The Saddle Creek
In June of 2016 I began construction of my new O scale layout, the Saddle Creek Railroad. The 17' by 17' layout is set in northern California and uses Atlas O flex track featuring an O-72 minimum curve with some curves larger than O-100, and Atlas #7.5 turnouts. Power for the layout is provided by a Lionel GW 180 transformer and the trains are controlled with Lionel's Legacy command system.
The layout is set in the present day, but I like to run trains representing all eras from about 1900 onward depending on my mood. The layout features the fictional town of Pinecliff, CA as well as the surrounding areas and a remote river canyon, home to the railroad's namesake, the Saddle Creek. The town will be comprised of mostly scratch built and kit bashed structures including an outdoors store (Ellis Outfitters), a steak house (California Cattle Co.), a brewery/ bar (Pinecliff Brewery), a coffee shop (Cranfield's Coffee and Doughnuts), and a church (Eureka Methodist). The style of the town will be reminiscent of many hipster revival downtowns. Pinecliff will also feature a large scratch built train station serving the many passenger trains on the railroad including the California Zephyr, the railroad's modern day commuter trains, excursion trains, and more. Throughout the town and across from the station there will be a running path and a small park with lots of figures of people enjoying the California sunshine.
Moving west out of town, there will be a cattle ranch and possibly preserved stockyards alongside the tracks. The home for the ranch will be a modified laser cut kit that I am currently putting together. From here the scenery begins to get very mountainous and rugged as the railroad gradually works its way up to a 2.2% grade. The tracks will go past a luxurious guest ranch and lodge for vacationers. Now we enter single track territory featuring Automatic Block signaling. After passing through a rock cut and over a fill, the tracks will enter tunnel 13 at Ridgecrest where the grade levels off and immediately crosses a bridge over Saddle Creek. (As a side note, the scenery in this section will be very similar to tunnel 17 on Union Pacific's Moffatt Subdivision near Pinecliffe, Colorado, which I didn't know existed when I came up with the town name.) We are now well into the river canyon and clinging to the steep granite cliffs as we make our way back downgrade at 2% past an intermediate signal and a rail greaser. After crossing Saddle Creek once more, we come back to double track territory with CTC signaling and pass under highway 78 running into town. The grade levels off as we return to Pinecliff.
The layout is set in the present day, but I like to run trains representing all eras from about 1900 onward depending on my mood. The layout features the fictional town of Pinecliff, CA as well as the surrounding areas and a remote river canyon, home to the railroad's namesake, the Saddle Creek. The town will be comprised of mostly scratch built and kit bashed structures including an outdoors store (Ellis Outfitters), a steak house (California Cattle Co.), a brewery/ bar (Pinecliff Brewery), a coffee shop (Cranfield's Coffee and Doughnuts), and a church (Eureka Methodist). The style of the town will be reminiscent of many hipster revival downtowns. Pinecliff will also feature a large scratch built train station serving the many passenger trains on the railroad including the California Zephyr, the railroad's modern day commuter trains, excursion trains, and more. Throughout the town and across from the station there will be a running path and a small park with lots of figures of people enjoying the California sunshine.
Moving west out of town, there will be a cattle ranch and possibly preserved stockyards alongside the tracks. The home for the ranch will be a modified laser cut kit that I am currently putting together. From here the scenery begins to get very mountainous and rugged as the railroad gradually works its way up to a 2.2% grade. The tracks will go past a luxurious guest ranch and lodge for vacationers. Now we enter single track territory featuring Automatic Block signaling. After passing through a rock cut and over a fill, the tracks will enter tunnel 13 at Ridgecrest where the grade levels off and immediately crosses a bridge over Saddle Creek. (As a side note, the scenery in this section will be very similar to tunnel 17 on Union Pacific's Moffatt Subdivision near Pinecliffe, Colorado, which I didn't know existed when I came up with the town name.) We are now well into the river canyon and clinging to the steep granite cliffs as we make our way back downgrade at 2% past an intermediate signal and a rail greaser. After crossing Saddle Creek once more, we come back to double track territory with CTC signaling and pass under highway 78 running into town. The grade levels off as we return to Pinecliff.
The broad curves and turnouts allow for operation of almost any O scale trains on the market today and yield realistic operation. Although there are no rail served industries (largely due to the cost of Atlas switches) operating trains over the layout is pleasantly challenging because of the steep grades. Typical train length is around 20 freight cars with one to three locomotives. I plan on using searchlight signals from NJ International for the double track territory and more modern "vader" signals in the river canyon. The siding/ double track through town will accommodate the twelve car California Zephyr with its three locomotives. Much of the layout was designed with that train in mind, including minimum curves, siding length, and even the locale.
