MODEL TRAINS IN THE RAILROAD TOWN

Some time back we became aware of the fact that the "Historic Railroad Town" had no model railroad dealer. We were fortunate to be contacted by Bruce Duncan who, with his dad, Bill, runs Golden West Hobbies. Bruce specializes in HO scale model trains and particularly those of local lines such as the McCloud River Railroad, Yreka Western Railroad, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific. He supplies us with locomotives and rolling stock from major manufacturers and also custom painted and lettered cars and engines. This has developed into an important part of our store. It's a colorful and fun department that reflects Dunsmuir's railroad history and draws a surprising number of customers. We see a wide variety of model railroad hobbyists - adults and kids, beginners and experienced modelers, folks shopping for gifts for model railroaders or souvenirs from the Historic Railroad Town. Often vacationers who have been on excursion runs on the Yreka or McCloud lines come to us to pick up a souvenir of their experience.

The large model of the Southern Pacific "cab forward" locomotive in the center of this photo is an attention grabber. We were fortunate to acquire it from the family of Larry Green - a noted outdoor sports writer who lived in Dunsmuir. Larry was fascinated by the design of this gigantic locomotive and decided to model it - not building a kit, but working from photos and blueprints. He hand, carved, shaped, forged and created parts that are intricate and accurate to build this model which is over four feet long. Larry passed away before he completed the project. The tender is complete - right down to individual rivets - but the locomotive is about 90% done - just needing some details to be finished. Interesting that Larry chose to give his model the same number as the actual locomotive which is in the railroad museum in Sacramento.