Train Mountain Part 1

My next stop on my adventures was to take in the Live Steam trains at Train Mountain Railroad Museum which is located in Chiloquin, OR. They have a total of over 26 literal miles of 7.5-inch gauge track laid out over about 2,000 acres of beautiful forest. Every three years they host a group of model rail enthusiasts that is an international event. This year they had around 250 engines registered. The event lasts two weeks where the first week is a Work Week where they get the right of way cleaned up from all the forest debris and make sure everything is in working order. The second week is Play Time, where they operate their trains over all the rails. Not only that, but there are seminars on various aspects of developing a railroad club from how to build switches and track to car couplers. Most people are out enjoying the great opportunity of being able to run their train on such a massive and beautiful layout.

My son, Brent, who lives in Salem, OR brought his two sons, Andrew (age 11) and Aaron (age 7) down from Salem one afternoon and to where I had the coach parked at a local Indian casino. We spent the night there and about 9 o'clock the next morning were at the registration desk at Train Mountain to pick up our Day Passes to explore this massive museum.

It will take several Posts on this blog to show just the highlights of our day. So check back and see how much fun we had. One of the first things we did was put our names on a list to take the 10 o'clock train out of the main station for a ride to the Northern Section of the layout. While we were waiting, we looked around at the various engines. All the steam engines were parked on raised rail. This made it much easier for the engineer to get his engine steamed up and ready to head out on the open rails. Here is just a sampling of the various engines:

Below: This 2-8-8-4 was the largest live steamer wheel configuration that I saw there.

There were plenty of diesel-electric engines present, too:

Well, we have looked around for while and now it is time to board our train at the main station. Our train carried, 24 passengers and 2 crew. ALL ABOARD!

We will be pulling out of the station on my NEXT POST.