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.

Tehachapi Loop 
Scale : HO 
Era : 1950 
Owner: Rick Graves 
Layout Location:______
Rick models the Tehachapi Loop in the spring of 1950. His layout completely occupies a 14' x 12' spare bedroom. The layout is DCC controlled (Digitrax) and the locomotives are sound equipped. Rick runs run both steam and diesel appropriate to the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific motive power in use over the line at that time. One interesting and extremely well done feature of this layout is the use of shallow relief hills to duplicate the Tehachapi loop area. The hills are painted and sceniced using a shading technique which gives them depth well beyond their quarter-inch thickness. Up to five trains are staged behind the hills and in other areas to allow a parade of Southern Pacific and Santa Fe consists typical for the time modeled. Rick’s layout was featured in Great Model Railroads 2009 published by Kalmbach Publishing Co., publisher of MODEL RAILROADER.

Southern Pacific Klamath Falls Sub

Southern Pacific Klamath Falls Sub
Scale : HO
Era : 1984
Owner: Dennis Drury
Layout Location: Reno, NV

The Southern Pacific Klamath Falls Sub is my attempt to recreate the SP between Klamath Falls and Chemult as it existed in 1984.
Using track charts, drawings and photos from the area, as well as my own memories from when I worked for the SP, I will try and make this railroad as prototypical as possible.

The layout is being constructed in a 20x20 foot garage attached to my home in Reno, NV.  Space preparation is currently underway and actual layout construction should begin in July, 2012

Blog: http://spkfsub.blogspot.com/

Southern Pacific Cascade Line

Southern Pacific Cascade Line

HO Scale – 1954 or 1984

Owner:  Bill Decker

Layout Location: McMinnville, Oregon

The SP Cascade Line seeks to capture major features of the SP mainline in Oregon: the Cascade Hill climb, major forest products industry, and a smattering of other industry in the Willamette Valley.  

The layout occupies about 2000 sqft of a walkout basement.  

The layout features a modest representation of Eugene, Springfield, the helper station of Oakridge, and the 1.8% climb up through McCredie Springs, Wicopee, Cruzatte and Cascade Summit, terminating in reverse loop staging at Crescent Lake. 

Following final space preparation, layout construction will begin in the Summer, 2012.

Blog: http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/

Klamath River Line

Southern Pacific’s Klamath River Branch Line at a glance

Scale” HO (1:187.1)
Size; 9’ X 11’ (excluding staging)
Prototype: Southern Pacific
Locale: Northern California’s Klamath River basin
Period: October 1983
Style: Pit
Mainline Run: 80’ total (40’ visible)
Minimum radius: 24” visible main, 22” all others, 18” staging
Minimum Turnout: All but one no 6 mainline no 4 all others & Snap switches for staging
Benchwork: Plywood frame built domino style
Height: 48” Basement, 52” main area
Roadbed: Midwest Cork
Track: Atlas code 83 flex, sectional and turnouts.
Scenery Base: Extruded foam base with cardboard strips as needed
Backdrop: Painted vinyl flooring
Control: Digitrax Zephyr DCC
Hand throttles include one DT400R Wireless throttle and two UT4 tethered throttles….. as well as the Zephyr itself.

The Klamath River Line Overview

The Southern Pacific’s Klamath River branch line is a proto-lanced line that operates from Yreka CA to Eureka CA as if this area had continued to developed. It also includes the towns of Happy Camp and Willow Creek. The era is October 1983. The plan started from the Red Rock and Northern RY. that appeared in the June 2007 Model Railroader magazine as the 2nd place design contest winner.

Yreka and Eureka are represented by staging with Yreka providing the interchange with SP mainline.

Willow Creek and Happy Camp are the two towns modeled. Willow Creek is the larger of the two and incorporates a small classification yard. There is a large wood products facility in Willow Creek as the main rail customer.

Happy Camp offers more industrial switching opportunities of the two. There is a lumber reloader in Happy Camp and a neighboring woodchip loader. Anderson Window & Door is the largest rail customer represented.

The Klamath River Line is primarily designed for one operator but provides for possible operating sessions for up to several people.

Layout Location:
The layout is a free standing pit style located in the corner of the garage. It was to have 2 parts that were to be movable but the ROW committee has gotten a ten year lease to keep it standing at all times. I mention this because had this be the plan from the onset the construction would have been differently. Staging would have been different too.
There are 4 sections to the layout. The 4 sections are labeled North, South, East and West. The North and West sections are semi permanent. The South and East sections are movable and are mounted on wheels but see above.

Blog : http://klamathline.blogspot.com/

Shasta Inland Empire Coastline

Layout Name: NL&SC (Sections of the Coastline)

Scale : N scale
Era: Final year of Steam on the SP 1956

Name: Joe Warren

From: Beaumont, CA

The Layout contains section of the SP near Santa Barbara known as Summerland and Fernald point. It will eventually host the Engine facility at San Luis Obispo. It also contains a section of the Shasta division, Shasta Springs to Cantara.
The layout sections are all sewn together in one bookshelf style layout.

Joe's Blog at :  www.nlandsc.blogspot.com

If your interested it can be seen at Flickr Picture Albums :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21373627@N03/with/6474924915/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21373627@N03/sets/72157628006014475/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21373627@N03/sets/72157626411805371/

Donner Pass in Z scale

Layout Name: Union Pacific's Donner Pass

Scale & Era: Z Scale Modern

Name: Mike Velazquez

From: Whittier, Ca

The area that I am modeling is from Norden to Truckee it's a twice around track plan that has one passing siding and one track for the MOW Crew.

The layout will run DCC and be used for local shows.

YouTube Link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/UPMikes

Trainboard Link:

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?128543-The-Donner-Pass-in-Z

Patagonia & Black Rock

Layout Name : Patagonia & Black Rock
Owner : Marcelo Eduardo Szkatulak Colio

Scale: HO
Era: 1966 - Summer
 Layout Location: Toledo ( Spain)

My name is Marcelo Eduardo Szkatulak Colio. I´m an Espee Spanish fan.
I have a small H0 layout about Southern Pacific called Patagonia & Black Rock.
This is a SP based layout settled in mid 1966 in the Arizona Division.
The Patagonia town actually exist and have an SP Depot Nº22  ( http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=24108 ) but no Black Rock. It was taked from a picture called "Bad Day in Black Rock" (Did you see that? there was a lot SP train).
•    The Layout dimensions are about 1,25 x 3 with a 2 x 0,50 extension. It have a L shape.
•    Layout Height: 1100 mm to top of rails.
•    Benchwork : 10 mm plywood.
•    Roadbed: 6 mm foam.
•    Track : Roco cod. 83.
•    Scenery : Natural materials, stones and sand.
•    Backdrop : Landscapes printing on self-adhesive paper over 5 mm. styrene.
Now I´m modeling the operating mode, because I´m interested in prototipical operation.
You can see my layout in http://patagoniablackrock.blogspot.com/
My rolling stocks is mainly representative of the sixties, but I have several models I like but it doesn´t run in a tipical operation journal.
For example, I´ve GP9 "Torpedo Boat" and RDC-10 for passenger trains, GP-30, GP-35, SD-9 and RSD-3 for freight and some SW1500 and SW-9 for switching cars. I will add some more when operation need it.
Joinly with an Italian and Uruguay friends called Alejandro and Miguel we are  running a Yahoo group called SPRRSpanish@yahoogroups.com.
We are triing to talk  about SP and his subsidiaries in spanish.