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.