This Week in Photos: Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club
The club is once more giving tours of its 2,000-plus-foot network of double-laid track, the largest model train layout in the Pacific Northwest.
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Union Station and train operator. (Brian Burk)
ByBrian Burk
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Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Former club President and 40-year member Isaac Harpole, Jr., demonstrates his switchboard. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Club President Cynthia Leonard and First Vice President Colin Eissfeld pose with a tray of engines. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Chairman of the Board and Life Member Steven Watkins shows off the scrap yard he built by hand, including metal plates he allowed to naturally rust by setting them outside. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Union Station and train operator. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Visitors asking questions of a train operator. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Club member demonstrates a removable warehouse roof to visitors. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Funeral scene. The landscape is dotted with dozens of little vignettes, some serious, others humorous. There's even an alien visitation complete with flying saucer. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club A train snakes through the Deschutes River canyon. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Train and wiring. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Central dispatching room. The analog switches are in the process of being converted to digital control. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Club member Robert shows some of the many miles of wire that power and control the operation. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club A young visitor surveys the scale model of Portland's Union Station, built from the station's original blueprints. (Brian Burk)
Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club Stern warning. (Brian Burk)
Tiny trains are back! Hosting its first model train show since March 2020, the 74-year-old Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club is once more giving tours of its 2,000-plus-foot network of double-laid track. CGMRC owns the largest model train layout in the Pacific Northwest. Painstaking models of track to Wishram, Wash., and Bend include a miniature steel arch bridge that spans the mouth of the model’s Deschutes River and a tiny but bright neon stag sign that lights the model’s downtown. The show concludes this weekend, but there are more opportunities to see the collection by making a reservation for Saturday or Sunday, Dec. 4-5.
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