The G&O Story (O Gauge Outdoors)

A nice job saving and restoring the depot.  The outdoor layout looks like it'll be a nice addition.  Will it be running year round?

John23,  The G&O is open every Saturday morning all year weather permitting.   You can get the club's schedule at:  SLHRS.org

Joe

Hi Folks,

These photos were taken on the G&O today, January 18, 2014, of the 49er Special traveling to Seattle for tomorrow's NFC championship game.  The K-Line cars are packed with 49er fans ready the cheer our team to victory.  The engine is a Weaver brass model.

Go 49ers, Beat the Seahawks!!!

Alright, it looks like it is nearly finished.  The pictures posted earlier gave me the impression that the permanent layout hadn't been started yet.  Looks great with the real rocks & plants.  Nice lighting too.

John23,  The G&O is not even close to being "finished" but we have come a long way since 2008.  I will be posting some more historical data and then bring the post up to the present.  I agree that we do have some very natural lighting.  Thanks for your interest in the G&O.   

Joe

It looks great!  I'm sorry the 49er fans had a quiet trip back to San Fran.

It reminds me of what some fellows did at my home town of Mars, Pennsylvania.  Yes that is not a typo.  When CSX wanted to demolish the 100+ year old Mars B&O freight station, the historical society secured property just off track side nearby, tore down the station and rebuilt it.  It looks great!  Last summer they built a loop of a large scale track (I guess the gauge is about a foot or so) and can carry passengers.  I can look up photos and the particulars if anyone is interested.

I will continue with the G&O Story.  Most garden railroads are built at or near ground level.  We wanted the G&O to be in a raised garden so that we wouldn't need to bend over to operate trains.  Building the raised garden took several years.  These photos were taken 2009 as we began construction of the raised display.

 Unloading cement from a trailer.  It was raining this day.

 Pouring cement into the forms one bucket at a time.

Pouring cement one shovel full at a time.

The forms are filled with cement.

The cement foundation after the forms were removed.

Starting the lay the concrete block wall.

Finished concrete block wall looking west.

Finished concrete block wall looking east.

Concrete block wall at the display entrance.  This is the future site of our water feature.

 This is far as construction progressed in 2009.  Our December holiday show was run on outdoor carpet with multiple temporary loops.

2010 saw additional construction of the G&O display walls, the laying of pavers in the yard area and the addition of more soil into the display.  Joe Winkel, Tom Blinn and John Bouey lay pavers while Ed Van Pelt offers encouragement. 

The children's layout was the first section of the display that was constructed.  Building this section of the layout was a learning experience for the entire G&O crew.  Nancy Norris is laying the rocks to support the track.

We are test laying the Atlas track in position.

Here is the trestle spanning the gorge.  The white area is cement board that will be site of a  future town.

We continued to bring in many truck loads of soil to fill the display site.  Tom Blinn operates the small front end loader.

Bill Alexander and John Bouey spread the soil through the display.

This a photo the mostly completed children's display.  The display has 2 loops of Atlas O track and one loop of G gauge track.  

This is the first O gauge train running on the lower loop.  The trestle holds!!!

2010 ended with children running trains on all 3 loops of the display.  The transformers are built so that they can be easily operated by youngsters.

Here is an overview of the O gauge area.  The town consists of ceramic buildings.  Santa Claus is fly around the Lionel airport tower.  Thomas circles on the top loop.  

Great story. Great work. How has the Atlas track held up over the course of the year?

Matt,  Thank you for your interest in the G&O.  The Atlas track has held up extremely well.  We haven't replaced any track in the children's display since it was laid in 2010.  I will intend to write a complete description of how we laid the Atlas track in a future post.

Joe

2011 was a momentous year for the G&O.  Since construction started in 2008 we were either lacking money or manpower or both to proceed with construction.  This slowed progress  throughout 2008, 2009, and 2010.  Both money and manpower became available in 2011 at the same time.  This allowed construction to proceed at a much faster pace.

