With the summer season here the 9x13 foot HO scale model railroad display at the Sisson Museum in Mount Shasta, CA, enters its tenth year of operation. Two trains may be run by the push buttons by visitors on this condensed rendition of the Shasta Line from Dunsmuir to Black Butte. Represented on the layout are the communities of Mount Shasta, Dunsmuir and Mott along with locations like Black Butte, Cantara Loop and the historic Dunsmuir Hardware. The ever-popular “Shasta Daylight” passenger train is also present.
Built by the Siskiyou Model Railroad Club, the project lasted from February 1997 until its completion in April 1998 The layout is enclosed in glass. Retired Disney Imagineer Don Wirth completed most of the bench work. Model train supplies for the layout came from Golden West Hobbies.
These volunteers left behind items from their lives including a California Highway Patrol car with retired Sgt. William Duncan’s call number on the roof, a Shasta Valley Railroad flatcar, Vern Potter’s fictional line and Jay Mika’s scratch built Dunsmuir Amtrak Depot (which once rested on the Siskiyou County gold award winning booth model train display centerpiece at the 1994 California State Fair), Also, Reverend Joe Raymaker graced the Sisson layout with a church, Bruce Duncan left a Butteville Elementary School bus where he was once a school board member and a museum volunteer who worked for the Post Office denoted a postal truck. Can you locate all these items?
The Sisson Museum is next door to the Fish Hatchery. It is just a few hundred yards off Interstate 5 at the central Mount Shasta Exit. More information may be found by calling 926-5508 or go online at