When I began building the layout I knew I wanted scale fidelity wherever possible. Although I had to use O-72 curves in one area of the layout, all others are wider. Full scale buildings, trees, roads, and other aspects of scenery will be used. Because very few true to scale structures and trees are available many will be built from scratch as well as a couple kits. This is a vast departure from my previous layout with O-36 curves and Christmas village type buildings.
Work on the layout will is kind of slow as I am currently in college, but when I'm home for breaks I try to accomplish as much as possible. As of the start of 2020, scenery is finally underway with the back corner of the layout nearly complete. The rest of the layout is still just plywood and foam terrain. I have weathered all of the track and begun the tedious process of ballasting it. Proper ballast makes a layout look really nice but takes forever! Canyon terrain is about 40% complete and tunnel work has started.
Current Projects
Eureka Methodist Church- Trim and windows
California Cattle Company- Kit assembly and painting
Ellis Outfitters- Finishing interior
Installing fascia
Painting backdrop
Carving foam scenery
Painting and adding figures to the interiors of K-Line Bombardier 21" commuter cars
Removing flanges from middle two sets of drivers on Sunset brass N&W J
Converting all cars and locomotives to Kadee couplers (so far about half of my fleet has gotten them with more planned soon)
Boeing 737 fuselage transport cars and 777 component cars
Current Projects
Eureka Methodist Church- Trim and windows
California Cattle Company- Kit assembly and painting
Ellis Outfitters- Finishing interior
Installing fascia
Painting backdrop
Carving foam scenery
Painting and adding figures to the interiors of K-Line Bombardier 21" commuter cars
Removing flanges from middle two sets of drivers on Sunset brass N&W J
Converting all cars and locomotives to Kadee couplers (so far about half of my fleet has gotten them with more planned soon)
Boeing 737 fuselage transport cars and 777 component cars
That's about it for the time being. I will try to post layout updates as often as I can, but it really just depends on how much work gets done. Stay tuned as the layout progresses. I think it should be a pretty nice layout when it's all said and done. I'm hoping for spectacular scenery to showcase my trains. Thanks for reading!
Last Updated January 8, 2020
Last Updated January 8, 2020
Layout Update January 2017
Some more basic info on the Saddle Creek
I have mostly Atlas O and Lionel equipment as well as some from MTH, Weaver, K Line, Golden Gate Depot, Sunset Models, and Williams. Although a lot of the trains I got as a kid were O-27 toy like trains, about 8 years ago I started buying only true scale models with high end details. With the track on this layout I can run 2 rail freight cars, so most of my new orders for freight cars are with 2 rail wheels and scale couplers when possible. The two rail items I have right now work great on the layout. This should further increase the realism of the layout. I have about 250 locomotives and cars with more on preorder. The oldest models on my layout include a brass Pennsylvania coach from around 1930 that I am restoring (see below) and my grandfathers' Lionel trains which range from 1941 to 1952. I have always been a sucker for passenger trains, so you'll see plenty of those on the layout, including a complete California Zephyr with 12 cars and three Western Pacific F3s as well as bilevel commuter cars. I'm trying to buy more modern equipment including well cars and auto racks and have a decent rack/ stack train coming along featuring Atlas Gunderson MAXI-IV well cars and Lionel scale autoracks. Another one of my favorite trains to run is my steam era train featuring rolling stock from the 30s-50s. Lots of wood sided reefers!
