Home | Overview | BN Loop | CORY Branch | Operations
The Columbia & Okanogan Branch heads north from W-O Junction. At the junction a spur line heads to Rocky Reach Dam and its powerhouse. The sharp grade downward results in drop of 2.5 inches to the base of the dam. Meanwhile, the branch heads upwards at 1.8% to the entrance of the hidden helix. The helix is a spiral helix so that as it rises it also increases in radius. Thus after crossing over itself once, the grade can be relaxed from where the track again becomes visible. (Had we used a cylindrical helix, the helix grade of 3.2% would have to be maintained all the way around past Earthquake Point, resulting in an unacceptably steep grade on the visible portion of the CORY Branch.) The vertical separation between the CORY Branch and the Rocky Reach Spur is now more than 7.5 inches. This is adequate to model the total height of the west abutment of Rocky Reach which is about 100 feet. The powerhouse will rise higher, but it is not adjacent to the track.
Beyond Rocky Reach a certain liberty was taken with local geography by moving Earthquake Point and Ribbon Cliff south of Entiat. This is a nod towards my former NTrak module of Ribbon Cliff. In 1872 an earthquake caused several hundred feet of the top of the 1400-foot high cliff to crash into the Columbia thus damming it for several hours. While Ribbon Cliff is not at this location, the bluffs south of Entiat are equally impressive in height and grade (sometimes exceeding 45 degrees!). So the placement of Ribbon Cliff here is not altogether unreasonable. Another notable feature immediately south of Entiat is a bluff above the Entiat River decorated with Entiat High School class year marks going back to at least 1945. I call this "Class Rock" but it may have some other name locally.
Entiat itself has a siding and a spur to large rail-served structure. In a video taken in 1997 from the east side of the Columbia, a southbound Cascade & Columbia River train can be seen switching this location. I don't know what the location is, so I have placed a generic warehouse here. This will be a target of further "research" when I am next home.
North of Entiat is Brewster at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia rivers. Near this location is Chief Joseph Siding where equipment for Chief Joseph Dam is delivered. Brewster itself is site of a large grain elevator that, in season, ships "unit trains" of grain. A typical unit train is about 23 cars. I have compressed the two locations and modeled the elevator tracks and a siding. The elevator tracks can accommodate about 16 cars. Overflow can be stored along the siding (with any occasional electrical component carrying flat cars for Chief Joseph).
Continuing north we reach Omak, the location of the offices of the prototype Cascade & Columbia River Railroad. It is also the site of the railroad's largest customer, Omak's lumber mill. Omak also hosts the railroad's own car and locomotive shop. The lumber mill is modeled as two large structures and supporting tracks. The capacity of all mill tracks is about 30 50-foot car lengths (FFCLs).
The line continues north to Oroville. The prototype switches carbonate quarries at Janis and Cordell. Their product is mostly crushed limestone and marble for industrial use. Oroville is a wood chip loading facility as well as a small yard and wye. The Cordell loader is on one branch of the wye and the chip loaders on the other. I have elected not to model the wye but to have a long siding (16 FFCLs) with enough of a tail track to run two four-axle locomotives around the train.