In late September a friend from the Ntrak club and I made a trip to the Golden State Model Railroad Museum in Point Richmond, California. This Museum has N, HO, and O Scale layouts. I had been here a couple of times more than 15 years ago when the Ntrak club had done a couple of setups in their meeting room. During those times I had been kept busy with the Ntrak layout and did also run a train on the Museums N Scale layout but had not gotten the chance to spend much time with the HO or O Scale layouts. My friend had not been here before at all but had been to this organizations previous location in Oakland as a kid in the 1950's.
My photos are a bit mixed up as to which layout they are so I labeled the ones I was sure of. This first one Ais an overview shot taken from a high location at one end of the building showing the approximate locations of the three layouts. The O Scale layout starts in the foreground on the right and goes all the way to the other end. The HO layout wraps around the O layout at this end of the building and then runs about 2/3 of the way down the left side. The N Scale layout starts at that point and continues to the far end of the building.
All three of these layouts have a California theme with locations such as Tehachapi, the Serria Nevada mountains, Sacramento and several Bay Area communities being represented.
This is a representation of the well known double tracked Elevis Wye in Sacramento on the N Scale layout.
All three layouts use a plexiglass screen to protect the details from probing hands so most of my photos are from a high angle to avoid the glare.
This is one of several round houses on the HO layout. It had been donated from someone's personal layout.
Sitting on a siding on the O Scale layout was a model of a Southern Pacific passenger train in daylight colors and a GS4 locomotive. This model was custom built in the 1930's for the Southern Pacific's exhibit at the Golden Gate International Exposition that was held on Treasure Island in 1939.
The HO Scale layout had an extensive network of narrow gauge track over about 1/3 of this large layout. In this photo the section in the foreground is narrow gauge with standard gauge being behind it. There is an access passage between these two areas.
This photo shows one of several logging / lumber industries that are served by the narrow gauge network on the HO layout.
We were fortunate enough to be invited to see the inner workings of the HO layout by Marc and Bob. This layout has a several hidden staging yards, a couple of which are as seen in this photo. The layout uses a Digitrax DCC system and from what I saw most of the members were using their phones as throttles using Wifi just like I do on the Palisade Canyon layout. There was also an impressive number of boosters and PSX circuit breakers as part of the control system.
This was just a quick overview of what we saw at the museum. This place is worth a visit if you are in or visiting the SF Bay Area. Here is a link to their web site with directions to get there. www.gsmrm.org
