Steam Whistle Music Tracks Ahead Brought to you by: Rancho de Tia Rosa, three unique Mexicanrestaurants serving culinary delights since 1990.

Music Hi, I'm Spencer Christian.

On this episode of Tracks Ahead, we'll head to Colorado to check out this huge model railroad and museum.

We'll look in on a club whose mission is keeping the memory of Pennsylvania railroads alive.

We'll take a look at steam technology that powers more than trains, and we'll ride one of the most scenic rail routes in the US.

Fifty years ago, Linn Westcott, model railroad pioneer, predicted that the future model railroad would be in a large building with no center supports and have wireless control.

That prediction has come true, here in Greeley, Colorado.

Annc: A short distance from downtown Greeley, Colorado, visitors will find a simple, metal building.

While the exterior may offer little as to what's inside, it is the interior that is truly spectacular.

This is the Greeley Freight Station Museum.

Founder David Trussell had been an HO modeler for over 50 years, and started collecting trains in the 1980s.

Upon retirement, he saw a perfect place for a large, public layout, located right betweethe former Colorado & Southern and Union Pacific right of ways.

David: We were very fortunate.

The land was available, it was ours, ah, ah we picked it up at a song, and ah, ah, we got in when steel prices were low.

So everything fell into place at the right time.

Annc: The result is 9500 square foot building, housing over 1100 railroad artifacts, and a 5500 square foot HO gauge model railroad.

In the beginning, the building only had one occupant.

David: The building was an empty shell of a building in 2003, the Fall of 2003, we moved the caboose in and it was the first, really the first artifact, the first anything that we put in.

The caboose is the last operating wood caboose on the Colorado & Southern Railroad.

And it was in a back yard.

It was about to fall apart.

So we rescued it as quick as we could, got it over here, got our own restoration of it.

Annc: David wanted to make a model railroad with a purpose.

Enter a 50 year old book by modeling pioneer, Linn Westcott.

David: Linn put out a book called 101 Model Railroads.

The guy could see things in the future that no one else could seemed like, and he turned out some very very fine stuff.

And there was a page in the back of it that said, "If I had a million, what would I do."

And he had built a layout, And I looked at that for some time and said, you know, I think we can beat that.

Annc: The result is the Oregon, California & Eastern Railway, a prototype logging line that ran from Lakeview, Oregon to Klamath Falls.

David: I followed the OC&E because I lived in Lakeview, Oregon for a period of time.

And the OC&E was jointed owned by the Great Northern and the Southern Pacific.

And that was intriguing because in model railroading usually you have to rely on just one type of railroad for your line if you want to be accurate.

In the case of the OC&E, Weyerhauser got involved, so at one point in time you could see three different engines, three different railroads on t same line within a very short span of time.

So we use that as a jumping off place.

Annc: The line rises just over eight feet above the floor.

With over 14 major bridges and several tunnels, there is plenty for visitors to see.

David: Chiloquin's the staging yards, and the westbound trains leave Chiloquin and go to Klamath Falls.

Head up what we call affectionately The Loops into Sprague River.

Then up over the high bridge and then to the summit at Quartz Mountain.

Then off the summit at Quartz Mountain, down around the hill to Gearhart Mountain.

Then to Blye, and down to Dog Lake, where Thomas Augustus Dobbins, the owner of the railroad has his private home.

Then from Dog Lake down into Lakeview.

Gearhart Mountain is 1,054 scale feet high, sheer cliff, all rock formations.

When we built it, we have over a half a ton of Hydrocal plaster in it.

The other one is the high bridge that spans the valley at the other end of the railroad.

And it's the most photogenic.

My favorite of all is the Chewaucan River.

Very seldom in modeling do you get to show both sides, both banks of the river for any length, of distance.

The snow shed up off of Quartz Mountain has 1700 individual pieces of wood in it on the side of a sheer cliff.

They had some slide problems up there, so they had to build a snow shed.

It's all wood.

That's been another favorite spot for photographers.

Annc: The railroad was designed to operate in multiple modes.

David: The OC&E is very unique in that it starts in layers of operations.

The bottom layer is docent operation in which the computer will fire up automatically four trains and send the four trains through the entire railroad.

The second layer up is what we call play mode, and that's where several people, three or four can bring trains in or run trains on the layout individually with hand held throttles and throw their own switches as they go along.

The next layer up is an operational situation where we have a dispatcher who will dispatch the railroad and all the engineers will have radio sets and will follow his instructions as to where to go and how to park the train, that type of thing.

Annc: David has had a lot of help in bringing this operation to the public.

David: One of the ways of doing it is to put a cadre of volunteers around you who are really, really good at what they do.

And are inspired to make this the best that they know is around.

