The Locomotive Roster

My Pacific Coast Railway presently has four locomotives. Each is either a Bachman or Broadway Limited Imports On30 ready to run model to representing a particular prototype locomotive. I did not modify the locomotives to have the precise prototype boiler profile, shape and position of domes, etc. as the construction of both the Bachman and MMI models does not lend itself easily to this as the dome bases are cast as part of the metal boiler. However, brake hoses and crews were added to all locomotives as well as the period correct lettering and numbers. I prepared my own artwork in an MSWord document and had decals printed by Joshua Muma of Bedlam Creations (www.bedlamcreations.com, He is responsive, provides a high quality product, and will do art work for you if desired). I toned down the shiny bare metal of side rods and valve gear with Neolube. Some locomotive specific details were fabricated and/or changed as described in the following paragraphs.

#101

Locomotive #101 was 2-6-0 Mogul built by Baldwin in 1893, had a tractive effort of 10,000 lbs, and served the PCRwy until the locomotive was scrapped in 1924. The drawings and only photos of #101 show it with a large rectangular oil headlight and other appliances typical of its construction date. 

I wanted my locomotive to appear more modern with changes that may have been made near the end of its career. My model is a Bachman 2-6-0, which had a large cantilevered Colorado & Southern style headlight bracket and silver smoke box. I substituted the boiler and cab assembly from a Bachman 0-6-0 with its more modern cab, headlight and bracket, and graphite-colored smokebox. I also fabricated a locomotive foot plate from styrene and a tender oil bunker using a styrene wrapper laminated over a wood block base and detailed with Micro-Mark rivet decals.

This locomotive is my San Luis Obispo yard switcher.

#105

Locomotive #105 was typical of a series of 2-8-0 Consolidations (#s105-109) built by Baldwin in 1904-1906 for the PCRwy. They all had a tractive effort of 19,340 lbs. #105 served the PCRwy until it was sold for scrap in 1943.

Allan Youell Photo taken from The Pacific Coast Railway by Westcott and Johnson

My model is based on a Broadway Limited Imports Denver & Rio Grande Wester C-16. My model-specific changes included removing the over-sized BLI dummy front coupler, modifying the pilot to accommodate a Kadee #26 coupler and fabricating a tender oil bunker using a styrene wrapper laminated over a wood block base and detailed with Micro-Mark rivet decals.

 

I typically use #105 as the road engine for the Daily Mixed Train Turn between San Luis Obispo and Port San Luis.

#110 and #111

Engine #s110 and 111 were 4-6-0 Ten Wheelers built by Baldwin in 1910 and 1911and both had a tractive effort of 17,800 lbs. They were acquired by the PCRwy from the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway in 1928. Engine #s110 and 111 did not overlap with #101 in their service time on the PCRwy, but they do on my railroad. #111 was sold to the Oahu Railway in 1942. #110 served the PCRwy until the end of operations in 1943 and was sold for scrap in 1948.

Aston Photo taken from The Pacific Coast Railway by Westcott and Johnson

The most distinctive characteristics of #s 110 and 111 were the double air tanks mounted on top of the boilers and their "whaleback" tenders. While I did not choose to attempt major surgery on the cast metal boilers of my Bachman models to move the domes and bell to accommodate the air tanks, I just had to have the whale back tenders. I searched on-line and acquired 3-D printed whaleback tender shells through Shapeways that were specifically designed to fit the Bachman tender frames. I modified and re-mounted the Bachman ladders and back-up lights on the new whaleback shells, fabricated the tender back walkways from styrene and all of the railings and grab irons from phosphor-bronze wire. The new shells were painted with rattle-can satin finish spray paint and mounted on the Bachman frames. Voila! I have whaleback tenders!

#110 and #111 serve as road engines for Passenger Trains, Mail Express Trains, and the Daily Freight Train Turn between San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria.

Till Next Time

Future installments will cover, in no particular order, passenger cars, freight cars, operations, and expansion of the line to Santa Maria.

Thanks for reading and please give me your comments!

Expansion to San Luis Obispo (and beyond)

It has been awhile since my last post. It seems that gardening, travel, and summer activities on the lake have been occupying most of my time. However, fall is now in the air and it is time to get back to railroading.

The Move and the Plan

My wife, Aggie, and I both fully retired in 2019 and decided to move from the greater Seattle area, where we had spent the last 35 years, to Indiana, where we both were originally from, to be closer to extended family. As part of the move, I acquired Right of Way in a corner of the (heated and air conditioned) garage in our new home for my model railroad. After the move in 2020, I built a short divider wall separating my corner from the heating and water utility area, installed the Port San Luis (PSL) modules (described in Blog Post #s 1 and 3) that I had moved from Washington above my modeling workbench and began planning the expansion of the line to San Luis Obispo (SLO). 

