An amazing afternoon at the San Luis Obispo, CA RR Museum!

Nice museum.....thanks for the pics!

Peter

I didn't know San Luis Obispo had a R.R. Museum! I love the town and we frequent the Monterey Bay Aquarium a lot. Next time I will make it a point to stop in. Thanks!

I can add a little info about the model railroading stuff there.  The HO and HOn3 model railroads that are in sort of an upper level of the museum.  The HOn3 layout is in the smaller room and represents the Pacific Coast Railway in the 1930's.  The large HO layout is the Southern Pacific in the Central Coast of California as it looked in the early 1950's.  The HOn3 actually makes its way onto the HO layout all the way to San Luis Obispo like the prototype.  I am a museum member and primarily involved in the HO and HOn3 layout projects.

For example, I built the sugar beet gondolas you see many of in one photo.  There are 8 of them unweighted with drop doors lowered for display only and 40 that are weighted for operation.  I made them from the old Detail Associates kits which are VERY tedious to build.  And then made modifications to get them from featherweight plastic to nearly the NMRA weight standard.  They have a long tungsten bar in the air space in the centersill (weight not visible), a number of small tungsten cubes hidden in places that can't be seen, and I cast the drop doors out of metal to replace the plastic ones.  So, the doors are weight hiding in plain sight.  Most folks use seeds and/or grains of some sort to simulate the sugar beets or perhaps use a Chooch cast load once made.  I made them one by one out of air-hardening clay and colored them with stains and paint.  This not only keeps them from looking like seeds and/or grains, but is also not appealing to any small critters that might infest the place.  It took about a quarter million of them.  I made them while watching TV anyway so the time was actually free sort of like somebody sitting there doing knitting.  The loads are all removable and, with the weighting, an empty train tracks beautifully.

Also, in 2020 the museum received a grant from the Bank of the Sierra to make a display for children and for "outreach".  The museum wanted a small and portable toy train layout.  I took on the entire project because everything involved was "in my wheelhouse" and due to Covid I needed to work alone anyway.  That is the 4x8 children's layout with Lionel FasTrack and LionChief trains you see in some of the photos.  The design was meant to have a "museum" look to it with the dark wood and pedestal base.  Also, the base, being recessed, doesn't snag feet like the usual four-legs-in-the-corners scheme does.  And it provides a place for storage for everything related to the layout (spare trains, parts, and felt protective covers for transport).  And it has an area for the electronics and another area to store a 35-foot power cord.  And a solid base design prevents anybody from trying to store things under the layout.  The corners are curved plywood for safety since the layout is collocated with the wood toy train layouts for the very young and they run around a lot.  The layout is actually rather complex in construction to keep it light for portability.  The top separates from the base.  The design has a lot of bracing and other parts with lightening holes such that the top weighs only about as much as a sheet of 3/4" plywood.  The base only slightly more.  People on this list might like to know that this "children's toy train layout" is enormously popular.

That's an interesting museum, and the SP model railroad is excellent!

And those beet gons . . . They look very realistic.  I must have seen several thousand of them go past with everything from Black Widow F-units through multiple SD9's to later model locomotives, during my youth and young adulthood.  They were a trademark of SP California freight service.  Thanks very much to you and all others who worked to bring about such a realistic SP model railroad.

Another interesting museum missed.  Thanks for posting, and all your contributions to it.

@Number 90 posted:

That's an interesting museum, and the SP model railroad is excellent!

And those beet gons . . . They look very realistic.  I must have seen several thousand of them go past with everything from Black Widow F-units through multiple SD9's to later model locomotives, during my youth and young adulthood.  They were a trademark of SP California freight service.  Thanks very much to you and all others who worked to bring about such a realistic SP model railroad.

I've also seen many trains also passing through San Luis Obispo and nearby.  But all that I saw were after the extended sides were added.  In the museum railroad's time period, the extensions had not yet been added.  And the lettering scheme was the original scheme which didn't last long after our time period.  The museum has an actual car with extended sides on display.  Here it is being transported to the museum.

This museum is a gem for us locals. They have worked hard to put this together. The layout is a great representation of the SP Coast route.

@Chuck K. nice modeling work and great idea for the children's layout.  @stangtrain- Thanks for posting, although Ca is a long way from home, I like to see the museum's that are available to the public.  Great pictures.

Best Wishes

Don