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This page contains historic photos of the Pikemasters as we have progressed through the years.
NOTE: These pages contain a lot of pictures. If you are on a dial-up connection, it may take a while for the pages to load completely.
West Wall
Center Aisle
HOn3 Layout; Upper Deck Center Aisle
East Wall
History
The East wall roundhouse. Formerly from Eric Lundberg's Tennesse Pass layout, this roundhouse is being rebuild and reactivated on our layout
This Scenery was performed by a now Canadian Pacific conductor.
Looking down the old DCC yard.
A view from the old station that occupied this side of the layout.
This area of the layout has changed little since this photo was taken.
Going through this bridge underpass will take you to the "other room"!
Oops! That had to hurt...
Here is the rotating bridge, complete with lighting. The bridge was installed by Jack S.
This bridge used to function both in lighting and rotation functions, but was disabled due to mechanical problems arrising from heat changes.
And the final town in the DCC layout, complete with laundry hung out to dry.
The DCC loop being tested right after being installed.
All the trees on this mountain were put in by an 11 year old girl who came down to the club with her brother. It features a tunnel which branches into two sections. The mainlines go through these tunnels, and branches into a coal mining yard.
the mine with no name. this mine was replaced by James. P during his Freshman year of college by the Moria Mine that appears in the current pictures.
This bridge was scratch built and installed by Jim V.
Salida has changed little.
Don P's Rio Grande Key Imports model of a C-48 2-8-0 Locomotive making a speedy run through the mountain. The Engine is #1151, and was the last standard gauge steam locomotive to run on the Rio Grande. December 26, 1956 was the date of it's last run.
Barclay
Barclay was the town over the staging yard on the west wall of the layout. It was replaced by what is now Sousa City in 2010.
Barclay can be a rough town. Bodies line the streets as people walk by seeming not to care.
But Barclay is not completely without law. Here, officers Dowe and Nutt are busting Chris P. Careme for the crime of confection scalping.
Just down from Barclay is the passenger station.
The passenger train station
To the left of this picture is the power plant. This is now the location of Terra Chemical.
The Canyons
After the town of Barclay the railroad meanders through a second set of canyons and mountains.
The railroad crosses over the lower section of track (not visible in this picture). In the background left is Tracon Bluff constructed by Dan White.
A wider shot of the area showing how the mainlines cross over. In the background is Tracon Bluff in an earlier stage of construction. This Plaster arch bridge was replaced by a scratchbuilt model built by Dusty. T.
This scene in Thomson Canyon was changed later on when the bridge at the top was replace by extending the tunnel out to eliminate the bridge. This took care of the massive amount of bridges on the layout in this stretch.
Further along the canyons. Notice the railfans in the bottom of this scene taking pictures of the train going by.
Rock climbers. A horrible accident befell the climber on the bottom when he unexpectedly discovered that the rope he was rapelling on was just a little too short...
A river runs through the canyon.
Tyler Yard
Looking down at the old Hruban Junction. this area was rebuilt in 2015 by Phil. J and the refinery was flipped to the other side of the tracks.
The old locomotive shop at Hruban Junction. This was replaced by a larger facility in 2013 by Phil. J. You can also see the old display cases on the back wall that have since been removed.
The Red River Valley Co-Op grain elevator. (above and below)
The old transition between the center aisle and the west wall involves lots of diamonds and switches. It was prone to derailments and spotting cars in the wrong place typically led to odd electrical shorts. It was replaced first in 2011 by James P, however it is under consideration for another rebuild in late 2015.
The Ruxton Car Shop.
In place of what is now the steel mill, used to reside a very large circus. Some of the rides functioned, however the circus did not age well and was eventually replaced.
The quarry mine. Pictured here is a coal yard for local coal distribution that was pulled to become the slag dump track for the steel mill.
The quarry mine where granite slabs are cut and shipped.
An old shot of Durango yard when the engine facility was setup slightly differently and the mainlines were still up front.
A photo of a temporary rebuild that occured in 2008 (?), this was all replaced in 2013 by Dusty T.
Dual Gauge trackage in Durango, pre backdrops.
Here we have the Durango station which can be found today in Durango Colorado. It is here that the D&RG runs narrow gauge train service up to the town of Silverton, Colorado.
Looking down Durango yard before Dusty. T rebuilt it. Today the mainlines are against the back of the layout and there's a backdrop in front of all those 1x2's.
The narrow gauge crosses over the top of the standard gauge in this scene. Today, the standard gauge mainlines make a hard left here to go up against the back wall there, and the narrow gauge has a wye that begins here.
The siding on the left was removed during the installation of the narrow gauge wye.
Devils gate trestles shortly after construction. The packing plant is where the narrow gauge wye now resides. The narrow gauge trackage entering the tunnel in the background, and the trackage on the bottom that crosses the standard gauge has since been all removed. The trestle was scratch built by Jerry B.
Here is another view of the narrow gauge bridge. On the left side of the picture you can see the structure of the spiral railroad which carries the narrow gauge trains up and down. The trestle in the background of this picture was built by John C. The foreground trestle is the same one shown in the picture above this, built by Jerry B.
Devils gate shortly after scenery was started.
The Silver Spur Mine was not connected to any of the narrow guage. The head building was removed for renovations in 2014, the underside interior of the mine is now at the Moria Mine on the West Wall.
The rails pictured here are what remains of the HOn3 layout from when the club was located at Boulder Crescent. The club moved to it's current location, and this scene is pretty much the only layout salvaged from the previous location. This remains largely unchanged today.
Notice the amazing detail and weathering with these old west cars!
A rotary snowplow locomotive. These were great for clearing the track of snow too deep for standard snowplows to clear. They aren't seen much these days due to their high expense in both operation and maintenance. These are the weapon of last resort when fixed blade snowplows won't work. The snowplow pictured here is a steam powered rotary snowplow.
A look at the narrow gauge roundhouse before the backdrops went up.
An old sawmill with the saw undergoing maintenance.
A look at the upper narrow gauge in it's early days. the backdrop looked cool, but make it difficult to communicate across the aisles and was thus taken down.
Start of scenery at Forks Creek (2010?).
Some work has been done since the last picture was taken!
A view inside one of the long spirals which takes traines between the upper and lower portion of the layout. In addition to the roundhouse above, this helix came from Eric Lundberg's Tennessee Pass Layout.
What is now Hall Siding taking shape.
If you have any historic photos of the club you'd like to see on the website, send them here.
