Trains.com

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

The Mountain Pine Beetle and Modelling Western Forests

2348 views
13 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    August 2009
  • 195 posts
The Mountain Pine Beetle and Modelling Western Forests
Posted by JDL56 on Monday, October 26, 2015 7:21 PM

Here's something I've never seen before--modelling a dying forest. The scene is found on the Moose Jaw, SK, Thunder Creek Model Railroad layout. It shows, in model form, what is happening in real life across the western U.S. and Canada as a result of the Moutain Pine Beetle. 
 
Damage from the beetle goes back to the 1930s-40s, but the most recent epidemc goes back to the 1990s. It has affected trees in 19 western states and in Alberta and B.C. in Canada.
 
Anyone else model this?
 
 
John Longhurst, Winnipeg
 
  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Central Vermont
  • 4,565 posts
Posted by cowman on Monday, October 26, 2015 8:40 PM

Interesting!

I have seen trees, mostly balsam around here, that have died off due to beaver dams or whatever, causing the area to be too wet.  They often look like last years Christmas tree about the time the snow melts.  Other times there will be just one tree that has died for no apparent reason.

I have thought of spraying one of my homemade trees with a red primer and seeing if it looked right.  Your photo gives me hope.

Thanks for sharing.

Have fun,

Richard

  • Member since
    November 2008
  • From: Miles City, MT
  • 375 posts
Posted by P&Slocal on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 10:47 AM

Unless the scientists can figure out a way to stop it, the eastern states are going to suffer a similar fate. The Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is killing off the evergreens in the southern Appalachians. It will only be a matter of time until it is happening up and down the mountain chain.

Robert H. Shilling II

  • Member since
    November 2013
  • 369 posts
Posted by JAMES MOON on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 11:36 AM

Saw lots of damage in the western Rockies a couple of years ago and now beatle damage is starting to show up in northern Saskatchewan forests.  Modeling damaged forest is a novel idea for a modern western layout.

  • Member since
    January 2015
  • From: Southern California
  • 1,682 posts
Posted by Lone Wolf and Santa Fe on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 2:36 PM

Nice job. The trees in that model look correct. That is what the San Bernardino Mountains looked like after bark beetles infested the trees. After a few years of this, in 2003, many of the dead trees burned in the largest fire ever in the region. The bugs came from Asia in shipping crates and pallets, then infested trees near the docks. People cut down the trees and used them for firewood. Some people brought the firewood up to the mountains when they went camping. That is how they spread. It is now against the law to move firewood. You can now only use locally grown wood. Visit this website for more info http://www.dontmovefirewood.org/

Modeling a fictional version of California set in the 1990s Lone Wolf and Santa Fe Railroad
  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: 4610 Metre's North of the Fortyninth on the left coast of Canada
  • 9,352 posts
Posted by BATMAN on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 4:31 PM

Well that is something a little different. I think it needs one or two live trees in the mix. There are always clumps and singles of untouched trees amoungst the devastation. Why they are passed by, who knows.

Furniture (and other things) made from Pine Beatle wood is uniquely beautiful. Several manufacturers taking advantage of the "blue wood" are doing quite well and many have popped up to reap the rewards. Small solace for sure, but at least it's something.

How about a couple of boxcars on the siding at the furniture plant, having blue furniture being loaded into them.Tongue Tied

Brent

"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."

  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: Vancouver Island, BC
  • 23,330 posts
Posted by selector on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 5:26 PM

John, that looks pretty darned good, to me, and very cool.  If I were pressed to come up with a suggestion for improvement, I would make the affected dead needles less 'red' and more 'brown'.  Hardly much, but some.

Nice job!

-Crandell

  • Member since
    January 2010
  • From: Denver, CO
  • 3,576 posts
Posted by Motley on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 6:13 PM

Wow that does look exactly like the dying trees from the pine beetles.

Remember we had those aweful fires 3 years ago, on the Denver/Colo Springs front range. Well it was mostly due to all dead trees, and the dry weather/high winds. It all added up to a disaster!

