The Cascade and Deschutes Railroad is a freelance HO scale railroad based on railroad operations in western Oregon. The general era is the early 1970’s. The railroad is a bridge line with two major classification interchange yards, two staging yards (east and west) and numerous towns and industries generating a wide variety of freight traffic.

A typical operating session includes positions for a dispatcher, two yard masters, and 4 to 6 road crews.  There are local “turns” to each switching district and towns supporting industries.  In addition, a number of unit trains, Grain, Coal, Inter-modal, and passenger are run during each session.

The dispatcher manages authority to occupy the main using track warrants. Car forwarding is controlled using four-part waybills and car cards.  Waybills allow the traffic system to regenerate itself with little need for additional staging after an operating session.  Additional train crew instructions and operating requirements specific to the job are provided.   The layout is powered by a NCE Digital Command Control system .  There are 10 power districts.  Throttles are both wired and wireless. 

A base scenery level (no plywood showing) is completed over 95% of the layout. Industrial districts are more detailed and complete and some rural mountain areas are also more detailed.

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