I wanted to include a lot of the prototype track arrangement in SLO, the Southern Pacific RR interchange, and representational models of many of the prototype structures, such as the engine house and turntable, coach shed, fruit and grain warehouse, and the combination depot and offices.  I also wanted to include the spur to the Bishop's Peak Quarry to provide loads for the rock barge at the PSL described in Blog Post #4. Finally, I wanted to include the sector plate and turntable staging yard, also described in Blog Post #1, to represent movement of trains beyond SLO. The plan also needed to accommodate continued use of the garage to house two vehicles, my general shop workbench, and various bench-type power tools, spray booth, storage cabinets, etc. The resulting plan is shown below as existing. 

Layout Plan

Construction and Overview

Since the 2020 move I have completed all of the wiring and trackwork on the "existing" section of the layout and about 70 % of the scenery. I have also scratch-built the structures in the PSL scene, modified and detailed my roster of 4 locomotives, 6 passenger and 24 freight cars, developed a timetable/train sequence and set-up a car waybill system for operations. The structures in SLO at present are all foam core mock-ups I fabricated for planning purposes. These will be eventually be replaced by scratch-built compressed structures developed from the plans and photos in the Westcott and Johnson book, similarly to the structures in the PSL scene . Following are a pair of overview photos of the layout as it presently exists.

Layout Overview (from Bishop's Peak)

In the above photo the PSL scene is above the modeling workbench in the background and Bishop's Peak and the quarry in the foreground. 

Layout Overview (from South end of San Luis Obispo)

In the above view, the staging yard is at the upper right behind the backdrop. The track in the center  foreground behind the caboose is the truncated main line leaving south out of SLO and the far left track, adjacent to the transfer platform, is the truncated standard gauge Southern Pacific interchange track . The engine house and turntable are beyond the transfer platform and the coach shed beyond them. The depot/offices are adjacent to the backdrop at the right.

And Beyond

I am not satisfied with the operational access to the staging yard. Trains must terminate at end of track in SLO and back through a hole through enter the back drop to staging. To correct this, I have recently negotiated further Right of Way over the hood of our SUV to extend the main line the correct direction out of SLO, around the corner and parallel to the back drop toward the staging yard, as shown in the Layout Plan. This will improve operations and also allow inclusion the scenes of the low trestle over the Santa Maria River and the town and some of the track arrangement in Santa Maria before terminating at the Los Olivos staging yard. Materials for this expansion have already been purchased and I should start construction soon.

In my next installment I intend to describe and provide photos of my locomotive roster. Till then, thanks for reading and please give me your comments and feedback.

The Rock Barge

 The Prototype

Rock from the Bishop Peak quarry, located about 10 miles from Port San Luis (PSL) was transported on PCR flat cars to the PSL pier, where it was transferred to a barge and used to extend the San Luis Obispo Bay breakwater.  The barge had stiff-legged derrick powered by a steam donkey engine for loading and unloading the rock. I wanted to include the rail to barge operation in my PSL scene. My primary  references were the following photo borrowed from Westcott and Johnson book, plus the articles by Pete Smith about the pier-mounted stiff leg derrick on his Loon Lake Railway and Navigation Company published July/August and September/October 2022 issues of the Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. The rest of the details I imagine-ered.

Prototype rock barge and PCRwy flat cars at PSL pier.

My Model Rock Barge

I kit-bashed my rock barge by adapting a Crow River Products O-scale Stiff Leg Derrick kit to fit on a Frenchman River Multi-scale Wooden Deck Scow Kit. The former is a nice wood and pewter castings kit and the latter a very nice one piece resin cast hull and deck. The adaptation required adjusting the height of the mast and and length of the boom to fit the scow dimensions. I added a Bachmann donkey engine and figured out how it's two drums, plus auxiliary winch would be used to raise the hook and raise and rotate the boom. I decided that since the PCRwy had modified all of its locos to burn fuel oil instead of wood or coal, that the same would've been done with this donkey engine, and I did confirm through an internet search that this was a feasible modification. I added all the appropriate cabling, plus fuel oil and water tanks, piping and valves, anchors, misc. lengths of chain, mooring lines, an operating crew, and quarry rock made from broken Hydrocal rock castings.

Model rock barge

After installation in my scene, I added sea gulls, a skiff and a 24 ft steam tug, also made from Frenchman River kits.

 

More Background - Where in the Heck Are We?

I had a request from one of you following my first blog post, which I neglected to address, and that was to provide an additional map to show in the greater world where the PCRwy was located. The PCRwy ran between Port San Luis and Los Olivos about half way between Los Angeles and San Jose, CA, just NNW of Santa Barbara. The following map, again from the Westcott and Johnson book, should clarify this. 

