This was a roughly 9 or 10 foot long shelf layout that represented the Milwaukee Road in perhaps Clearwater MT. Just picked that town and that branch out of the employees' timetable. No rhyme or reason. There was a four foot long "staging track" that came off one end, over my workbench. This was located in a spare bedroom of the house I owned in Orangevale CA whilst I worked for the Western Pacific / Union Pacific. It had the customary twin-tube fluorescent fixture (I think two of them end to end) over the layout, and of course, I hadn't thought about the color matching with the "Kelvin heat numbers," and so with Kodachrome 64 slide film in my Canon AE1, pictures were always a frustration. Long exposures at high F-stops became the norm.
I hadn't had a "real" layout for about eight years when I started this one, and it was after I entered into my "Milwaukee Road" phase. I had some Little Joes and BoxCabs and had planned for a layout of the Rocky Mountain Div, but I just didn't have the room in that house. So, I built some MILW stuff and did this little layout to try new techniques that had come along since my SP Donner Pass pike of the late 60's and early 70's. It still featured handlaid track (Code 70 and 55 and a little 40) and turnouts. I used the usual 1x4's for making a box frame, and then plywood for sub-roadbed supported by risers. For the roadbed, I think this was just before Homasote became the rage, or maybe couldn't find any in NorCal. I used ceiling tile instead. I took the same precautions and painted it so the sides were sealed. Never had a problem with warping or anything after ballasting or after years of being in place. I found you had to be very careful when butting the ends of the ceiling tile up to each other and assure it was a level joint. It does not sand well, and using patching paste or wood putty does not allow must spike penetration from the ties glued on top of it. But I was very happy with the layout. Used train order operation, switch lists and such.
This is looking towards the branch as it "left" the town, heading back to the Milwaukee Main at Bonner Jct. I figured that the locals ("Patrols" on the MILW in most areas) came out of Missoula. Here comes the 299 inbound from the Jct. with today's train. The highway bridge at the upper left kinda hid the escape from the layout to the staging track. Narrow lanes! No shoulder. I had two storage tracks in the weeds and dirt, but decided to keep only one, where that Co-oP Fertilizers center flow is parked. The other track (these were both laid in Code 40!) got partially ripped up and MofW road replaced it. That's some die-cast generator truck from "Lesney(?)" that had to go back to the late 1950's you see on the gravel. The Clearwater siding's east switch is between the hopper and the box cars, and there are two industries on that far spur, "north side" of the main. The far one was from a Suydam metal mine kit, and was supposedly a small barite mine head house to load the stuff to ship out to oil fields. And there was also a small lumber mill, with another Suydam metal kit at the extreme right, middle. Those two Suydam kits dated from the 1960's. I recall swearing off building kits that required soldering after that. But learning about flux changed my mind... The backdrop was coved, and those trees were leftovers from the Donner layout, made of wooden dowels with asparagus fern branches. TEDIOUS. The shrubs and trees were enhanced with the early type of ground foams that were just coming on the market.
I used Caboose Industries hand-throws, with the ones off the main track the "tall" ones with the MILW striped targets, white paint and red decals. This was the first layout that I combined hand-laid track and switches with hand-throws, and they worked just fine. I believe I made added little springs (Kadee?) that rubbed the closure rails against the points to ensure better electrical continuity.
Another day on the Clearwater Branch, and SD7 504 is in charge. Basic Athearn SD9 shell that for some reason ended up on an Atlas 6 wheel power chassis, from I think an SD24. This unit went into the shops in the 1990's, got an Athearn power chassis with Ernst gears, and the fuel tank corrected to just the single saddle variety, creating that big hole down there that Milwaukee seemed to like for keeping the locomotive weights down. The conifers in this shot hadn't been given the "ground foam" leaf treatment yet. That helped hide the overly thick trunks of these, built in the later 1960's I think from a Jack Work article in MR. I believe the 504's crew has just spotted that bulkhead flat and is running around their outbound train.
Another view of the "west end" of Clearwater with the local out of the way. That's code 70 rail on the main, 55 on the sdg and far spur, and itty bitty code 40 on the storage track in the foreground with bleached out ties.
MILW Work Extra 299 is pulling up to the depot to chat with the agent and see what other work they have in town. Depot was scratchbuilt from plans in RMC in the 70's, and I got an unintended Milwaukee-style run down structure atmosphere with that roof. Actually, I had made my own shingling, and went a little heavy on the glue. It didn't curl up right away, but it sure played havoc with the framing under the roof. I almost died when I saw it the morning after adding the roofing. But a couple of years later, and I re-roofed it with some styrene roofing material, and the depot served on a couple more layouts thru to the mid 2000's in Kansas City!
Broadside view of the 299 and the Clearwater depot.
299 pulls on down to block Main Street, but looks like the semi driver has already got things plugged up as he backs into the Farmers' Supply. The "church" started out as an Alexander Scale Models "school" kit and repurposed. Suydam Feed Mill in that chequered paint at right, and the fuel pumps in front are another English "Lesney" prop, with a "Hot Wheels" hot rod gassing up at those NICE prices! The Chevron sign and lettering came off an actual Chevron road map.
Here's a view looking to the "west," and the end of the branch. The KLAC billboard was something that I got as a listener prize for a contest back when I was at USC in the early seventies. If you aren't in radio, you probably wouldn't know that it was out of place, and "out of the sound of my voice." Suydam kits provided the Purina Chows' Farmers Supply Company and the tall grain elevator against the wall. I scratchbuilt the shorter elevator with the white loading hose from styrene to fir in with the complex. Wershila Fuels building was an early modular kit from ?, and those fuel tanks are from old orange juice containers that dated back to the sixties, and had served at Chiloquin on my SP/BN Oregon layout! The small tavern is a metal Woodland Scenics, and later got a sign proclaiming it "Hoopey's Tavern." A rather shapely blonde (I think the Preiser name for the figure was "The Hooker") was added at the front door too. Maybe she drove the TBird. The corner grocery store with upstairs apartments is scratchbuilt from scale wood.
299 sitting at the depot, crew at beans before heading back to Bonner Jct and Missoula. Looks like I had recently "planted" that telephone pole judging by the white plaster piled around the base. That track inspector is gonna hate dragging that speeder over that ballast to set it on and ride.