And it's been hugely successful.

We exceeded our expectations on every single project.

I can't sit here and tell you that there is a single place out there that I'm disappointed in after it was finished.

It either met, or exceeded expectations.

And as a result, it's, it's a world class product.

It really is.

Annc: The layout boasts over 300 buildings, over 16,000 fir trees, 8,000 deciduous trees, 4,000 aspen.

Visitors will see detailed scenes, including a special section that can be changed for a constant refreshing of the look.

David: We have some fellows in their overalls that are changing out a tire on a piece of heavy equipment.

We have bunch of fellows who are putting in a new sidewalk at a service station in Lakeview.

We have a fireworks building that somebody pulled a no no somewhere and it exploded and caught on fire.

We have a very unique forest fire that's up on the side of a hill.

We researched that quite extensively to see what a hillside looked like after fire went through.

And that's all user friendly as far as a visitor being able to push a button and then start a fire.

We have a city block that raises up, out of the layout, rotates, and sets back down in the layout at the same place.

So we can literally have four different scenes from the same position.

So when our visitors come on one Saturday, they'll see one scene in Klamath Falls.

When they come in the next Saturday, there might be an entirely different scene.

Annc: Initially, David thought that visitor interest would be local.

But that's not how it's turned out.

David: In reality, only about 12-15% are local.

All the rest are from out of the area.

Last week for example, we had visitors from Germany, China, Canada and England.

And about 20 states.

Annc: As the name indicates, there is more here than the layout.

David now has a showcase for some his collection of railroad artifacts.

David: We have 600 artifacts on display out of a collection of 1100.

And we rotate them in and out so that things change when visitors come from month to month.

And we've been very blessed with having some, several one of a kind artifacts.

So railroad aficionados, railroad buffs, will find something that they enjoy.

Annc: If your plans call for you to be in Colorado, be sure to stop and see the Greeley Freight Station Museum, a tribute to a man who wanted to bring model railroading back to the community.

Before you visit, check for seasonal operating hours, as the museum is generally closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Just outside Philadelphia, the GATSME Lines model railroad club strives to keep alive the memory of central Pennsylvania railroads.

Annc: In the mid twentieth century, the Great Lakes & Eastern and the Lehigh & Susquehanna railroads served eastern and northern Pennsylvania.

The real lines have passed into history.

But their memory lives on in the Keystone State at the GATSME Model Railroad Club, located in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.

Chris: The club already had a public display up, the operations and display was kind of retrofitted to what was here.

So we kind of ended up modeling central Pennsylvania from Sunbury up to Erie through the Pennsylvania Renovo Division and added in the Pennsylvania Elmira Branch as well.

Annc: With multiple lines, to pick from, the club had many opportunities for modeling.

Each railroad had its strong points, and the club tried to embody those elements into the layout.

Chris: GL&E highlights are Union station, Pequea Creek and also the Port Washington waterfront area, which illustrates a lot of industrial operation and trains going down the tracks through buildings, those sorts of things.

We also, Cedar Haven, which gave us a chance to model a town scene in a little more detail.

And then we come around to Susquehanna Junction, which is our junction between the GL&E double track main line and up to the L&S Branch line.

Annc: Standard gauge railroading wasn't all the club wanted.

There is also a narrow gauge operation, serving the timber and lumber industry.

And the club wanted to pay homage to the famous East Broadtop.

Chris: We were inspired by the East Broad Top as one of the major narrow gauge east of the Mississippi.

So it's always a fantastic part to have added to any layout.

So we added that in.

It gives a nice contrast in size and scale to operate and it's always a hit with the public so it's a nice change of pace for what we're able to do.

A nice part of the Sheffield and Tionesta is that we do have a lot of hand built trestles and bridges that really do add to a nice spectacular view and photographs.

We try to make sure that everything we do here photographs well.

We kind of revamped the upper level to add in a prototype line, which is the Susquehanna and New York.

Off that line we were able to do a lot of real deep woods modeling, a lot of timber, a lot of coal, and it was an actual railroad that did run down along the Pennsylvania Renovo.

Annc: The lines run through rural Pennsylvania, through industrial areas, and green hills, mountains and towns.

So you go from gritty industrial area, to the Allegheny Mountains.

Every great railroad needs a passenger operation, and this one is no exception.

Tim: Union Station is depicted roughly after 30th Street Station in Philadelphia.

On our particular layout, it's modeled on the western end of the railroad which is Erie, Pennsylvania.

It's got a flavor of a big city station in that it's got a lot of through tracks, and we also do a lot of REA Express business operations out of it.

Annc: The clubs time period is the 1950's, so members can realistically run a variety of steam and diesel.

But this can change closer to the holiday season.

