Large Scale Central

SHASTA PACIFIC 3.0

I APOLOGIZE, The pictures that were in the posts over the first couple of pages seem to have vanished. From page three on, everything seems to be OK, will try to get them replaced.

Rick Dec, 2018

Addenda: December 2021, I think we finally have the pictures back in place.

Hello all, the build log starting for the new railroad

In the fall of 2014 we began the disassembly and packing of the Shasta Pacific Railroad in preparation for the sale of our home and a move to Southern Oregon. It was bitter sweet as they say; the tearing down of what had taken us years to build was sad, but the knowledge that a totally blank slate lay in wait somewhere in the future was exciting. If I had known beforehand that it would take a 10 by 20 storage shed to hold everything I may have reconsidered saving as much of the railroad as we did.

Taking down the old railroad as I said was bitter sweet, we had friends volunteer to come over and give us a hand and many of them had helped in some of the original construction so it was a bit emotional for them as well. But, as they say, life moves on and we were looking forward to our relocation to Oregon. Not knowing for sure where in Oregon was a bit of an issue that kept us busy traveling and looking for several months.

I am calling the new start of the Shasta Pacific in Oregon version 3.0 but that just counts the large scale outdoor versions if we count the original HO table top (circa 1980) and the ON3 full room layout (circa 1987) this will actually be version 5.0 . Since this is a “Large Scale” hobby forum I will only mention the large scale versions.

The first incarnation began in the spring of 1997 with a 90 foot long loop on the ground with a full complement of gardening to support it. Within just a couple of years we began to realize a few things; we weren’t all that crazy about gardening and we really didn’t like crawling around on our hands and knees to do everything on the railroad. The real deal breaker, as they say, was all the problems with gophers, moles, deer, turkeys, dogs, and weeds.

Enter Dick Smith and his Port Orford Coast Railroad. His postings on this forum of what he was doing were to me, just amazing. I had to find out more so I contacted Dick and asked to come and visit and pick his brain about construction techniques. So in early 2005 began a new outdoor railroad concept for the Shasta Pacific and a friendship that I am proud to say still flourishes today especially now that we live much closer together.

The building of the raised table top Shasta Pacific was pretty well documented on this forum back in the day, but is probably lost in the mists of time. For those of you that may have a little curiosity there are a few videos that can still be seen of the mostly completed railroad.

We finally found a good shop on one acre with a house that would do, especially liked the one acre part, as we really were looking to “down size’ as they say. So in March of 2015 we became Oregonions and have to say we really love the change from California.

We had decided to do a little remodeling and updating of the new house so we lived in the travel trailer out in the driveway for five months while we completely redid the interior of the house. So now Mama was happy and I could start looking and planning for the new railroad, not that I hadn’t been doing a little sneak previewing already.

As it turned out starting a new railroad was not going to be that easy. First there was no place to really call a train room or shop, which to me is a must have at this point in life. After much looking, thinking and head scratching it was decided that the only thing to do was add onto the back of the existing shop. A size was decided on, 10 by 22 would be just perfect, so a foundation was laid out and the slab poured. October is not a good time to start a building project in Oregon, the rain started and there we sat till May of 2016.

About this time it was decided that we needed a water treatment system installed to condition the well water. To hold the new equipment of course I had to build a new well house, so after it was completed I decided that it was a perfect spot to hold some of our 1 to 1 railroad art. Finally a start on railroad related projects even though winter was setting in.

This build log is well behind the build at this time but will soon enough catch up and I will be scrambling to keep it updated.

Hey, we are finally getting close to showing a few pictures so if you have hung on through all this verbiage maybe it will be worth the wait, no promises though.

The new well house with cross bucks and flasher lights mounted to the outside. The flashers light up the whole yard at night, not sure the neighbors appreciate them as much as we do ;).

Another view of the pump house showing a whole lot of the railroad “stuff” stacked and covered with tarps before we got the barn built and the “stuff” stored in out of the weather.

In October of 2015 the footings are all dug and the slab is ready to be poured. After the pour and anchor bolt insertion the slab sat in the rain until spring.

Well that’s enough for now, this new freight shed seems to be a real hassle to move pictures into the forum. Maybe it will get better as I use it more

Rick

2 Likes

Rick,

You can upload more than one at a time, browse> chose file>OK >browse>chose etc… then upload all of that batch… I’ve done 5-6 pic batches as that covers my updates…

Good to see progress.

John

Rick, I never saw videos of your old railroad…it must have killed you to tear it all down. What a great set-up you had. I’ll be very very interested to see how you work out the new one. We have quite a few layout builds going on here and it’s really good to see what everyone’s doing and the progress being made.

My only question is this: if you were moving to Oregon anyway, and as long as you’re “down sizing,” why didn’t you save yourself all the trouble and buy Tom Miller’s property:

It’s only about five million bucks for starters!

