We return to the Greeley Freight Station Museum layout of the Oregon, California and Eastern in the second part of Allen Keller video series. Volume 64 contains part one. This super large layout spanning 5,500 square feet is the work of a dedicated group of volunteers and the vision of one man, David Trussell. The layout is so large that it takes a train up to an hour and a half to run the entire line from staging yard to staging yard and it takes 24 people to operate the railroad. During operating sessions the volunteers run 16 through trains and eight locals. The layout covers 80 scale miles of track.
David Trussell is the designer of the Oregon, California and Eastern. Even David is surprised that this is the first time Allen has ever had to divide a layout into two shows because of the size, especially considering that Allen has done 63 such shows before. The layout started out with a construction crew of 37, and ended up with a crew of 34. There is a running joke that the other three guys are still stuck back in the layout somewhere and they’re still looking for them.
In the first part, we explored the Chiloquin Staging to Summit, and in the second they will focus on the area between Summit and Fairport Staging. This section has spectacular vistas with lots of water features. For more videos like this, watch more from Allen Keller’s Great Model Railroads series in the Model Railroad Academy archives.
