Layout visit - Carquinez Model Railroad Society

On a Saturday in late October I attended an open house at the Carquinez Model Railroad Society HO layout in Crockett, California.  This club is about 70 miles away so I went with a friend from the Ntrak club and we made a day of it.  Both of us had never visited this layout before.  This is quite a large layout that is based upon the Southern Pacific line from Oakland, California to Sparks, Nevada.  One of the outstanding features of this layout are the many familiar scenes along that route that are effectively modeled.  This first view is of the Port of Oakland.  Yes, that is a candy train in the foreground as it was Halloween season.

Heading out of Oakland we pass by Berkeley, California.  Berkeley is best known for it's major university but there must also have been a concrete ready mix plant because there is one on this layout.

Several of the landmark scenes modeled on the layout are very close to the club's location in Crockett.  This small town is known for the C&H sugar mill and that is quite accurately modeled.

Also modeled in the Crockett area is the old passenger station.  The Amtrak California Zephyr and Capital trains pass through here but don't stop.  The building now houses the Crockett History Museum.  As indicated by the plaque on the fascia this point is 26 track miles east of Oakland.

Further east is a nicely done model of the railroad bridge that crosses the Carquinez strait.  This railroad alignment between Sacramento and Oakland was what Southern Pacific called their "waterline route" with little to no grades.  This bridge was a big part of what made that route possible. 

The area around the south end of the bridge is known for it's oil refineries and the layout includes a good representation of this type of industry.

Another industry represented on the layout is cement production.  I don't know the exact location that this model represents but there are several cement production sites in Northern California and moving the cement to those ready mix plants makes for some good layout operations.

And we reach Sacramento with this view looking down the Capital Mall toward the State Capital building.  The series of traffic lights were animated.

Continuing east into the Sierra Nevada mountains the line passes through Colfax, California.  This gold rush era town is a great place to stop for a break when driving as it's just off Interstate 80.  There is an old wood Northwestern Pacific caboose here next to the station.

The Southern Pacific line through the Sierra Nevada mountains is known for it's snow sheds at the higher elevations and that is also modeled on this layout.

The operators of this layout were running all types of trains and roads.  Someone even had a freelanced road that at first glance we mistook for the Eureka Southern which was a railroad that once had run for awhile on the old Northwestern Pacific line.

It was a fun day visiting this layout.  Here is a link to this club's web site for information on the layout and upcoming open house events. 

Carquinez Model Railroad Society | Model Trainclub in San Francisco Bay Area

Layout visit - Silicon Valley Lines

On Saturday, August 24th I visited the Silicon Valley Lines HO Scale layout in downtown San Jose.  I have wanted to visit this layout for some time but somehow never had gotten around to it until now.  A few weeks ago I received an announcement for an open operating session and signed up. 

This club alternates between modern and transition eras which they define as being after or before the start of Amtrak in 1971.  For this session they were in the transition era.

This layout is using plenty of technology, some of which is new to me.  It was all DCC using the NCE system with boosters and many power districts.  They are also using LCC for some of their turnout and signal controls.  The layout is almost fully signaled.

What was different was the fact that some of the operators were remote.  A couple of the trains running had camera cars in front of the locomotive so the remote operator could see where they were going.  I was told that one of these remote operators was in the UK and that the dispatcher was in New York.  On one of my jobs I even made an opposing meet at a siding with one of the remotes.

During my visit I ran three jobs.  First was a short freight train using a pair of Santa Fe GP7's in zebra stripe as power.  Next was a longer passenger train that ran over most of the layout.  As I was using my phone as a throttle, I did not get any photos while running but below is a photo of the passenger train's power that I took at the end of the run.  This club uses Chicago & Northwestern colors as the home road, removing the C&NW logo and adding their own SVL decals.  Both of these sets of locomotives had sound decoders and both runs went really well.

The third job I ran was to take 9 cars from Bayshore yard and load the car float with them.  While the first two jobs were on the main line with signals and turnouts under dispatcher control, this train was a local on a secondary line so I also controlled the turnouts.  In several places such as this around the layout there are small touch screen computers mounted with track diagrams programmed into them.  This was something else that I've seen in videos but had never used before.  I soon got the hang of it though.

It was a fun time and good to meet some modelers from another scale in our area.  The members here were quite welcoming and helpful to guest operators such as myself.  This club has a website, it's at https://siliconvalleylines.com/   There is also a professionally done TSG Multimedia video about this layout on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeoH92UYrrg

Layout visit - SP San Ramon Branch

It's fun to get out and see other layouts.  Recently a friend from the Ntrak club and I visited an N Scale modular setup at a museum about 40 miles away in Danville, California.

This layout has been set up in the Museum of the San Ramon Valley for the past several weeks by a group of N Scale modelers including Paul (in the red shirt), who is my partner in the AsiaNrail modular layout and is also active in our Ntrak group. 

The layout represents the Southern Pacific San Ramon Valley Branch as it would have been in the 1920's.  This was a point to point setup running steam engines and using an NCE DCC system for control.

Several of the modules were Paul's and are ones we have used in the AsiaNrail layout.  One of these is this Wye module shown below.  While the track is attached, all the scenery elements are removable so this module can be used in different type layouts.

This is the same module in the AsiaNrail layout.

Here are a couple of the many well done scenes on this layout.

The museum itself is in a restored SP standard number 18 station similar to several that are modeled on this layout.

Station signs and track diagrams were used around the layout to give a better sense of where you were on the line.  

We had a great time visiting this layout and afterwards enjoyed lunch at one of the nearby eating establishments.  I've driven through this area on the Interstate countless times but never realized before that there had at one time been a rail line following the same route.

The San Ramon Valley Branch group has a website:  https://thesrvrr.yolasite.com/

Also, TSG Mulitmedia did a fine video on this layout: 

 Southern Pacific San Ramon Valley Branch N Scale Layout Tour (youtube.com)