The following is the current list of locomotives on the Saddle Creek Roster
The following is the current list of locomotives on the Saddle Creek Roster
Diesels
EMD:
Union Pacific SD70M (Lionel)
Santa Fe GP60M (two) (MTH Premier: one powered with PS1 and one non powered)
Western Pacific F3 (one A, two B) (Atlas O powered A and B, Lionel non powered B with TMCC Rail Sounds added)
Union Pacific Desert Victory SD40-2 (Lionel)
Norfolk Southern GP40 (MTH non powered)
Amtrak Cascades F59PHi (MTH Premier)
Santa Fe F7 B (Lionel)
GE:
Norfolk Southern "Southern Heritage Unit" (Lionel)
Norfolk Southern Dash 8-40CW (MTH Premier non powered)
BNSF Dash 8-40CW (Atlas O)
Steam:
Norfolk and Western J Class 4-8-4 (Sunset Models Brass)
Saddle Creek Railroad 2-8-0 (Lionel)
Seaboard Air Line 0-8-0 (unknown manufacturer)
Reading T1 4-8-4 (Lionel)
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| In the early 90s, two Santa Fe freight trains pass in Pinecliff. |
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| One of my summer projects was painting the roofs on these two MTH Premier 50' High Cube box cars. From the factory the roofs were body colored instead of the correct silver. |
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| After an hour or so of careful masking, the silver paint was applied and these cars look much more like the prototype. Next step will be weathering. |
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| Lots of new Premier rolling stock came in this summer including the box cars and center beams. They all really help to make the consist look more modern. |
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| The hill the cattle ranch sits on got a ton of work. All the foam was shaped and covered with Sculptamold. The track in front was also ballasted. Grass and trees will come soon so there will be at least one scenicked portion of the layout. |
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| Where tunnel 13 was intended to go, I have now chosen to just do a rock cut. I like the way this scene turned out. |
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| The ranch scene looks even better with trains in the foreground. |
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| A general overview of the layout as seen when entering the room. Several days were spent cleaning all the clutter from underneath the layout to make it look more presentable. This is the cleanest the train room has ever been! |
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| Looking at the layout from above the far corner, you can get a good idea of the track plan. |
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| Now for some older pictures! Here we see my brass Sunset models N&W J class leading an excursion train. At the time these photos were taken track was not complete and the backdrop had yet to be painted. |
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| Here we see the excursion train heading back east through the river canyon section. This portion of the layout already had track at the time. |
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| A commuter train in push mode passes the California Zephyr. |
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| Here are a couple photos of my 737 fuselage that I had custom made to model the transport of 737 fuselages from Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita, Kansas to Boeing in Renton, Washington. While I'm overall pretty happy with the model, the green isn't quite right so I'm considering getting it repainted. |
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| New hidden storage tracks that will be under a mountain and tunnel 13. I used leftover pieces of track and can store about 30 cars. |
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| Eventually this will be covered by fascia with a removable access panel. It has been really nice being able to tuck away more cars. |
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| Here's the base above the storage tracks, but I have now started adding foam scenery. Tunnel 13 will go where the milk train is. |
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| The hill for the cattle ranch has begun to take shape and work on the house kit has begun. Here it is being test fit in the area. It is not complete or permanently assembled so it looks a little funky. The layers of foam will be smoothed to make a nice contour. |
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| Here's a current view of the main road through Pinecliff. The foam board sections represent the road, parking spaces, and sidewalk. |
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| 22R (an autorack and intermodal train) works its way up grade through the river canyon. I have another autorack on order and another set of well cars that can't be seen in this photo. |
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| A passenger train meets a freight train in front of the Pinecliff station. This is a cardboard mockup, but I have started scratch building the station. This will be one of the bigger projects and might take a while. |
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| Here's a panoramic view of a steam era freight train going around part of the layout. |
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| East and west bound California Zephyrs meet and pass in Pinecliff. |
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| In the final days of steam on the N&W, even passenger power such as the J's were relegated to branch line freights. |
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| Here you can see some of the rough foam scenery taking place near tunnel 13 above the storage tracks. I was also testing some custom made trees. |
Here's some info on my first layout, the Rocky River Central.
After almost ten years of construction, the Rocky River Central was torn down. I began the layout on August 2, 2006 and worked continually since then to improve the layout. After moving it in 2010 to a new house, I expanded it and improved the scenery. In 2016, we moved again, but after enjoying ten great years with the RRC, I decided it was time to say goodbye. The layout has been a blast to run and work on, however it was designed when I had little knowledge of the hobby and my interests have changed over the years. It doesn't offer much operating capability and features very tight curves, O-48 and O-36 curves, which don't allow me to run most scale passenger cars or steam locomotives. It also had unrealistic buildings and scenery. These factors led me to the decision to start from scratch.
