Old Photos of a Young Railroader

Well it has been four months since I posted on the blog and to be honest not much progress has been made on the layout.  I have been working on installing the remaining Tortoise machines on the first level, working on a few structures and doing too many non-layout activities.

During this time I rediscovered some old photographs my father took.  My dad really enjoyed photography and would take both color slides and black and white print film.  He developed the print film himself and printed the film using enlargers in a small darkroom in the garage.  The photographs here were taken using Kodachrome 25 and the colors are still great. 

As a family we would often travel from the family home near Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles and visit some of the sites like Olvera Street across from Union Station and Chinatown just north of there.  When we visited Chinatown we would often visit the Southern Pacific Yard just southeast of Broadway.  The yard was known as both the Bull Ring (east end) and Corn Field (west end).  At the time we visited there was a wooden pedestrian bridge across the yard from North Broadway to North Spring Street.  Here is a shot of my sister and I on the bridge.

I think the date is about 1953.  Notice what looks like a New York Central Pacemaker boxcar behind us.  If you look closely you will see that it is a standard boxcar-red painted car with a weathered black tank car on the track just toward the camera from it.  You can just make out the dome on the tank car if you click on the photo and make it larger.  My dad took some shots from the bridge while we were there.  Here is a shot of Southern Pacific switcher 2533 working in the yard.

Now I know it is taking me a long time to get my layout up and running but just so you know I have really been working on it a long time here is a photo of my sister helping me with some new track and trains.  I think the date is sometime in 1952.

So much for old photos.  I will try to get a bit more work done on the current layout and post some progress photos soon.

Almost Operations

I keep getting closer to having operations on the Santa Barbara Subdivision but am still not there. The SP Santa Barbara Sub has come a long way since that abreviated op session on January 23, 2007. You can see a photo and read about that night in an early blog post here.

Some of the same friends from the South Coast Society of Model Engineers, the local Santa Barbara model railroad club I belong to, were over again on December 6, 2011. I still have some track tune-up to do so we struggled running trains. Michael Lopez, one of the club's junior members made an attempt and finally got a short passenger train running on the second level.

Here are some photos and a video.

Behind and between Paul G and Michael L is the location of that first impromptu operating session mentioned above

Here is the rest of the crew assembled at the curve of Santa Barbara Yard

Here is a short video of the second level passenger run

Second Level Fascia

While some of the second level fascia was installed almost a year ago, there was still some to install and all of it had to be painted. I had delayed putting the fascia along the track at Surf as there were 7 turnouts and slow-motion switch motors that needed to be installed. Once the fascia is installed it becomes more difficult to work in the areas.














Area at West Surf before fascia was installed














The Surf wye and the helix before the fascia was installed














The east portion of Surf on the outside of the helix before the fascia was installed. Note the fascia installed on the Lompoc shelf on the right side of the photo

I also decided to install fascia on the Lompoc shelf and the White Hills shelf. Both of these shelves are constructed of plywood and homasote. The second level fascia is narrow in most areas to maximize the views of the lower level and the open space between the two levels.

Wherever a switch for a slow-motion switch motor was to be mounted on the fascia, I cut a 1 1/2 inch hole so I could fit a PVC tubing end cap into the hole. The switch is mounted inside the end cap and does not stick out into the aisle. I first saw this technique on Rick Fortin's ATSF Valley Division Fourth District layout.














A close up of the PVC end cap with a DPDT switch installed















DPDT switch pre-wired before installation















Installed end cap and DPDT switch

I did not install the endcaps until I had painted the fascia.

When I finally had all the fascia in I painted it with the same color I used on the lower level. I had used a computer color matcher to select a color that roughly approximates the Southern Pacific Dark Grey used in the two-tone passenger scheme and the post-1958 scarlet and grey locomotive scheme.














Surf area after fascia was installed and painted. Note end caps installed















Painted second level fascia above Santa Barbara














Painted second level fascia at White Hills and Devon

Layout Tour 28

November 19th was the 28th Layout tour of a group called Model Railroads of Southern California. The group was organized by Bob Chaparro back in 2006 to gather information on layouts in Southern California in advance of the 2008 NMRA National Convention in Anaheim. Bob was the layout chair for the local convention committee and wanted not only find layouts for the convention tours but also get layout owners ready for the tours.

It has been three years now since the convention and five years since the group started and its membership has grown to over 1400 members. I had been on a tour 15 in January 2009 but at that time I only had one level and not nearly as much "thin wall" as I do now.

