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 The
Greeley Freight Station Museum in Colorado is the life long
goal of David Trussell. For 50 years he has dreamed about building
a very large layout that would promote the hobby and be fun
to operate. The 5,500 square foot Oregon, California, and Eastern
with its own 9.600 square foot building is the result of all
his preparation. This layout is so large we had to divide it
into two shows.
The HO
scale OC&E connects Klamath Falls and Lakeview, Oregon in
1975. It hauls freight as a bridge line between these two points
using its own motive power and equipment from the Southern Pacific,
the Great Northern and the Denver & Rio Grande. The line
has 2,000 freight cars and 150 locomotives that require regular
maintenance because of the heavy running during public open
houses on Saturdays. It takes a train 1 1/2 hours to cover the
entire railroad.
 The
building was started in 2003, and construction began on the
layout in 2004. By the summer of 2009 the layout was 95% complete.
David says he had to be a bit naive to attempt this, but it
all worked out with the help of a full cadre of volunteers.
The layout
features huge scenic mountain vistas that are just not possible
on a home layout. Some of the mountains are 10 feet tall or
more. The layout also has a 40 foot dock scene at Coos Bay with
multiple big ships in port.
David will
show you how a prototype boxcar provided additional storage,
how to paint and pour a river and how he makes his mountains
look so real. The OC&E was featured in the Dec. 2008 MR..
The OC&E is a Great Model Railroad because David has created
the ultimate vision of the kind of layout most of us would build
if we had almost unlimited resources
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