Till Next Time

Thanks again for reading. Please give me your comments and feedback.

The Port San Luis Scene

Basic Construction

Construction of  the PSL scene started with adding an 1/8 inch hardboard backdrop to the L-shaped layout base formed by the hollow-core bifold doors, The backdrop was painted sky blue using rattle can spray paint, followed by addition of clouds again using white spray paint and acrylic paints were brushed on to add background hills. Two layers of 1 inch pink foam were glued to the hollow core doors with construction adhesive and the front edges carved with a hot-wire knife to form the scenic base. Additional foam was carved to form the background hills. All foam seams were filled with Sculptamold, which was also use to provide additional texture and scenic relief. 

Microengineering Code 83 On30 flex track and #5 switches were glued directly to the foam using construction adhesive. Turnouts are controlled by Caboose Industries HO scale ground throws. Track feeders were soldered to every rail section and connected to power buses. Switch frog polarity is provided by Tam Valley Frog Juicers. Control is provided by a Digitrax base station and UT4hand held throttles.

The basic ground cover is tile grout supplemented by fine rock, sand, and various scenery products. The harbor and creek water were simulated by painting the base door with spray and acrylic paints sealed with coats of Gloss Medium, which was teased with a paint brush as it was drying to make ripples and waves, which were highlighted with dry brushed white acrylic paint after the Gloss Medium dried. Plaster rock wall castings were use for bridge abutments and sea walls. Broken plaster rock mold castings were colored with acrylic washes to form rip rap. The bridge over San Luis Obispo Creek at the right end of the modules was kit-bashed from an Atlas HO Scale Through Truss bridge.

Adding Structures

A scratch built timber A-frame superstructure was added to a manually operated Peco On30 turntable and the water tower was scratch built board by board using a Planters Cashews can as a base. The water column is a Tichy HO scale kit that was increased in height using brass tube to provide vertical clearance for O-scale locomotive tenders.

Initially, pink foam and foam core mock-ups of the pier, warehouse, and iconic Hotel Marre were fabricated using dimensions from the prototype plans and specifications in the Westcott book as a guide but selectively compressed to fit available space and used to test placement and overall effect. The necessary compression of the hotel was pretty drastic as I had to eliminate one of the three floors, cut the width by 40 %, and make the model a quasi-building flat. However, I was able to retain the widow's walk, second floor balcony, portico over the door, sign painted on the roofing, plus all of the railings and gingerbread that make it so iconic.  The final models were scratch-built using dimensional strip wood, clapboard and board and batten siding, misc. Grandt Line castings, paint and tissue paper tar paper, and Ragg's to Riches? peel and stick shingles. For trackage, I hand-spiked Code 83 rails to the pier. 

Considering that these modules are the first scenes I have carried to this level of scenic and operational completion and all of the structures in this scene were not only scratch-built, but my first ever efforts at scratch building, I feel pretty good about the overall effect.

 

Turntable, water tower, and column, with Engine 110, a presently un-modified Bachmann 4-6-0 (Stay tuned for more about the metamorphosis of this engine and her stablemates in the future).

Prototype warehouse photographed in 2019.

Model pier and warehouse

Prototype Hotel Marre

Model Hotel Marre. (The figures were painted by dear friend Lori Webster of Ragg's to Riches? Thank you Lori!)

Till Next Time

My next blog installment will cover my model of the barge used to haul rock delivered to the pier by the railroad out to Port San Luis Bay for breakwater construction. As always, thanks for reading and please provide me with your feedback and comments.

Side Tracked in Peru

 Well, its been awhile since my first post. The reason for the delay is that we got back 10 days ago from a 2-1/2 week trip to Peru. We were able to spend time in Lima (capital on the  Pacific Coast), Iquitos (gateway to the northern Amazon), a lodge on the Amazon, Cusco (provincial capital in the Andes), Cuzco (gateway to Machu Picchu), and Machu Picchu (Inca archaeological site). But since this is a model railroad blog and not a travelogue, I'll only include a couple of photos of the only access (other than hiking the Inca Trail) to the gateway to Machu Picchu , a one meter narrow gauge railroad.

Above is the train we took from the Sacred Valley to Cuzco and below typical street running in the resort town of Cuzco. I'll get back to model railroading in my next post. Till then!

An Introduction to My On30 Pacific Coast Railway

 Background

First a little background on the Pacific Coast Railway (PCR). The history of the PCR was documented in "The Pacific Coast Railway" by Kenneth E. Westcott and Curtiss H. Johnson, which is available from Benchmark Publications. 

