DAWSON, OR; 2007
A pair of loaded centerbeam flat cars are seen at the east end of the loading shed (above). The 65lb. rails, originally laid by the Corvallis & Alsea River Rwy. in 1910-1911, are now unused and in disrepair (below).
A short two-track bridge spans Oliver Creek, which flows through a concrete culvert under the mill (above). The lunch shack is sitting on the hillside to the right of the caboose. All of the structures were scratchbuilt. A W&P Geep switches cars on the layout (bottom left).
DAWSON, OR; 2013
Oakes mill to watch the switching opera- tions there that I realized I had found the answer to my quest: my own proto- typical Inglenook switching puzzle.
The sawmill sits at the west end of the rambling seven-mile Bailey Branch. At one point, early in the last century, this had been a regular rail passenger stop called Dawson Station and the con- vergence of several logging railroads winding their way out of the hills. It had been built as a logging line, but was bought by the Southern Pacific. In the final years the mill became the last stop and the major shipper and the line was leased to the Willamette & Pacific. The trackage at Hull-Oakes consisted of just three short spurs. One spur led under the rail loading shed where boxcars were once loaded by hand. Another spur led under a pipe where wood chips from various processes in the mill were deliv- ered using low-pressure air as the gon- dolas were pulled back and forth by
chains connected to electric motors to evenly load them. Today, the wigwam burner that used to receive the chips sits idle next to the log pond as a re- minder of less restrictive days. To get to the mill, the engine was un- coupled and moved to the rear of the train at the closest runaround, a place called Alpine Junction. This marked its departure from the ramrod-straight low- er West Side line that traverses the Willamette Valley north to south and the start of the Bailey Branch. By the end of operation the engineer, riding in the ca- boose, operated the train backwards to- wards the mill using a wireless remote control unit strapped to his chest. This long reverse move kept cabooses in use on the Dawson Turn long after they had disappeared elsewhere on the railroad. Arriving at the mill, the caboose was shuffled to the end of the center siding and the real work of collecting the loads and positioning the empties be- gan. With limited track speeds due to the deteriorating rails, a trip to the mill and back took a full day. And, that was if the run was mishap-free, a far less frequent occurrence toward the end as lack of maintenance caught up with the aging 70-pound rails.
The Dawson Station layout My re-creation of Hull-Oakes meas- ures one by four feet, the same size, inci- dentally, as Wright’s Inglenook Sidings. Four square feet also falls within Carl Arendt’s definition of “micro” layout, al- though this is a bit generous in N scale when compared with most of his exam- ples. This size allows the layout to be easily carried by one person, as well as transported or stored out of the way.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 57
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