(http://www.largescalecentral.com/filesharing/file/view/549/rofling-gif)

double post, no idea why?

John,

We had considered buying Millers place but it was too far north and he had all that indoor railroad stuff to deal with so we passed it up. Or maybe it was just the price(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)

Hey Rick,

I’m really looking forward to this build of the New Shasta Pacific. Good to see you building again.

But geeeesh…I DID offer to split the cost of buying Tom’s place :). Room enough for your large scale stuff and a great 1/8th scale layout for me. And I even have the engines and rolling stock ready-to-roll on the 1-1/2 inch layout. We could have been riding already while you “contemplated” the building of the Shasta Pacific. Ah well…we’ll keep dreamin’…:slight_smile:

I am really looking forward to this. I might even steal a few ideas…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Hey Rick,

Good to see that you’re finally getting started on your railroad. I’ll be watching to follow your progress.

Chuck

(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Are you going to include some sidings for industries in this iteration?

Thanks guys for the optimistic responses.

Steve, the plans are calling for a lot sidings and industries to be built in for operational purposes.

At this time the roundy roundy idea is still up in the air but the main emphasis will be on point to point operation.

If I can just get Dick Smith off his duff to help with the design work it all should turn out perfectly(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Thanks guys for taking a look

Rick

Rick, what is in it for Dick? Maybe you need to entice him with some beer, or food, or…something.

Rick Marty said:

Thanks guys for the optimistic responses.

Steve, the plans are calling for a lot sidings and industries to be built in for operational purposes.

At this time the roundy roundy idea is still up in the air but the main emphasis will be on point to point operation.

If I can just get Dick Smith off his duff to help with the design work it all should turn out perfectly(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Thanks guys for taking a look

Rick

Rick, I included a loop for those times when I wanted to test a locomotive, or just wanted to sit outside with an adult beverage, watching the locomotive chase its caboose. I have a point to point, with a loop in the middle.

Steve,

The old rail road had that same setup, point to point with a large loop in the center and that is probably the way this one will end up, haven’t finalized the plans that far ahead. Need to try to prepare for eventualities though. Like track power, not to sure I will use it but it doesn’t hurt to put in the wiring and connections just in case.

May of 2016; ready to start construction. The new Cedar fence in the background runs along the eastern property line. There was/is a 4 foot high boundary fence of chain link that was existing but offered little in the way of privacy and was not what I needed to build the railroad against so we stepped in 6 inches and built a new 130 feet of fence.

Construction is going well and I have to hurry as I have the roofer scheduled for the first week of June to roof the new train shop as well as tear off the old shop roof and replace it. I removed the lap siding from the back of the shop and will reuse it on the new train shop end walls and gable. As you can see I used 4X8 vertical seam sheets on the long wall to satisfy the “shear” building code requirements. The addition is framed with 2X6 walls for maximum practical insulation values and 2 large windows for lots of light

Second week of June 2016; the new roof is completed and I was getting a lot of the siding and trim work done, a few more good days and we will be ready for paint. I say good days because at 70 plus I don’t seem to be able to get quite as much work done in a day as I used to

Enough for this evening

Thanks for taking a look.

Rick

Where’s the hole for the trains?..(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Ken Brunt said:

Where’s the hole for the trains?..(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Actually you can see it through the right hand window in the back wall(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

Rick Marty said:

Ken Brunt said:

Where’s the hole for the trains?..(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Actually you can see it through the right hand window in the back wall(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

Ah, OK…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Come on now Rick, even at 70 you should have more done then what’s in the pictures from June 2016. After all this is now November 2016, that’s 4 months ago. LOL

Heck, I’d just be happy to find someone to finish taping and texturing my shop office so I could get my stuff back in and set-up.

Chuck,

funny you should mention tape and texture as that’s the next picture, well just after the tape and texture anyway. Speaking of being 70, those 12 foot sheets of drywall will sure make you feel it even if it is only one end your holding

The inside nearing completion; all wiring, sheet rock, tape & texture, paint and flooring completed. The light fixtures have to be changed out, the LED fixtures I selected were much to yellow especially with the wall and flooring colors we selected. The patch on the far wall is the future train exit, more on that later.

The starting of the cabinetry, the white drawer fronts are the results of a couple of things. The set of drawers in the picture were Alder finish, rescued from the house kitchen remodel and some others rescued from the old bath vanities were Oak and I was using a Mahogany for the rest of the facings so I settled on white (to cover the Alder and Oak) as a trim color to bring it all together. Didn’t work out to badly over all!

!


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The under cabinet car storage, seems like lots of room when you lay it out on paper but seems to shrink when actually built. Even so I was able to provide storage for about 40 cars under the train deck.

Looking the other direction is the area for files, book cases and display shelves. Also the door into the main shop, have lots of cabinet doors to build yet.

!

That’s enough for this evening.

Thanks for taking a look

Rick