Michael


CEO-
Mile-HI-Railroad
Prototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989

  • Member since
    December 2003
  • From: Anaheim, CA Bayfield, CO
  • 1,829 posts
Posted by Southwest Chief on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 6:18 PM

Does this count?

Hard to tell in the picture, but some of the smaller ponderosa pine trees in the distance were hit by bark beetles, and then burned during the 2002 Missionary Ridge fire.

We're out in the San Juan National Forest (North East of Durango, CO).  The bark beetles were getting pretty bad until the Missionary Ridge fire came through. 

The fire burned all of the beetle trees and diseased trees and most of the smaller trees on the property. 

The layout was mostly put away indoors so not too much damage.  The house was foamed and saved by the local fire department.  Basically just the ground and weakened or young trees burned.

The larger (older) trees that survived seemed to thrive after the fire.  And the bark beetles are practically no more after the fire.  The forest around us, at least, became healthier because of the devastating fire.  And new baby pines have been sprouting up every year since Big Smile

Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, CO
Click Here for my model train photo website

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: Bradford, Ontario
  • 15,797 posts
Posted by hon30critter on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 6:40 PM

John:

The trees are really well modelled! In fact they are modelled too well if I can say so, at least for my own tastes. It breaks my heart to see the devastation in real life so I don't think I would want to see it on my layout. After all the layout is a fantasy.

Fortunately I'm modelling the late 50s so the only natural scourge I am aware of from that period is Dutch Elm Disease. Of course, as was discussed in a recent thread, pollution had its impact in some areas too.

Dave

I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!

  • Member since
    August 2009
  • 195 posts
Posted by JDL56 on Wednesday, October 28, 2015 1:14 PM

What Mountain Park beetle damage looks like. (Photo from B.C.)

John

  • Member since
    April 2013
  • 917 posts
Posted by Southgate on Friday, October 30, 2015 7:30 AM

That was an all too familiar look in the '90s along highway 97, through central Oregon too. At least it didn't get into the big Ponderosa pines, but id did wreak havoc on the lodgepole pines.

And, for what it's worth, natural forest fires are not always the worst thing that can happen to a forest. They actually weed out overgrowth and give the forest a new start. It's when they take out homes and such that make them a disaster.

  • Member since
    December 2012
  • 213 posts
Posted by singletrack100 on Friday, October 30, 2015 8:07 AM

JDL56's pic is what CA's Sierra National Forest and Sequoia National Park are starting to look like. I took a strike team of engines there last year for backfill when the French Fire broke out, and brought an engine over this year to the Rough Fire. In one year's time from last to this year in the same places, seeing it was heart breaking! Areas that were green last year look like JDL56's pic now. Means the beetle's are in the green one's too. I can only imagine what next year holds!

Duane

  • Member since
    April 2005
  • 2,314 posts
Posted by don7 on Saturday, October 31, 2015 12:50 AM

There was a news release that indicated the spread of the Pine Beattle in Canada had more or less stopped, near the Albera/Saskatchewan border.

The only way to stop the Pine Beattle is a long cold snap of near -30C weather, that is the only sure way to kill any larva in the tree and ensure stopping the spread.

In BC it was thought that the trees killed by the Pine Beattle, albe it that they were now blue were still usable to manufacure lumber. Now it seems that is not true, the wood is only good for processing for a couple of years, then it is more or less good for firewood.

The amount of dead trees, still standing in BC is most alarming. These trees are dead, the only trees that have been harvested are more or less those located near roads where access is more easily and cheap to build.

The amount of dead trees not harvested now is huge, the Forest Companies do not really want the lumber now that most of it is considered too far gone to process.

Every year these stand of wood become dryer and dryer. Nature will eventually take care of these through lightening strikes so there will be plenty of fuel for forest fires for many years to come.

The Government was warned during the early years that hugh amount of pine trees would need to be harvested in order to stop the Pine Beatle from spreading, the governement ignored that advice and now years later a large proportion of the Central Interior forest of BC is now contaminated with mainly dead and dying pine trees.

 

 

Subscriber & Member Login

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

Users Online

There are no community member online

Search the Community

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter and get model railroad news in your inbox!