The HO Bear Creek & South Jackson fills 1100 square feet with a partially double-decked five mile, single track mainline. The 1952-era layout is a proto-lanced (more lance than proto) railroad resembling much of the territory of the SP’s Natron cutoff.

There are 6 towns on the mainline and several more on the three branchlines. Staging is split between three areas – main staging (under the peninsula) has 19 tracks in two sub-yards, with the other two staging areas representing additional branchlines for train traffic origination and destination.

Dispatching is TT&TO. Freight car forwarding is car-card and way-bill. There are two main classification yards, Bear Creek and South Jackson. Control is via Digitrax with simplex radio throttles.

Crew positions include: Dispatcher, Oakhill Station Operator, South Jackson Station Operator (this job is also the Toh Jct Towerman), two Yardmasters, one yard switcher, a Redland local switch crew, and up to seven road crews.

Road crews run haulers (moving point to point making block swaps at the yards) and turns (starting in a yard, running to a switching area, then back to the yard).

There are three turns – Oakhill Turn, Junction City Turn (Junker), and the Browning Turn (Brat).

Significant work has been done on both trackage (Bear Creek Yard is now double-ended, with a new turntable in place) as well as scenery since the 2023 WOOPs event.

Click the links below to view…

The layout owner’s YouTube BCSJRR channel: Bear Creek & South Jackson

The BC&SJ Ops Session Info page: Op session info

Scenery (WIP) from MRH forums: Scenic progress archive