Southern Pacific Coast Line in HO


Here's an overall look.

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The next big addition to the layout was the branch to Santa Cruz and Davenport.

Here's the basic benchwork. Notice the clamps in the middle. This section of the layout needs to be split so that it can be removed if that HVAC system in the background ever needs to be serviced or replaced.

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I had a duckunder on the previous layout and I came to hate it, so not this time. I built a drop down section to bridge the gap.

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I wanted to include the tracks in the street running through Santa Cruz but, of course, the available space dictated that it not be quite the same as real thing so another compromise had to be made.

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Most of these buildings were used on the previous layout.

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One of more interesting things I discovered in researching the Santa Cruz area was that the W.M. Wrigley company had a plant there. Although they no longer make anything there, the building still exists and I found it using Google maps and street view. I had to include it so I built this much compressed building flat of the track side of the building..

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Back to Watsonville. I buried the team track that runs behind the depot and repainted and added decals to this box truck from Classic Metal Works.

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Then, more research, and I discovered a packing house belonging to Shurman Farms next to the yard.

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And I created a small engine refueling facility and caboose track.

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I had some space near the backdrop that needed to be filled with something so it was back to Google maps and roaming around Watsonville and Salinas using Street View. I found numerous long, very plain buildings that would be perfect. So I built this using sheets of Evergreen corrugated siding and a Walthers chain link fence kit.


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A sign on one of the buildings I found said: "Royal Oaks Farms Se solicitan piscadores", which, loosely translated means; "We require (or request) pickers"

So it will be included next to the gates.
 
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I'll wrap this update with this, I have finally upgraded the layout to DCC with the NCE PowerCab system. This system has more than enough capability for a layout this small that will only ever have one operator. (Me) The only problem is I only have two DCC locomotives and too many DC ones to justify mothballing all of them. So I have configured the layout to be run on either DCC or plain DC. The toggle switch to the right of the NCE controller makes this possible. Of course, you can't do both at the same so the switch thrown to the right brings power from the DC power pack. Throw the switch to the left and I can run the DCC locomotives. Eventually, over time, I will upgrade as many of those DC locomotives as I can. Then the DC power pack will be retired.

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DC on the right, DCC on the left.


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So that's it for now. I hope it won't take me another year to post the next update. If you got this far, thanks for looking at all this stuff.
 
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The attachments in post 48 an 49 would not show up for me.
Your doing a surpub job - keep up the nice work!
Looking forward to more?
 
The San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum layout in the former SP Freight house had an architect build their model of the SLO depot before the current one. Having a project to build an SP Type 18 Depot that has been in mockup over a year as I have not been able to reproduce the unique windows. I can appreciate the problem. And Grandt line is going to be gone before I can convince them to make the 16 pane upper sash and 4 pane lower sash windows I need.

The SLO Railroad museum is a treat as they have also come up with a good method of reproducing the ubiquitous tall Eucalyptus found in groves all along the SP California coast route. If you are ever in SLO on a weekend give them a visit. I try to visit once a year when family events bring me down from Walnut Creek to SLO.
 
The SLO Railroad museum is a treat as they have also come up with a good method of reproducing the ubiquitous tall Eucalyptus found in groves all along the SP California coast route. If you are ever in SLO on a weekend give them a visit. I try to visit once a year when family events bring me down from Walnut Creek to SLO.

I used to live on the west coast and have been to SLO a few times. We moved to East Tennessee 12 years ago so a visit to California now is not as likely to happen. I would love to know their method for Eucalyptus trees because they are conspicuous in their absence on my layout.
 
Finally got some time to work on the getting the ballast and scenery done around the corner.


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The gas station is a hold over from the earlier layout and still needs to be re-branded to a more west coast appropriate brand.

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The Salinas Valley Fruit Growers receives iced reefers from Watsonville and ships out a variety of produce.

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The Salinas Valley Fruit Growers building is a Wather's kit with home made signage and the roof refrigeration added from another kit. The lot has some weathering on the pavement that doesn't show very well in the photo. The chain link fencing is also from Walther's. The Sante Fe switcher in the background is a new Bachmann Alco S4 with DCC and sound. I'll get it into the paint shop soon and re-decal it for SP.
 



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