Sunset Valley 1955

All of you know that Mr. Jones is a model railroader. But if you came to our house to see his modeling, you would be a bit disappointed. You see, most of the model railroad work that he does is for his friends ... THEIR basements ... THEIR layouts! Each Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Jones goes over to his friend's house (Bruce), and works on his 2600 (!!) square foot layout. This Bruce fellow is rather famous ... folk all over of the country know who he is and have read articles about his famous layout in such periodicals as Model Railroader or Scale Rails! What do you mean you've never heard of those magazines!??!! Anyway, Bruce has been modeling the Sunset Valley Oregon System (1955) for 50+ years, the past fourteen years in this location (he had his new house built to accommodate his hobby, even extending the basement UNDER his garage).

I've heard about this gentleman's layout for years and years, and yesterday, I finally saw it for myself! In the above photo, Mr. Jones is matching the individual weigh bill car cards to the individual railroad cars on the layout ... one card for each car. This is an actual working layout, based on 10 railroads that operated in the Pacific Northwest in 1955. It's like a gigantic 3-D video game, if you like, because all of this stuff actually works and means something! The signal system, the crossing gates, crossing flashers, lights, engines (with sounds and other features that you can control) all work authentically ... some of which are controlled by computer, some by each individual operator! Jesse would go nuts if he could see the wires underneath these shelves!

This is a through-truss bridge with canoers enjoying the river!

This entire layout is on four levels, all interconnected, with all of the signals controlled by a very old (dinosaur) computer! I actually operated a Southern Pacific, cab-forward steam engine from the bottom-most layer, to the top-most layer (a distance that would stretch over three football lengths if laid out from end to end)!

I was most impressed with the artistry of the scenery ... so meticulously and beautifully created ... some of it copied from photographs. So many details, so carefully painted and modeled!
This is the town of Jefferson, modeled through the visitor's bathroom ... watch out! They tell a story of a woman who was rather shocked at the entry of a train rolling through here ... she nearly fell off her perch! The idea of a train coming through the bathroom is a carryover from a former layout of Bruce's ... which was called the town of Bath.

When these train folk have what is called an "operating session," 20-25 guys will meet over at Bruce's ... some men running yards, some running the dispatcher's panel (which directs which trains go where on the railroad), others running individual trains. They move the cars and trains around the railroad according to a time table to control the trains and the weigh bills to control the movements of each individual car. Like I said, it's like a giant 3-D video game ... and these folk are serious about it. Mr. Jones does not like it being referred to as a video game ... in his words, it is a "miniature, authentic prototypical railroad!"

This is the main Brooklynn yard, Portland, Oregon (above and below).

Many of the regular folk who come out to Bruce's each week, have modeled beautiful layouts at their own houses (NOT Mr. Jones, however) ... they just love the hobby and are quite expert at what they do! Since Mr. Jones is so computer smart, he has been requested to do a lot of that kind of work for several model railroad friends ~ and he has done an excellent job of it too!

This is the Herrimann passenger station, Portland, Oregon.

I had a great time in Sunset Valley yesterday afternoon ... it was nice to be with Mr. Jones and finally see what he has been telling me about for so long! These pictures do not do it justice ~ perhaps we can take you there sometime to see for yourself.