Structures, Flowers, and End Lights

Most of the structures along the Coast Line are unique and do not always lend themselves to the commercially available models.  Sometimes we get lucky and there is something close that can be a stand-in or maybe kit bashed into a building that resembles something near the tracks.  Most times the buildings need to be scratchbuilt.  At the moment I have not made time to scratchbuild anything.  I did get a friend to scratchbuild one structure.  At one time this was the Coast Wholesale Grocer.  Bob Lyon, proprietor of Elmira Branch Manufacturing, [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elmira-Branch-Manufacturing-Co/109492279756] built the model from photos I supplied him. The structure still exists

I have also put together some oil tanks for one of the Santa Barbara industrial area petroleum distributors.  The facility was originally Union Oil of California.  The tanks are still there but are no longer in use.

I also put together a couple of quonset huts.  I may try to modify them later.  Here are photos of the model structures and the prototypes I will try to imitate.

Beyond Santa Barbara, I have acquired a couple of passenger cars that will be placed at the Miramar Hotel.  The National Embassy was there for years and is now in Fillmore.  Here is some history of the car http://www.scrvrhs.com/embassy/embassy.htm  Here are some photos

I remember eating trackside in the Santa Fe Lunch Counter Diner which has now been relocated to 6801 White Ln, Bakersfield, CA and is called the Burger Depot.  We made a visit there a couple of years ago.  It is still fun but no trains to watch just a parking lot.

A side note about the Miramar Hotel.  About 12 years ago they closed and a new owner was going to restore or rebuild or whatever.  That was about three owners ago and just this last week they finally got around to demolishing the old buildings.  All of them are leveled now.  I do have some photos I took and will probably share them on this blog later when we finally get around to completing this section.

Further east in Summerland, I have started to accumulate structures to model a small refinery.  I also assembled a Walthers Oil Pump.  I have placed a switch on the fascia so you can turn on the pump and add a little animation to the layout.

Still further east on the way to Carpinteria, I have added a billboard sign in the lemon orchard.  The sign is for Pea Soup Anderson's in Buelton.

Temporarily, I have placed a very nice model of a warehouse built by Joe Heumphreus up at White Hills.  It looks very much like the warehouse that was in Guadalupe so if I every build a third level it may relocate to there.

I hope to have some flower fields in Lompoc so I purchased 240 tulips and 600 roses made by Busch.  I have made some but not all of the flowers.  My wife helped me with one batch of 120 tulips.  We accidentally dropped one on the floor of the layout room and I needed the optivisors to find it.  They are very tiny.

Lastly, I have added some end-of-train devices to a few of my cars to be placed at the end of trains.  These are produced by Ring Engineering and are very easy to install.