Tim: In show mode, we permit all sorts of trains from all sorts of eras so can demonstrate what may be current trains like Amtrak Acela to period trains, which is what our layout has, which is typically mid 50's to anything that may be turn of the century.

Annc: But sometimes it isn't all fun.

A railroad is a business.

And a model one is no exception.

After all, the shipping of freight and safe transportation for passengers can be modeled just like scenery and handlaid track.

Tim: Our operating sessions have a very unique plan to them.

We have over 90 trains in our particular schedule, which we divide up into three sections.

And we operate them all in a sequence.

Our railroad basically has at least three to four simultaneous operations.

We have passenger and REA as one.

We have a general merchandise system that goes and we also have a coal railroad.

Annc: The visible track is all hand laid, with a wide variety of rail and track arrangements.

Tim: Most of our track throughout this whole layout has been hand laid.

And our main line was laid with the largest rail, which would be typical of a main line.

But as we've gotten more into the details, we're getting more scale and prototype rails.

We go down from code 83 to 70.

Some of our back tracks we have code 55 which was really a skinny rail.

We've totally converted to DCC here in the last two or three years.

We no longer have any kind of DC operation.

Annc: And what's the future hold for the club?

Chris: We're looking to add more in terms of education, and give the club room a little more of a museum feel.

Try to explain more to the public what's going on.

Annc: Next time you are in Philadelphia, take a side trip to the GATSME model railroad, and visit a recreation of mid twentieth century Pennsylvania railroading.

In the mid 20th century, the California Zephyr was one of the most scenic ways to travel by rail from Chicago to San Francisco.

The portion of the route operated by the Western Pacific through the Feather River Canyon made the Zephyr the most talked about train ride in America.

We'll take that ride in just a moment.

Before we do, let's take a look at a museum outside Wilmington, Delaware, that has been dedicated to the preservation of steam technology.

And it'snot just about railroads.

Annc: As we move farther and faster into the age of the microchip, it's comforting to harken back to a simpler time, when steam drove our machines.

Annc: It's a technology that seems forgotten but not here at Auburn Heights.

Ed: Well, a lot of kids now they're grown up, they don't even know what steam was, how it ran everything, mills and cars, and so on and so forth, so that's what we try to do here.

Bill: But there are a lot of machines that run on steam today that nobody thinks about.

But these are all antique machines here, the steam engines, the train engine and the steam car engines.

Tom Marshall has opened his doors to all of us and really taken us under his wing and showed us how everything operates and then how we can operate it.

Annc: Tom Marshall's family owned Auburn Heights in Delaware for three generations.

In 2008 Tom and his wife Ruth donated the grounds and buildings to the Delaware State Parks.

But the one of a kind collection of steam powered cars, trains and machines are maintained by the Friends of Auburn Heights.

It's a unique public private venture that's resulted in a working tribute to steam technology.

Tom: Staff people from the Division of Parks and volunteers from the Friends of Auburn Heights work together to try to make the whole and interesting place.

Annc: And an interesting place it is.

The centerpiece of the Auburn Heights Preserve is the Auburn Valley Railroad.

This is an adventure, as well as a history lesson.

Bill: The train operation came into being in the early 1960s when Tom Marshall's dad built the steam engines from kits that were produced in California.

All the kits were rough castings and he did all the machining himself and all the assembly himself, and decided that maybe he could run them around here and take passengers for rides.

So they built this three quarter mile track around the property and opened up just to friends and family in the 1960s.

And it grew, in the 1970s he was open to the general public.

And now that we've started this organization here to take care of the property and the engines, we're open to the public and run them eight times a years, every Sunday over the summer months.

Sfx: Whistles Catherine: and run them eight times a years, every Sunday over the summer months.

Sfx: Whistles Catherine: This is a very special place.

It's like taking a step back in time and we're constantly moving forward.

We have some wonderful volunteers who actually won the governor's Volunteer of the Year Award last year.

Jerry: A friend invited me to come out to be a part of this group, to at least see what was going on.

And I came out in '98 and I've been here ever since.

Thomas: A friend of mine got me involved, and after he came down to the first meeting, and he said, "You guys really ought to go down."

So Bill Schwoebel and I both came down and loved it.

Steve: I came here about two and a half years ago after I read an article in the local paper that you could actually come here and volunteer.

And I came over to one of the events and found the people were extraordinarily nice, and Tom Marshall in particular was really welcoming.

So I came first of December that year and six months later Tom had be driving the steam cars.

Catherine: We want to get the word out about our collection.

We actually have the largest collection of operating steam cars in the world.

Annc: It's true.

The largest collection of operating Stanley Steam cars in the world was begun by Tom's dad in 1908, who was one of the country's first Stanley Steamer dealers.