 This book provides not only a great story of the PCR, but also many photos, maps, track arrangements, drawings, etc. and has been my bible in the planning of my model of the PCR. The prototype photos and maps found in this blog were all borrowed from this book.

The PCR ran from Port San Luis (PSL) on San Luis Obispo Bay inland to the headquarters at San Luis Obispo (SLO) and then southeast along the Santa Maria Valley to Santa Maria (SM) and beyond to its terminus at Los Olivos (LO) for a total of 76.1 miles. The PCR operated from 1876 to 1942. 

The PCR carried passengers and goods to and from ships of the Pacific Coast Steam Ship Company at PSL, interchanged with the Southern Pacific Railroad at SLO and provided passenger and freight service to communities all along its route. Freight included farm produce and livestock, bituminous rock, lumber, oil, quarried stone, gravel, sand, general merchandise and machinery. At its peak, the PCR operated 8 regularly scheduled trains daily originating from SLO, including passenger, mail and express, mixed and freight.

Purpose of This Blog

I am not writing this blog to advertise to the model railroading world that I am a great or prolific modeler, I am not. However, I thought I might be able to provide some entertainment, ideas, and inspiration to others by sharing a bit of my model railroading philosophy, approach, techniques, and results and I might also make some connections and learn from other's feedback and comments.

How I Got Started on this Journey

I was introduced to model railroads at an early age by my father. I had a Lionel loop with a siding at about age 6 and built an HO layout in my bedroom at about age 12. Then I got distracted by sports, school, cars and girls through my teen years and early 20s. I returned to the hobby after grad school, started several HO standard gauge layouts that never proceeded past benchwork, and helped friend Doug Geiger start building his HO masterpiece, the  "Granite Mountain Railway". I then got hooked on narrow gauge, was introduced to Sn3 by my life-long friend, Joe Fuss of "Raggs to Riches" fame, bought some PBL engines, planned, built a few PBL car kits and made a couple more false starts on layouts, but career, kids, volunteer commitments, etc. always pushed model railroading to a distant last place priority. 

 

As I reached my late 60s I began to work less on my professional career and have a little more time. Another friend, Preston Kelly, introduced me to Bachmann On30 equipment. I realized by modeling in On30, I could accumulate good running and looking equipment with much less time investment - I might actually get something done! Preston did not have a layout and as a challenge to motivate him (and me) I bet him I could build a switching layout using a pair of 15x80 inch hollow-core bi-fold doors as a base and support it on the wall with shelf hangers. While I had always enjoyed Colorado narrow gauge railroads and dreams of Rocky Mountain scenes, I wanted to do something different. I also have always had a fascination with rail/marine interchange and harbor scenes. I had recently read "The Pacific Coast Railway" and realized that the coast side yard and pier at PSL, would provide a good modeling subject that just might work with a lot of selective compression of the scene and structures.

The Bifold Door Railroad, A Study in Selective Compression and Prototype "Representation"

I began work on the PSL modules in 2016. They are configured in an L-shape with outside dimensions of 80x95 inches, or a combined prototype length of 700 ft in O-scale. In that space I wanted to "represent" the PSL prototype scene from the bridge over SLO Creek to the end of the warehouse shown in the Header of my blog, a distance of about 2,500 ft. Note that I said represent, not model. I already am introducing a compromise by representing a 36 inch gauge prototype using 30 inch gauge models. My intent is not to build a scale model of the PCR, which would be prototype modeling, nor am I building a freelance prototype model using scale models of prototype equipment to model a railroad in a fictitious location. My desire and intent is to "represent" the engines, rolling stock, structures, track arrangements and operations of the prototype PCR as closely as I can by modifying commercially available On30 trains and building highly compressed structures and scenes that fit my space, but capture the flavor of the prototype. In the scene below, while there are only two sidings on the pier, the rest of the track arrangement and all of the essential structures (pier, warehouse, Hotel Marre, turntable, water tank and column, and bridge over San Luis Creek) are present though selectively compressed. Only half of the warehouse length is modeled, but it butts against a mirror, visually increasing its length and the same approach was taken with the bridge with track passing through a hole in the mirror. A 5 ft long staging yard beyond the bridge simulated the rest of the line to SLO and beyond when these modules were completed.

Overall panoramic (distorted) view of the Port San Luis Modules.

Half warehouse and mirror at the left end of the modules.

Half bridge and mirror at the right end of the modules.

Combination three track pivoting sector plate and turntable staging yard (beyond the bridge).

I hope you found this of some interest. In the next installment of my blog I will show more detailed photos of structures, and scenes on the PSL modules and I will talk about some of my construction techniques. Future installments will present an expansion of the railroad following a move to a different home along with track plans, and further descriptions and details of locomotives and rolling stock, structures, details, and operations.