One of the first and most difficult problems was to locate and build the electrical conduit for track and accessory power.  We did not really know where the track was finally going to be placed.  Here is the conduit before it was covered with tons of dirt and rock.  This conduit supports both the G and O lines.  We also had to put in the PVC water lines at this time for the future sprinkling systems.  These photos were taking in March 2011.

We also started construction of the yard area for both railroads.  The yard area is supported by pressure treated lumber with a top of pressure treated plywood.  The plywood was then covered with cement board.  We wanted to build a very strong and lasting base for the yard areas.  The is the G gauge yard area.  The O gauge yard will be 12 inches above the G gauge yard. 

This is the start of the O gauge yard.  The photo shows the pressure treated plywood before is was covered with cement board.

The G&O has a central canyon that is crossed with 4 bridges.  Two bridges are for the G line and two are for the O line.  All four bridges were built by G&O crew member John Bouey.  The arch bridge serves the O line.   It is patterned after a very famous bridge on U.S. Highway 1 south of Monterey, CA.  You have probably seen the real bridge in automobile commercials.  The bridge is built of redwood. 

This is the second O gauge bridge.  It is modeled after the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. John went the Golden Bridge management and got the actual paint that they use for the bridge.  The bridge is built from redwood.

You can also see the start of the O gauge yard at the far end of the bridge.  We put cement board both below and above the plywood sheet when building the yard.  The G gauge line runs live steam trains from time to time and we did want the bottom of the yard catching fire.   

Here is an overall view of the O gauge line with a temporary loop of Atlas track in place.  You can see the track coming out of the yard and crossing the arch bridge.  We also used standard interlocking wall stones to raise the O gauge line above the G gauge line.  The track is laid directly on top of the stone.  The bridge to the right of the white arch bridge is a beautiful wood truss bridge that was built by John Bouey for the G gauge line.

Here is a photo of the two G gauge bridges.  The one with temporary supports in the foreground will eventually be finished as a trestle.  The G&O named the the canyon "Bouey Canyon" to honor John's magnificent bridge work.   

This a photo of the temporary O gauge yard with the wiring.  We were using an MTH Z-1000 transformer connected to the MTH terminal strip to power trains.

Here is another photo of the the O gauge yard with the temporary wiring.  This wiring survived many rain storms.   The G gauge track is shown below.  

The Atlas track proved to be strong.  You can see that we ran trains on some very rough track that was supported only by air.  

Here is photo of the California Zephyr leaving the yard for a trip around the layout.  It is about to turn and cross the white arch bridge.  The engines are Williams and cars are K-Line.

This is another view of the CZ running on top of the wall blocks.  The electrical conduit can be clearly seen in this view.

We planned to construct a water feature for the G&O at the display's entrance.  This is the water feature's location at the east end of the display.  The water feature was designed and constructed by G&O crew member Nancy Norris. 

Here is photo showing the start of construction.  The water proof membrane is in place.  The membrane is supported by rocks on either side.  These photos were taken in June 2011.

Here is photo of the completed water feature with water running.  The water runs into a basin and is pumped back to the top.

The G gauge line reached the water feature first.  The temporary bridge is built from plywood supported by a redwood board in the center of the feature.  This bridge was replace in December 2013 with a trestle.  The O gauge line will not cross the water feature until 2012.  The water feature is named "Norris Falls" to honor its builder - Nancy Norris.

The G&O December 2011 was once again centered on the children's display.  You can see that the plants are starting to thrive.  We have three O gauge trains running.  The center train is a point to point trolley O gauge trolley.  The tunnel is by Marx.

Here another view of the children's display.  The train on the upper loop is by K-Line.  The lower loop has a Lionel dockside pulling K-Line Christmas cars.

This another view of the Christmas village.

The G&O also was running on the main display.  This is a Lionel Union Pacific engine pulling a long string of Lionel and MTH Christmas cars.   

