The Sierra Nothern Empire II: A Journey Along the Line

The Sierra Northern Empire II

A Journey Along the Line

The lower level of my layout represents a fictional joint operation of the Southern Pacific (SP) and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (ATSF), called the “Golden State” Division. The tracks run east from “San Francisco” and terminate at “Riverbank. 

The “Golden State” Division

As may be seen in this photograph, 

after 20 years “San Francisco is barely under way, and the tracks were laid only within the last five years. Prior to that operation was done by “five finger fiddling...” lifting cars up and putting them on Sharpie lines where the yard tracks would later be placed.

With places to store, classify, and make cars up into trains there also is a turntable and roundhouses at the far end with capacity for many locomotives. There are also three major industries represented by reduced profile buildings: a tin can manufacturer, a box company, and two buildings of the “Fritts Fine Foods” facility, named for a deceased friend. This firm takes food products from other industries along the line, does some processing for local truck distribution and uses boxes and cans from the other two local factories. It also sends food to other line industries, including a freight forwarder in Jamestown. Thus one industrial site provides  much interaction with several others on the layout, providing for many car movements.

The backdrop will ultimately contain a reduced profile terminal, perhaps represented by a print on the backdrop. The first two tracks along this part of the yard ( at left) are for passenger service. At the far right rear of the yard is a container facility. This and the all diesel Golden State division is not “period correct” for the mid-1950s era of the layout, but it's my layout...I get to violate reality!

From the far end the line then goes uphill to “Manteca,” a San Joaquin Valley agricultural town which contains two grain elevator companies, a winery, a large produce and farm product company, and ice houses to service refrigerated cars. The buildings in place in the photo are those which will be used and are in the places they will occupy after construction, but there is much to be done here. 

Station and ice house beyond
One of Valley farms buildings and siding at high
San Jouquin Winery at upper left
Siding at left continues to two granaries

I now have what are termed “essential hand tremors.”. As I told my neurologist, if they are so “essential,” you take them! These make working in 1/160 size frustrating. Hopefully I will just take a deep breath and dive in soon, but for the last few years have hesitated to make the attempt. But hey..constructing the backdrop and landscaping is one of the least meticulous tasks of model railroading, so...

From “Manteca” the line crosses the lower “bridge,” which is a dropdown representing a causeway, to enter “Riverbank.”  Here there is a roundhouse and outside

storage tracks for engines too long to fit that building or which cannot be turned on the short turntable. There are fueling and water towers as well. The yard tracks allow flexible engine movements and train classification and car storage, display of a “Maintenance of Way” work train, joint passenger and freight platforms, and other features. There are no specific industries here, but presumably a number served by truck which are “off scene.”

Riverbank" HQ of the Sierra Northern Railroad
Interchange with the Golden State
Showcase Terminal just beyond hill;
A "Mendicki" tribute to the Yosemtie Valley Merced Station

The “Sierra Northern” Mainline

Golden State trains do not go past this point, and from here east it is all steam. Sierra Northern trains leaving “Riverbank” only go east, towards the tunnel and then onto the lower peninsula level, emerging from the tunnel to enter the elevator track.

Tunnel from Riverbank
Elevator just beyond lower edge of photo

Turn From here they are raised to the second level. They back off the elevator track, go through the center backdrop, and emerge under the overpass on the other side, which is on the peninsula at “Jamestown.” To enter the station and yard facilities the train backs past the switch at the far east side of town. The switch is then thrown to select the tracks going towards “Jamestown” station. 

This town is the heart of and center of action.  Not only are there six industries here, there is an interchange yard for cars headed “up the hill” on the Angels Branch, with a roundhouse and turntable for moving the smaller and lighter locos which are needed for this steep line. All trains headed further east on the mainline require the engine and caboose to be reversed and run around the train, in order to be pointed forward for departure. 

Jamestown: "Economic Powerhouse" for the SNRR
Partial View from west end of town

Industries at “Jamestown” are a brewery, a motorcycle parts distributor, a farm and feed supply firm, a hardware company specializing in mining and timbering supplies, a freight transfer firm, and a cannery. Each creates or uses products which interact with other businesses on the line.

Central Jamestown
Superior Transfer in foreground

Mainline trains continue on their journey, running off the peninsula and into Sonora, on the outside wall of the room. Perhaps it was the real oil wholesaler on the Sierra which caused me to make this industry key to the town, but why I made it not only the sole industry but represented by three separate facilities is a mystery. But there it is. 

