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HOT OFF THE PRESS: The August 1999 issue of Rail Model Journal contains Bernie Kempinski's and my article about Ribbon Cliff. We even got the cover--although I'm really going to have to talk to Bernie about that monster CSX locomotive treading its way across my Pacific Northwest branchline! Still his photography is top notch and I shouldn't complain.
Ribbon Cliff was the name of my 12' by 2'10" NTrak module built in 1994-96. When we moved to Colorado, I elected to sell the module to another Nothern Virginia NTrak member, Michael Bencs. Yes, it was kind of sad to leave it behind, but it has a good home. Michael has plans to possibly reset its scene in the Yakima canyon along NPs former mainline between the Pasco and Tacoma, Washington, but I haven't spoken with him in a while and don't know what his plans are at this writing.
Ribbon Cliff, the south end of Ribbon Mesa, is located along the Columbia River just north of Entiat, Washington. The cliffs and bluffs along the Columbia in this portion of the state are immense, often reaching 1400 or more feet above the river. They are equally steep, with slopes often greater than 45 degrees. The rock is quite competent, but when stressed too greatly, can come crashing down. This is exactly what happened at Ribbon Cliff in December 1872. On that day, a mild earthquake caused a large portion of the upper part of the cliff to break free. The resulting rockfall roared down the cliff and into the Columbia, actually damming its flow for several hours.
Years later, when Rocky Reach Dam was constructed, the Columbia under Ribbon Cliff was again impounded. The remnants of the 1872 natural rock dam are no longer visible, having been drowned under the modern dam's reservoir, Lake Entiat. The Wenatchee-Oroville Branch of the then Great Northern Railway and US-97 were relocated close aboard Earthquake Point and Ribbon Cliff. Power lines from Wells and Chief Joseph dams cross the Columbia at this point, reaching to transmission towers sited on top of Earthquake Point. To simulate the single track line crammed against the base of the huge cliff, the module was made long enough for the two other NTrak lines (Yellow and Blue) to pass behind and beneath the cliff. This required 12 feet of module as the plan below shows.
The module recreates in a much compressed way, the scene near the historical marker at the base of the Ribbon Cliff landslide. Combined with the scene is Ribbon Cliff Orchard, one of the several small orchards that occupy small alluvial fans clinging to the base of the cliff on the west side of the river. To gracefully get US-97 on and off the module, I reloacted a tunnel near Chelan, Washington, to the module. A bridge over the tracks, while lacking a prototypical antecedent, successfully hides the point where the two rear tracks, the Yellow and Blue lines, duck through the scenery to reach the rear of the module. An HO scale high-tension electrical transmission line tower completes the scene at Earthquake Point.
The basic module frame is composed to two 2' by 6' sections made of 1x4 dimensional lumber. Each frame has a six-inch deep extension to the front side made of 1x2s set even with the base of the 1x4 frame, allowing the scenery to descend below track level on the module front. At the Peters Creek Junction end of the module, a 1x4 plank is attached to the rear of the module to support the Peters Creek Shortline tracks.
Scenery is constructed of extruded styrofoam insulation board, laid layer by layer to a height of 15 or more inches above track level. Styrofoam is both very light and remarkably sturdy, both important to a module which will be transported and banged around. The styrofoam layer cake was carved using a variety of tools, the most important of which was a long, thin, serrated steak knife. The knife was flexible enough to lay flat and shave thin shavings away from the smooth alluvial and colluvial fans, and long enough to carve the various clefts and crevices in the rock cliffs.
Once carved the styrofoam was coated with a layer of lightweight spackle to fill in the more unprototypical holes and pockets left by the carving. Lightweight spackle has two virtues: it is lightweight and flexible once hardened. Occasional dings and dents are a natural hazard of mobile, modular railroads. Being flexible, spackle resists cracking, flaking, and spalling. Being slightly flexible, it also tends to dent with the underlying styrofoam and thus hide such damage better.
Standard methods of texturing and detailing followed with flat interior latext paint used to bond ground foam and other scenic materials to the spackle coated styrofoam. rock chips collected from outcrops of the Martinsburg Shale in western Maryland provided the scale rock debris at the base of the rock slide. A Walther's HO transmission tower is situated on the top of Earthquake Point. A Rix Products highway bridge crosses the tracks at the south end of the module. Near the orchard, a Heljan warehouse passes as a small fruit packing plant, and in the orchard itself a work crew is laying out irrigation pipe. In the highway tunnel, the rear end of a northbound moving van (a Concor Mayflower trailer) is glimpsed just as it is about to disappear into the tunnel. Towering above all is the base of Ribbon Cliff and the bluffs on either side.
The following photos (click on the links to see them) show both the module and some prototypical scenes upon which they are based.