There was talk of rain on the day of the tour but it dawned bright and clear. [The rain came the next day with about an inch.] I had help from friend Jim Scott so I could answer questions and attend to visitors. The day started slowly so Jim and I did some programing of his four new Athearn Southern Pacific GP9's in Black Widow paint scheme with Tsunami sound decoders. They sounded great.

We had about 30 visitors during the day from as far away as Bayview, Idaho and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and as close as next door. Ages also ran the gamut from youngsters to seasoned model railroaders. Several of the youngster's enjoyed running trains over the layout - a feat that I usually am unable to do. The trackwork still needs tweeking but we helped them over the rough spots.

Here are a few photos from the tour day.














Bob Chaparro talking with Jim Scott at the sign-in table with more signing in

Answering questions as a small engineer in red pauses during his train running around the layout

Happy and enthusiastic visitors

As always, in anticipation of a tour, I try to get more done on the layout. This time I put in another 40 feet of fascia on the upper deck, painted all 130 feet of fascia on the upper deck, installed more slow motion switch machines, installed most of the street trackage in Lompoc, and installed a few more decoders to increase my DCC equipped locomotive fleet. In the next few days I will try to post some of these projects so you can see more progress on the SP Santa Barbara Subdivision.

Portland in September

I attended the Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society's convention in Portland in September.  My son lives in Portland so my wife and I stayed with him while we attended the convention and toured around the greater Portland area.

The convention was good and I particularly enjoyed the visit to the Brooklyn Roundhouse.  They are moving in the near future, so I was glad to see the facility before it is no more.  Here are a few photos from the roundhouse tour.

Helix Happenings

As usual, it has been a while since I posted. I spent some of the time since the last post attending the NMRA national convention in Sacramento. The X2011 West was very enjoyable for me. I got to see lots of friends, lots of layouts, did some operating, and generally had a good time. As usual, I spent much of my time with the Layout Design Special Interest Group and the Operations Special Interest Group. This year both of the SIGs had lots of activities and the SIG room always seemed to be active. I tried to stay below the radar, but it is in my nature to help out and since the national was taking place in my home region, I did volunteer a few hours during the convention. The final registration figure exceeded 2000 for the convention and 19,800 for the National Train Show. My wife went with me and we stayed with friends and spent time with them. He also came with me to the convention for three days. We visited Lake Tahoe to escape the 100 degree valley temperatures and enjoy the outdoors.

I have been doing some tuning of my mediocre trackwork and almost am able to get a train all the way around the layout without problems. I am hoping this will happen sooner than later and so do many of my friends who have been patiently waiting to run their trains on my layout.

One item that came up during some of the work on the track was some tell-tale piles of wood dust in my helix.

I had not noticed them before so it is a recent development. I had not been drilling in the area so I investigated and found holes in the 1/4 inch luan plywood that I used to laminate the roadbed for the helix.

I have also discovered a dead body of one of the culprets. I am not an entomologist but I believe it is one of the insects commonly called Powder Post Beetles. As you can see from this photo, they are quite small.

Here is one belly up, which is the way I wish they all were.

I have investigated how to eliminate them and will be applying some sort of aerosol spray in the holes they have drilled in the hopes of stopping further damage. I thought about calling in a crop duster and have managed to get a volunteer in the person of a model of a Curtiss Pusher that I built when I was a lot younger.

The model is a Cox Thimbledrome. I did not want to let it go so I found a place to hang it in the layout room directly over the helix. And yes, I know it is out of scale.

I will be off to the Portland Southern Pacific Historical Society meeting for a while but will post more progress in September.

New Track at Surf and a Reverser

When I first put track down at Surf, I put in some flextrack off the helix and did not cut in the turnouts for the siding or for the wye on the east end. Several weeks ago I went back and took out the flextrack and installed three turnouts. The turnout from the main to the siding is a curved #8 that I built off the layout and then put in place coming off the helix.

The other two turnouts were from the main to the storage track and from the storage track to the east leg of the wye. Here is an overall view of Surf with the helix at the top and Carpinteria on the lower level below the tracks at Surf.

In addition to the trackage, I also installed an auto-reverser so that engines can move across the area of the wye without polarity issues. The auto-reverser is a DCC Specialties PSX-AR. It was quite easy to install. It has the capability to run a tortoise switch machine so I might attach it to the tortoise I expect to install on the leg toward Lompoc. Here is a photo showing the Lompoc leg of the wye disappearing through the thin wall with the auto-reverser installed underneath the east leg.

Here is a close-up photo of the auto-reverser installed.