He passed the love for steam down to Tom, and the collection grew.

But it's not the size of the collection that matters to Tom.

It's that all these old cars and trains continue to work.

Sfx: Whistle Tom: My favorite aspect would have to do with the mechanical things we have here.

I spent a lot of time over the years building and maintaining the little railroad we have and the equipment that runs on the railroad.

And I certainly like the automobiles.

Tom: Tom Marshall has gone out of his way to teach people who knew nothing about steam how to run the automobiles and how to keep them on the road.

Tom:: So I've been in it now for what, 63 years.

And I would rather do this than old folks activities down at the retirement facility where we are.

And some day that'll change, but right now I'm up here almost every day tinkering on something.

Annc: We like to too Tom.

Because there's a magic in steam.

But few places to experience it like here, at Auburn Heights.

Sfx: Whistle Music Annc: Before the Donner Pass route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains was opened, the California Zephyr traveled a much different route.

That route was the Feather River Canyon, a passageway through the rugged Sierra Nevada range in Northern California.

Tracks Ahead had the opportunity to take a trip on this scenic route, with the help of a knowledgeable guide.

Chris Skow worked for the Western Pacific and has put in many miles through this scenic canyon.

Chris: I worked the Feather River Canyon as a conductor for 26 years.

And I really enjoy the canyon.

The canyon is nothing like what most folks are used to now over Donner Pass.

The canyon is totally different.

It is, It's rugged.

It is a rough piece of railroad that is a real challenge for the crews with rocks and high water and tunnels.

Annc: The Feather River Route was a special treat for rail passengers.

Not only is there the scenery, but there are some engineering marvels as well.

Chris: The route is very special.

It's unique in the respect that it's not only a rugged piece of railroading, but it's got so many tunnels through the high Sierras.

It's running through the deep, Feather River Canyon in areas where it's on rock ledges, rock cut tunnels, slide fences where there's rock slides coming down.

It, It, there's nothing quite like it anywhere in the United States.

There is some very interesting engineering significance on the route.

Ah, the Keddie Wye bridge is probably the most famous bridge in the United States if not the world.

Its well known from many aspects, being that it is a wye bridge that there is nothing like it.

And it was named after Arthur Keddie who was the chief engineer of the railroad.

It's the junction at Keddie where the line goes from east to west and then junctions north up to Oregon and on to the Pacific Northwest.

Annc: Running a private train along this historic piece of railroad allows passengers to again experience the scenic beauty of the route.

Chris: Most folks have not been able to ride in the canyon since 1970.

And that makes it very unique, except for a few extra train excursions and ah Amtrak detours that were not available to the general public.

It's a, it's a piece of railroad that most folks have not seen, and I think one thing that's very unique is so much of the Feather River Canyon can be seen from the train that cannot be seen from the highway.

It's a whole different perspective.

The trip started in Emeryville on the former Southern Pacific and ran to Sacramento, making passenger stops at Martinez and Davis and ah, at that point we picked up our passengers in Sacramento.

We did make the swing at Hagen Junction on to the original Western Pacific Route.

And from that point on we continued north through Marysville and through Oroville where we entered the Feather River Canyon and started our climb into the Feather River Canyon, over Lake Oroville, on up River Canyon and started our climb into the Feather River Canyon, over Lake Oroville, on up through Keddie Wye Bridge, Williams Loop and into Portola.

Annc: As special as the canyon, the cars that were used on the run are a testament to the glory days of rail passenger service.

Chris: We brought these cars in from all over the country to get this train assembled.

The farthest in distance was one dome car that we brought in from Chicago.

We've got a car that came out of Winslow, Arizona, and a number of cars that came out of Los Angeles.

One car that came out of Barstow that had a misconnect in Los Angeles and didn't make it.

It's been a challenge.

Annc: There were some very special cars on this train.

Chris: The silvers are very unique.

That's the Silver Lariat, the Silver Solarium, and the Silver Rapids.

Because they ran through here on the California Zephyr up to March of 1970.

Additionally, the Silver Solarium, there's no other observation California Zephyr car of that type running anywhere in the United States.

Annc: Fantastic scenery, nostalgic cars, and a route that lets only a special few see the wonders of the Feather River by rail.

This is a true tribute to the Golden Age of passenger railroading.

Check with your travel agent for periodic charter trips through the canyon.

Well, that's it for this episode.

Please join us next time for more, Tracks Ahead.

Tracks Ahead Brought to you by Rancho de Tia Rosa, three unique Mexican restaurants serving culinary delights since 1990.

Walthers, manufacturer and supplier of model railroading products; serving the hobby since 1932.

Trains and Travel International, providing quality tourist and rail fan travel since 1984.

Music