Downtown Sonora

Oil Facilities at Sonora

Crossing the higher bridge (the “liftout”) brings the train to “Tuolomne,” the fnal stop and terminal on the SNRR. The bridge crosses the New Melones reservoir. Though what I lifted this idea from the Yosemite Valley RR, but I don't at the moment recall the exact and famous name of that bridge nor its location (NB CHECK!)

“Tuolomne's” sole reason to exist, on either the layout or for real, was the timber industry. My version includes a dump track into a pond, from where logs are floated to a sawmill. After cutting, lumber,goes to the drying building, and after aging is shipped out to various buyers both on and off the line, including the cannery and box companies. There also is a chipper, which ships waste for processing into other products somewhere. Of course, since this is the end of the line, there must be both a small engine house and a turntable to reverse locos for a return trip west to “Riverbank.” The tunnel at the far end of town is a dead end representing the Sugar Pine or another lumber company line which ran from the town.

Partial View of Tuolomne
Pickering Lumber Facility
Base of Chipper Tower at Right
Log dump beyond Pickering Locos
Foreground track is continuous run bypass

So where does the supply of logs for this mill come from? Ah...that is one of the functions of the branch line.

Pickering Drying shed
To east of photo above
Creek to log pond
SP AC12 and train on continuos run track

The “Angels Branch”

Like the real Sierra Railroad, the SNRR has a branch line running uphill from “Jamestown “to “Angels Camp”, though the SRR abandoned the line, in 1928 I believe. To allow carrying an extra car on a train and for the safety rules of the railroad, trains on the branch do not use a caboose...the conductor and brakeman crowd into the loco cab with the operating crew. 

The “safety rule” is that without a turning facility at “Angels,” the trains run with the locomotive leading on the uphill run, but with it at the rear going downhill. This protects the crew if the cars should break loose and become runaways, since they cannot push the engine down with them. The real reason for this on this model is the limitation imposed by the length of the elevator track. 

An “Angels” branch run, assembled from cars which were spotted in the interchange yard at the east end of “Jamestown,” enters the elevator by backing west, under the auto overpass and through the backdrop. Unlike trains from “Riverbank,” this time the upper elevator track is used, moving the train from level 2 to level 3. 

Exiting the elevator the run first services the long spur to the New Melones Gold mine. The importance of this industry is evidenced by the fact that no other industries are on this spur. The mine uses short ore cars for the rich gold containing rock, bound uphill for processing in Angels, and longer hoppers to take away tailings for ballast or gravel for other uses...bound downhill to “Riverbank” or on to “SF.”A spur can only be serviced from one direction, in this case uphill, but since a our train runs “backwards” from “Angels” on a downhill leg, we can service this spur from both directions.

New Melones Gold Mine and Spur

The next stop is “the logging “Camp 16” of the Pickering Lumber Company. While the real Pickering operation was at Standard, between Sonora and Tuolomne I have used “modeler's license” to put it on the branch.  

Switchback track
From NMGM to Camp 16 and Angels

Logs dragged to the spur by steam powered sleds called “donkeys” (one is in the foreground of the photo) are loaded onto special log cars or into gondolas for transport to the lumber mill at “Tuolomne.” I've used more “modeler's license” here too, as the actual mill was at Jamestown. 

From “Camp 16” it is a fairly long, steep climb to the terminal at “Angels,” with another gold mine, the “Jumping Frog,” a general merchandise “team track,” and two long spurs in the foreground  representing the actual gold processing facility. To avoid blocking access to the rest of the town I may represent this industry on a backdrop the sidings seem to continue into, with perhaps a reduced profile building on the backdrop. To this point I have resisted hiding the ends of the layout with backdrops in order to allow visitors to see the entire scene without the risk to the system implicit in the duck-unders and very narrow aisles.

A final note: The reality of N scale is that the more complex wheels and rods of steam engines makes them perform less than satisfactorily for local switching of cars. So I have retained early diesel units for this use. The exceptions are particular steam engines which do manage to perform well in this use.

So that is the “Sierra Northern” railroad empire. It is my third system of that name. One never got very far as it was in our garage above the car, a terrible environment for N scale, which is very sensitive to dust and dirt. It was also an overly complex published design with lots of hidden track-a recipe for trouble. The second was a small layout operated from a central pit which when not in use, was raised to “live” overhead in our guest bedroom. This current version, likely my last, is both much more extensive than the last, and much more practical and reliable than the first. 

Now if I can only work up my resolve to get back to work and operating it!