An accurate representation in scale of the Southern Pacific-Santa Fe joint line through the Tehachapi Mountains, from Mojave to Bakersfield, CA.
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Operating as usual
The San Diego Model Railroad Museum features the La Mesa Model Railroad Club in their spotlight.
The Tehachapi Pass HO-Scale Exhibit, created and operated by the La Mesa Model Railroad Club, has been delighting guests of the San Diego Model Railroad Muse...
SP Helper set glides though Bealville for the next assignment.
We're proud to be part of this week's social media spotlight on the San Diego Model Railroad Museum's FB page.
Check out the pics and videos that will be posted throughout the week, and consider donating if you're able. Thank you!
This week, we’re taking you through the mountains! Our social media will focus entirely on the Tehachapi Pass exhibit and the La Mesa Model Railroad Club - LMMRRC, Inc., the club that created it.
Four independent model railroad clubs maintain and operate the exhibits you know and love at the museum. Each club will have its own Spotlight Week to showcase its contributions to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. During these Spotlight Weeks, the museum is asking you to help reach its $40,000 goal! 50% of the donations made to the museum during a Spotlight Week will support the model railroad club that is featured. Give at https://www.sdmrm.org/donate
The Tehachapi Pass exhibit is in HO Scale, so one foot of the model represents 87 feet on the real railroad. It’s the most accurate model of the railroad between Bakersfield, CA and Mojave, CA that could be made to fit in the available space. Cars, engines, buildings and other details are constructed in exact HO scale, but because of space limitations, the model is “compressed” so that the mountains and the route of the railroad are between half and two-thirds of the size they would be if built to exact scale.
Keep your 👀 on our social media to learn more about this fascinating model railroad!
Need an idea to add to your weekend list of things to do? The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is open from 11am until 4pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Social distancing and face masks required at all times while visiting Balboa Park and the Museum.
Need an idea to add to your weekend list of things to do? The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is open from 11am until 4pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Social distancing and face masks required at all times while visiting Balboa Park and the Museum.
That's a wrap folks. In case you missed us today, we open Sunday, at 11am.
That's a wrap folks. In case you missed us today, we open Sunday, at 11am.
Don't forget to put us on your list of things to do this weekend. The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is open from 11am until 4pm Saturday and Sunday. Social distancing and face masks required at all times while visiting Balboa Park and the Museum.
Don't forget to put us on your list of things to do this weekend. The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is open from 11am until 4pm Saturday and Sunday. Social distancing and face masks required at all times while visiting Balboa Park and the Museum.
We're open until 4pm running in circles.
(Locomotives by Athearn and Rapido Trains)
The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is open to the public this weekend. Come visit us between the hours of 11:00am and 4:00pm. All visitors must wear face masks while in Balboa Park and at the museum.
The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is open to the public this weekend. Come visit us between the hours of 11:00am and 4:00pm. All visitors must wear face masks while in Balboa Park and at the museum.
Santa Fe Mail & Express Scoots Over Tehachapi - La Mesa Model Railroad Club
Santa Fe's ALCO PAs were a sight for sore eyes for the railfan, but not so much for train crews. From one train to the next, the PAs would roam the system re...
A little club, and PFE, history:
Digging around in the Covid Kit Kloset for my next project, I came across two PFE R-30-16 re**er kits I bought from the late Terry Wegmann years ago. Terry was a skilled and enthusiastic freight car modeler and La Mesa Club member. He noted that PFE had rebuilt over 3000 cars to the R-30-16 design, but that no kits were available to model this common wood-side re**er. The major missing piece was the steel roof, so Terry created the tooling for this roof, along with some corrected underframe parts, and offered the kit along with Red Caboose’s R-30-9 body under his Pacific Freight Enterprises name.
The roof installation required that the car body’s sub-ends be cut down 1/8” or so, as shown. Some styrene strip was supplied to fill a gap between the car end and roof. Other than that, assembly was mostly as described by the Red Caboose instructions. I had been wanting to try Star Brand paint, so I ordered some Daylight Orange and Boxcar Red and painted the sides and ends. I was very pleased with the paint. I planned to do the 1950 PFE paint scheme, with orange sides, black sills, and BCR ends, so I painted, then assembled to avoid some tricky masking. Decals were from Speedwitch. The kit went together well, and included Red Caboose T-section trucks, no longer available. I spoke with club member Jason Hill about these, and he suggested using Bowser wheelsets, which have longer axles than the common Intermountain wheels, and fit better in the trucks.
