On a recent trip to San Diego I had an opportunity to visit the San Diego Railroad Museum located in Balboa Park. It is enormous! The museum is open Tuesday to Friday 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.. There are several layouts which comprise the entire museum. One is the Cabrillo Southwestern O scale exhibit. It is the largest and oldest of the model railroads exhibited at the museum. Just ths layout alone is 2,500 square feet and is being constructed by the San Diego Model Railroad Club. There is also a San Diego and Arizona Eastern (HO scale), also being built by the San Diego Model Railroad Club. When finished it will include a harbor-side view of San Diego as it appeared around 1940. This railroad leaves the yards at San Diego and goes south into Mexico. It winds through the hills and reenters the USA through an "International Tunnel." East of the mountain town of Campo, the trains descends into the desert over the wooden Goat Canyon trestle in Carriso Gorge. Yes - there is even a narrow gauge railroad which connects with the main line at Plaster City.
Not to be outdone, the La Mesa Model railroad Club has created a scale model of the steel artery that carries most north-south rail traffic in California. This line passes over the Tehachapi Range of the Sierra Nevada and is very impressive.
The San Diego Society of N Scale is building the Pacific Desert lines. This model railroad represents a nineteenth century route crossing San Diego County that was surveyed, but never actually built. Trains depart the Santa Fe Depot downtown and head into the citrus groves of San Diego's back country.
There is still more including a museum gift shop (not much in the way of model supplies, however) and a small library. It is an amazing place with excellent modeling shown in what must be one of the biggest model railroad layouts in the country. I was impressed with the fact that all the model railroad clubs in the area are represented and work in cooperation (and probably some competition) to make the whole layout spectacular. The visit is well worth the effort if you are in San Diego.
The Tucumcari train show is July 21 to July 22, 2001. This is the third annual presentation of The Tucumcari Mountain Modular Railroad Club. If you interested in setting up at the show contact:
Gregg Carnefix
1817 South 2nd
Tucumcari, NM 88401
Phone: 505 461-1400
e-mail: jgc815@yahoo.com
A registration form is available from the internet at: http://www.tucumcari.ws, (Click on "Train Club.")
May 10, 2001 was the 132nd anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory, Utah. On that day, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific met and joined rails (via the golden spike) on the plains north of the Great Salt Lake. For those interested in the whole story there is an excellent book on the subject by Stephen E. Ambrose called Nothing Like It in The World (The men who built the transcontinental railroad 1863-1869). Excerpts from the dust jacket:
The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotive, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains.
At its peak, the workforce - primarily Chinese on the Central Pacific, Irish on the Union Pacific - approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as fifteen thousand workers on each line.
In building a railroad, there is only one decisive spot - the end of the track. Nothing like this great work had been seen in the world when the last spike, a golden one, was driven in at Promontory Summit, Utah in 1869, as the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific tracks were joined.
If you have a patch and need it stitched onto your vest, call Mary Holder of Broadway Alterations. May will do the sewing for $1.50 per patch. A great deal. Her business number is 765-9978. Her shop is located at 2421 B. Broadway Avenue, Lubbock 79401.
Although I am not particularly a Microsoft fan (this newsletter is written on Corel's WordPerfect), I am excited about a new software program coming out "soon." It is called Train Simulator. Many of you are probably familiar with Microsoft's Flight Simulator which has been around for many years. This is the train equivalent. A short blurb from their advertisement:
It's not every day you get to control something of this size and magnitude. Train Simulator puts you in command of the powerful BNSF Dash 9, the lightning fast Amtrak Acela Express and seven other highly detailed locomotives. Choose from six world-famous rail routs and over 600 miles of accurately recreated track. Pull into charming stations, pick up freight cars and stick to tight timetables. But don't forget to watch out for traffic, tricky weather conditions and even wildlife. It's all up to you because you are the engineer.
Want to know more? Go to this games web site at http://microsoft.com/games/trainsim,. The program drew rave reviews at the E3 convention in Los Angeles this May.
The June meeting will feature Jerry from the Ranching and Heritage Center. He will speak about early railroading in Lubbock and the surrounding area.
Ron Kutch received the following e-mail message from William Jensen on 4/23/01:
Sorry I have been busy lately. I will be at the LSR meeting. The club of which I am a member will also be part of the open house. My new address is 4316 West Northgate #303, Irving, TX 75062. I have not received a newsletter since I moved here so I don't know what has been happening at the LMRA.
Will
Ron Kutch submitted this article from the Dallas Morning News published April 19, 2001. It was written by Roy Appleton.
Shrill sounds take fair goers back to a time of steam-driven trains.
The grownups know what's coming. They know what Paul Kurilecz has in mind. But prepare the children.
The horn from a nearby Amtrak locomotive blares a series of four short hellos. Mr. Kurilecz steps up, pulls slowly on a dangling cord and talks back. Across the State Fair of Texas. And the years. HUUUUU-AAH.
He grabs another cord and pulls. And another. And another, until time runs out on his blasts from a technology past - a lineup of steam-powered whistles. As in "Howdy, folks. Welcome to the Age of Steam Railroad Museum."
The museum on a northern slice of Fair Park is where Michael Clark and his three sons have come in their cruise for state fair fun. Ambling through a world of historical rail cars and locomotives, they have found a hot spot - a mustard-colored shed where Mr. Kurilecz is cooking up the driving force behind yesterday's trains: steam.
Diesel became the railroad fuel of choice after World War II. But 212-degree water is still a force. And a steam boiler inside the shed helps track history by powering the museum's collection of train whistles.
"What's this?" Mr. Clark asks as he and his young crew stop, look and listen to the nine black cylindrical objects dripping, hissing and spewing vapor from above the shed.
Mr. Kurilecz, a museum volunteer and the boiler manager, talks about whistles and trains until the Amtrak again horns in. He responds, according to the rules of the road, with a bite of ear-grabbing, jaw-dropping sound. Unless a band is performing on a nearby stage, the steam sings for one minuet at 11:55 a.m., 1:55 p.m., 2:55 p.m. and 4:55 p.m. each day of the fair.
Lubbock Model Railroad Association
P.O. Box 53674
Lubbock, TX 79453
Staying on Track is published monthly by the LMRA - David Lamberts, editor.
Visit us on the Internet at www.railserve.com/lmra
E-mail me at DWL1944@cs.com
Our mailing address is PO Box 53674, Lubbock, TX 79453
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