been there so that model has been moved to Hoyt Street.
·
Several stock pens have been added to the Swift Packing Plant.
·
Modeling in the town of Astoria is complete. Besides several
commercial buildings, one rail industry has been added, Western Wax
Paper.
