On the road again - Lake Cascade, ID

During our August RV trip we spent several days in the area of Lake Cascade, Idaho.  We had not originally intended to spend time in this area but changed our plans because of the smoke from several wildfires further north.   This ended up being a great area and an unexpected high point of our trip.  Right next to our camp site was the beginning of a paved trail along the Payette River. 

I knew that at one time there had been a Boise-Cascade lumber mill in this area which had closed in 2001.  This trail was not on the railroad right of way but this sign along the trail indicated some railroad tracks nearby so of course I had to explore.

I did eventually find the railroad tracks.  They appeared to not have been used in quite some time.  What I have read is that this section of track had originally been laid around 1914 by the Pacific and Idaho Northern Railroad then taken over by the Union Pacific in 1936.  UP had abandoned the section north of Lake Cascade in 1980 and sold off the southern section to a new Idaho Northern Railroad in 1993.

There did not appear to be anything left of the lumber mill but there were a couple of siding tracks and a wye.  I did notice that all of the turnouts appeared to be maintained and were locked, and that all of the grade crossing signs were still intact.

There was this one RR maintenance shed within the wye.  Inside were boxes and buckets of spikes, tie plates, etc.  The building itself looked as if could fall down at any time.  That is one leg of the wye behind the shed.

Near where the tracks ended I found this elevated passenger platform which made me think that there had been a tourist railroad here at one time.   I later found out there was a tourist railroad here between 1998 and 2016 called the Thunder Mountain Line Railroad.  It ran for 40 miles along the Payette River between Horseshoe Bend and Lake Cascade.  The main page of their website is still operating at thundermountainline.com.

I was able to walk up the ramp and inspect the interior of the station platform.  Still seemed in good shape.  Maybe there is hope that this tourist railroad might reopen some day.

On the road again - Cashmere, WA

During our August RV trip we spent some time in central Washington state.  We decided to visit a place called the Cashmere Museum and Pioneer Village.  The interior of the building was full exhibits about the history of the area of the native people that had lived there.

The outdoor area had a collection of original pioneer buildings that had been relocated from various locations around the area to create something of a village. 

A part of the outdoor portion of the museum was a nicely done exhibit dedicated to Great Northern Railroad artifacts.  Like the Pioneer Village, all of these artifacts had been relocated here from various locations.   The Great Northern line, now operated by BNSF is only a few hundred feet from the museum site across the Wenatchee River.  A short section of track had been laid along one side of the museum stie.  The center piece of this exhibit was Great Northern caboose X494.

Visitors could enter the interior of the caboose.  As seen in this photo, it was bare bones but well preserved.

Next to the track near the caboose is the original 1900 flag stop station for Mission, which was the town's name until 1940.

At one end of the track was this Great Northern section house.  This section house was relocated to the museum site from the town of Leavenworth, which is about 10 miles to the west and is where our camp site was.

This was another one of those pleasant surprises that we found in our travels. 

Scrap yard fencing

I have been continuing work on the scarp yard in Carlin and wanted to create some fencing similar to what I had seen around such places. I started with some corrugated foil material that I have used to make roofs on some structures.  A little package of this material was my first ebay purchase back in 2001 and has been used on several projects over the years.  This material was cut into 10 scale feet high strips.  The one shown in the upper right of this photo is how shiny it is so I painted them a duller aluminum color and dry brushed some weathering on them.

Coiled razor wire at the top of the fence was made by winding 30 gauge magnet wire around a bamboo skewer.  This was then painted a silver color before being attached to the top cross frame of the fence with Super glue.

I built frames for the fence from .030 x .030 styrene strip painted roof brown before attaching the simulated metal sheeting.  This photo shows this in the section that has the gate for the track.

The foil material was then attached to the frame with tiny dots of E6000 adhesive using a bamboo skewer.  The foil material is nonconductive and since the frame is made from styrene, there is no chance of shorting the rails.

The gate is supported by a single pin at one end that is not glued into the base so the gate can swing open.  The spacing was set so that freight cars and locomotives can pass through without hitting the fence.

Still plenty more to do to finish this scrap yard.  More in future posts.

On the road again - near Terrebonne, OR

 In August my wife and I did a 2 week long trip with our travel trailer to the Pacific Northwest.  On the second day of the trip we were north bound on US 97 north of Bend, Oregon when we decided to pull into a highway rest stop.  We soon discovered that we had entered a historically important site.  

We discovered that US 97 and the parallel railroad track were about to cross a rather deep gorge and the Crooked River.  This large rest stop is known as the Peter Skene Odgen State Scenic Viewpoint.  I was not familiar with this river so had to stroll around the site and check things out.  

The arched rail bridge was originally built for the Oregon Trunk Railroad around 1911 and apparently still in use today by the BNSF although we did not see a train pass while we were there.

The site also includes the old 2 lane US 97 bridge which was built in 1926.  It is in the foreground in this photo and it's wider replacement built in the 1990's is in the background. 

While the old highway bridge is not open to vehicle traffic, it is open to pedestrians and connected to the park. Visitors can walk out to get a different view of the gorge.