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| The last run of trains on the layout featured the two sets that started the layout, my Lionel Santa Fe steam freight set, and Williams Santa Fe 2343 F3s and El Capitan passenger cars. |
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| The following photos are a time lapse of removing buildings and scenery. |
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| Here is the final photo before the mountain and track were removed. |
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| All of the trains have been boxed up, and as you can tell, it was quite the task. |
The Rocky River Central is my three rail O scale layout. It features two mainlines as well as an On30 branch line. I use Lionel's TMCC system to control my trains and can run up to three at once. The layout measures 11 feet by 17 feet. Construction began in August of 2006, and then we moved in the spring of 2010 and all scenery had to be removed and the layout was cut into sections for the move. Since then, it has come a long way from bare plywood. The first couple years after the move saw hectic scenery work as I would do a lot on a scene, then tear it up to redo it. The layout is finally in a pretty well developed and presentable state, although nowhere near complete (not that any layout ever truly is). The Golden River Valley is pretty close to completion. All it needs are about 20 more trees, three scratchbuilt cabins, and completion of the river scene. The Silver Springs area is less done. It still needs a lot of trees, grass, and other details. Large portions of Silver Springs have temporary grass and other scenery just to make it presentable, but not anywhere near the finished product. Rock work is the next thing on the to do list. Large portions of the mountain and even the Golden River Valley will get custom made rocks in the future. As always, more trees are needed to help improve the look of the layout. And more trains never hurt...
One really interesting project I am working on right now is a Pennsylvania P70 coach built in the 1930s. I am not sure of the manufacturer. The restoration is really fun and it is neat seeing the true craftsmanship that went in to it 80 years ago. After taking almost a year off from the project, I spent the spring really digging in to the restoration. The roof, frame, trucks, wheels, and underbody details have all been painted black. The body received its first coat of tuscan red in late May, but unfortunately the paint wrinkled when it dried so I will need to strip it and start over. This is a shame as I was hoping to finish by May 20th. After that, I took a break from the project to work on the layout and enjoy my summer. Once I apply the final layer of paint I will bake all of the metal parts in the oven at 175 degrees as per Scalecoat I directions. I will be using dry transfer lettering is from Clover House.
Over the summer I spent a lot of time cleaning up the layout and the train room. In July I got to show it off to several dozen people and they were very impressed. I even got to show it to some retired railroaders who were stunned by the level of accuracy and realism of both the layout and models.
Another neat project is my Boeing train. It will feature a variety of models of cars used by Boeing to haul parts to their Renton and Everett assembly plants. I would eventually like to model the cars used for the 737, 747, 767, and 777 aircraft. Click here to see pictures and info on the real cars!
In August 2015 I was finally able to post a layout update video. It was far overdue with the last video of the layout having been posted in 2012. I had filmed two or three updates in the time between them, but between technical difficulties, and a new camera I never got around to posting them. On my last day at home before I headed to college, I filmed an update and then edited and posted it a couple weeks later. I hope it was worth the wait and you enjoy the 4K resolution!
My layout features trains from Lionel, MTH, Atlas O, and Weaver. While the majority of my collection is from Lionel, Atlas O is taking over. Their attention to detail and realism has made me fall in love with their product lines. I am modeling the California Zephyr and their cars are phenomenal. I am making some modifications to the cars including painting the interiors, adding extra details, and figures. I am also rearranging the window shades. They come staggered from the factory, but on several of my cars the shades were so low you could hardly see inside. If I'm putting all that work into the cars, I want it to be seen.
Last updated 8-27-2015.
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| My brass Pennsy P-70 coach was built in the 1930s and has three coats of paint, all of which will be stripped soon. Some of the hand rails will need to be replaced while others can be repaired. |
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| The other end of the coach. The final color will be Pennsy Tuscan red with a black roof and trucks. |
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| My Reading T-1, pulling a long passenger train, thunders by a local grade crossing with a rusty '56 Ford. |
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| Back in January of 2013, the Rocky River Central tested EMD's latest motive power! I had actually purchased this Lionel SD70ACe, but the electronics didn't work and given the number of discrepancies in the paint scheme, plus the time it would take to have it repaired, swayed me in to just returning it for store credit. |
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| An overall view of my Pennsylvania P-70 coach. |
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| Here is a recent view of the layout. I apologize for the quality of the next couple photos. They were taken with my phone. I'll get some better ones up eventually. Layout photography is a pain. |
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| Here is the river scene. The grass and trees are temporary. I will eventually build a station in the flat spot on the right. |
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| I have yet to add the final layer of water. |
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| The 8099 passes the river area which is still under development. |
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| Here is an old photo of the layout. I have made several changes since it was taken, but it is nice for an overview. |
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| Here are some photos from a day it snowed and I took some trains outside. |
December 2015
Summer 2015
Early Winter 2012
Spring 2011
Early Winter 2011