After PFE built the R-30-16 cars, they decided on using steel ends for the R-30-18 class. Terry tooled these ends also, and these cars were offered, as far as I know, only as built-up models from Intermountain. I have included a photo of both cars, side by side, to compare the ends.
I have included photos of the models in-process, and a couple of photos of Terry. Thanks to Terry for filling this gap in our PFE fleets!
Can’t go to the club? Build a model! This is a Proto 2000 Type 21 tank car. I’m lovin’ these Pan Pastels.
Due to more stringent county and statewide lockdowns, we are unsure when we will be able to provide additional live feeds. In the meantime please check our newsfeed for additional updates.
Be sure to check out this nifty YouTube channel as it features hours of La Mesa Model Railroad Club footage including images of the Pacific Coast Lines which was destroyed by fire in late 2019.
The San Diego Model Railroad Museum and the La Mesa Model Railroad Club's exhibit were featured in a recent KPBS news story describing the challenges we have faced due to pandemic related closure.
In this YouTube video SDMRM Director of Marketing & Community Engagement Katy Titus describes some of our programming and the creative steps taken to ensure continuity of revenue when we have not been able to welcome the public to visit in person. https://tinyurl.com/yxg27z85
Please consider a tax-deductible donation via https://sdmrm.org/donate to help maintain the museum's online outreach during the pandemic. Thank you for your consideration and support!
Hello Everyone!
Yesterday's live feed was a huge success. Scott Maase did a fantastic job interacting with each and every one of you answering your questions, feeding you with all sorts of great information regarding the club's history and construction in addition to Vic Yoder's live feed via YouTube. There was a smashing amount of participants. With that, we determined we will schedule another live feed in the coming weeks. We do take requests! We had a fan ask for Santa Fe ALCO PAs leading mail and express trains and more steam. With that, we aim to please and will not disappoint; (within reason of course).
We still want your feedback. If you are not comfortable responding in an open forum, send your query to us through a private message. Someone will respond as soon as they can. We want your opinions on camera angles, what other locations you would like to see and specific scenes and of course a little more on our history.
Be sure to to periodically check our newsfeed for the next scheduled live feed.
All the best. Take care of each other and be safe out there.
In just a bit we are about to go live via YouTube and here on the La Mesa Model Railroad Club page. Be sure to check your notifications. Check us out here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0T-PblgtbseI9zQTlcsLAA?view_as=subscriber
As some of you may have noticed, we've gone live (well, sort of)!
While the San Diego Model Railroad Museum is closed to the public, we have a dedicated group of members who tend to the La Mesa Model Railroad Club weekly. There are many preventative maintenance tasks that must be done to ensure the layout continues to be operational. This includes track cleaning, testing turnouts/cross-overs and the signal system. This requires trains to be operated when these tasks are complete. There is over 1600 feet of track. Track cleaning is a very time consuming but well worth the effort. We've also been able to expand and continue with some additional scenery and track work. Marcel is looking fantastic as well as the added track at Edison.
Since the museum is closed we thought we'd bring it to you. Be sure to have your notification settings programmed so that you are notified when we go live. If successful based on the amount of viewers, comments and responses we get, we may invest in stationary cameras at three or four locations so that you may view trains when we do operate. This would be an incentive for our fans across the globe to view trains run over the famous Tehachapi Loop. We have over 2200 fans and we would like more. Be sure to share our page to your family, friends and acquaintances. You never know, we just might have a few trains to show you tomorrow afternoon.
If you would like the La Mesa Model Railroad Club to have a regular live feed for you to view, let us know in the comments section below. Share your thoughts on this.
Important:
Due to the severity of Covid-19, we must adhere to mandated city, state, local and CDC guidelines while on the premises. We are only permitted so many members on site at any given time which requires a fair amount of communication to ensure safety and health are not compromised.
We will get through this pandemic together.
Best wishes to all of you and Happy Holidays.
1649 El Prado
San Diego, CA
92101
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