Ho Scale Railfanning at Dupont


funnelfan

Member
I've spent the past few weeks rebuilding an area of the OMRS club layout (Lacey, WA) known as Dupont. Dupont is on the upper level at the top of the Helix and the start of a extended siding that runs into the summit town of Anderson. It's the only place on the mainline that there is a grade that is not hidden in a helix. The view here used to be blocked by a ill-conceived view block that I've since removed and replaced with a streambed (soon to have water). As soon as uphill trains leave the helix (Tunnel) they pass under the Hill City Branch. I did a bunch of weathering today of the tracks, roads and bridges, and then ran some trains and took some photos.

On this particular day Main 2 was shut down for a MOW window and all trains were using Main 1 between Franklin Jct (MP 0.1) and High Bridge (MP 19.3) . After a long wait a BN heavy manifest emerged from the tunnel. The train was down to a crawl in run 8 with the sand flying. The turbos of the two trailing SD40-2's were screaming trying to lift the train of forest products up the grade through Dupont (MP 13.0). There is only a short distance left to go to reach the top of the grade in Anderson (MP 15.5). It took several minutes for the cars to finally pass. As the locomotives finally reached the top of the grade, the tail end of the train began to move faster. The caboose on the end of the train was moving a good bit faster than when the locomotives went by this point

After another short wait, the Z train that had been waiting at the High Bridge crossovers on the far side of Anderson for the manifest. Dropping swiftly down the grade with the Dynamic Brakes howling in protest. The trailers crowd the flatcars, leaving the highway above just that much less crowded.

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Love it! Those trees especially are fantastic but the scenery in general is really nice too. Very similar to the sort of scenery I want on my own layout.
 
Very nice Ted. I have to admit that I opened this expecting to see DuPont. I have done some enjoyable railfanning there. Somewhere I have pictures of a wreck that occured there a number of years ago. I used to go through there on my way to and from work. The old mill down there had a couple of neat little GE's once upon a time. There also used to be a HH660 down in the old pit that's now the golf course.

Steve
 
Thanks guys for the comments. I'll keep posting more pics as I get more work done.

Steve, you should try to come down this Thursday night at 6pm when we have some open running. It'd be a great time to look around and chat with the members.
 



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