SP El Paso Division

SP El Paso Division

Scale : HO
Era : mid 1950s 
Owner: Melvin Perry (Mel)
Location : Bakersfield California

My name is Melvin Perry (Mel), I’m retired and living in Bakersfield California

I model the SP El Paso Division in the mid 1950s.

I have been in HO scale model railroading since 1951.

I grew up in El Paso Texas and my next door neighbor worked for the SP, our house was a quarter mile from the El Paso to Alamogordo New Mexico north bound tracks.  I would watch the huge Southern Pacific articulated locomotives leaving a siding going north on a 1½% grade every morning on the way to high school.  I married in 1958 and we moved to Alamogordo in 1960, we lived there for 25 years so my layout is modeled after the Southern New Mexico Sacramento Mountain area near Alamogordo.

My layout is L shaped 14’ x 10’ located in our garage. 

We moved to Bakersfield California in 1987 so we have lived on both ends of the Southern Pacific Cab Forward route.  I maintain a Blog on blogspot.com called My Model Railroad.  I currently have 34 active steam locomotives and 26 diesels all from the mid 1950s era.  I have a single Daylight passenger train consisting of 7 passenger cars including a home brew kitbashed SP ¾ dome lounge car.  I have limited number of freight cars; a full work train, snow blower with a snail, self propelled 160 ton crane car, 17 log cars, and 51 miscellaneous freight cars 

Here is a link to my About Me page for my back ground and a description of my layout:

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/p/about-me-my-layout.html

Mel Perry, PMFE
My Model Railroad Blog : http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

PMFE (Professor of Miniature Ferroequinology Engineering)

1.  ferroequinology  Literally "the study of the iron horse." (ferros = iron, equine = horse, -ology = study of)

2. The study of the history of railroads and railroad trains, especially for the purpose of model railroading.

3. What a railfan practices.

Mountain Park Division

Owner: Bill Robertson
Scale :HO
Era 1950's
Layout Location: Rosewll, Georgia
Prototype: Southern Pacific - Southwest
Size 9'X12'
Style Island with 3 times around inverted oval
Roadbed Balast on plywood
Trackwork Code 100
Min. Radius 20"
Maximum Grade 2.5%
Scenery Spackle over scren wire, 99.9% complete
Controls DC cab control
Sound: Steam and diesel in powerpack
Signals: Grade flashers and automated block and interlocking signals.
Yards: 5-track division point yard; 4-track stub yard; 2-track engine house.
7 industrial sidings.

Southern Pacific Dalsa Cutoff

Owner: Joe & Sharon Mainz
Scale: HO
Era : 1970s- early 1980s
Layout Location : Texas
Featuring the Espee line across central Texas between Hearne and Flatonia.
It's in a building we built for it just out of our back door.
I've been an avid SP fan since the late 1950s. Over the years we've made several trips to Flatonia, about 80 miles east of San Antonio. That's where the Dalsa Cutoff, originally constructed as a shortcut between Dallas and San Antonio, connects to the New Orleans-Los Angeles Sunset Route.
The Flatonia Subdivision, as the Dalsa Cutoff was formally known, formed a strategic link between the Cotton Belt connection in Corsicana, Texas and the Sunset Route to L.A. It was part of the route of the SP's - at times the world's fastest freight trains, the Blue Streak Merchandises or "BSMs," from St. Louis and Memphis to Los Angeles. - Ed.
The layout depicts the line between Hearne and Flatonia, part of the Southern Pacific's Austin Division in the 1970s and early 1980s.I've also modeled the connection with the transcontinental Sunset Route at Flatonia

San Antonio & the Sunset Route

N scale
Owner: Flash Blackman
Layout Location: San Antonio, Texas
"I'm modeling the San Antonio urban area and the Sunset Route trackage with as many industries and sidings as I can. It is just a large switching layout"
30 x 20 foot N scale layout in the basement.
See on the picture album how many locale buildings: a great research and a great modeler!