Overview
The HO scale Sierra Central Railroad depicts the Southern Pacific’s California Pacific or “Cal-P” line from Oakland to Sacramento and the Western Pacific from Sacramento through the Feather River Canyon to Keddie.
Signature scenes on the SP include the historic Davis depot, the Yolo Causeway, and the passenger station, locomotive shops, classification yard, and R Street industrial district in Sacramento.
On the WP, you’ll find Marysville, Oroville, Table Mountain, the Honeymoon Tunnels in the Feather River Canyon, Keddie Yard, and the Spanish Creek trestle widely known as “Keddie Wye” as well as a branch line to Quincy.
Design
Construction of the current layout began in 2001. It is a double-deck design with a loop to loop configuration for continuous running. Its 600-foot mainline uses code 83 flex track, and most turnouts are handlaid.
The layout is designed to accommodate 25-car trains with a two main tracks on the lower deck and single track with passing sidings on the upper deck. Two staging yards each with 7 tracks and a classification yard with 12 tracks complete the railroad.
Trains are controlled via wireless Digitrax digital command control (DCC) and WiFi throttles.
Signals
Mainline traffic is controlled by a Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) signal system operated by a dispatcher (or in an automatic ABS mode when there is no dispatcher).
Centralized Traffic Control (CTC)
The system is implemented in JMRI Panel Pro (part of the open-source Java Model Railroad Interface suite), and we have restored our authentic Union Switch & Signal CTC machine, salvaged from the Western Pacific Railroad in Sacramento, and adapted it to control the layout.
Operations
Operating sessions are held regularly.