2011 ended with the G&O having made a great deal of progress getting the display operating.  

Joe

Great photo's of the depot at it's original location. I vividly remember playing baseball as a kid at the park and watching all the trains go by as this was and still is a busy main line. I also rode my bike down a block to the old Western Pacific station that was torn down to build Bart. Thanks for the pictures

Thanks. I'm still considering building an outdoor layout.

Dandeo50,  Thanks for your reply.  Please stop by and see us sometime.  The G&O is open on Saturday mornings from about 10 to noon.   You can check out the SLHRS website at SLHRS.org for more information.   Joe

2012 was another busy year for the G&O.  Most of the temporary track was ripped out and we started to lay the permanent O gauge track.  Here is a photo of start of track laying in the O gauge Depot yard.  As I mentioned earlier, the yard is built with a pressured treated plywood sandwiched between a two layers of cement board.  The bottom layer of cement board is to prevent live steam G gauge engines from igniting the bottom of the plywood. The three layers can be seen in this photo.  The soil layer to the left will eventually be a part of the mountain line.  

The O gauge track finally reached Norris Falls and we needed to build a bridge.  This is a photo of Norris Falls before the start of construction.  You can see the two temporary G gauge bridges at the lower edge of the photo.  

Construction of the O gauge bridge was tricky because we had to deal with the real landscape and the trees which we were not going to move.

The G&O's bridge engineer for this project was crew member Jeff Zolfarelli.  Jeff used bender board for this bridge.  The bender board was cut in half and the two edges were fastened together will wood cross members.  The board was spray painted silver to resemble the Western Pacific's Kedie Wye bridge.

The bridge is supported by pressure treated lumber 2 X 4 boards  The crew used Atlas sectional track for all curves.  The minimum radius is O-72.

Here is a photo of the top of the bridge.

Erector set girders were used to simulate the bridge supports.  The railing is wire held in place with cotter pins.  This railing has prevented a couple of trains from spilling onto the rocks of Norris Falls.

Norris Falls is at the east end of the layout.  The west end of the display was also rebuilt during 2012.  You can still see the temporary O gauge track in this photo.

The entire end of the layout was ripped out.  

A mountain was built and the track was laid on crushed granite.  An actual railroad coupler and brake wheel were installed as part of the scenery.  This section of the display was named "Coupler Mountain" and "Coupler Curve".

The G&O used a piece of actual rail as a bridge.  This is Lionel Legacy engine powering a track cleaning train.  The track cleaning cars are from North East Trains.  The black hose is part of the irrigation system.  

The track cleaning train crossing a truss bridge at Coupler Curve.  This the the back side of Coupler Mountain.  

This is the junction between the mountain line and the coast line.  The long modern freight cars are being used to check track clearances.  

Here is a train coming around "Coupler Curve."

This a photo of Nancy Norris working on the G&O forest fire scene.

This is a house on fire.  A smoke machine provides the smoke for this scene.

This is the Coupler Mountain fire helicopter dropping water on the burning house.

Here is another view of the forest fire.

2012 ended with another holiday show.  This is a Lionel engine pulling a Christmas train.

Santa Claus visits the G&O.

The Christmas snow village.

2012 was another successful year.

A major goal for 2013 was to construct the mountain line at the east end of display.  This was difficult because the mountain line had to swing out over the G gauge line in order to maintain our O-72 minimum curve.  We also tried some new track laying techniques that I will describe in another post.

This a photo of the track.  Although it looks steep, the grade is only 3% to 4%.

This is the tunnel that Jeff Zolfarelli built to cross above the G gauge line.  

This is the other side of the tunnel.

The tunnel after some soil has been added.  The white tube is a PVC pipe for the future irrigation system.  

Here is a photo of one of the first trains to take the mountain division.  This photo was taken in July 2013.

This is photo of the side of the tunnel.  We want to keep the side open to have access for both the O gauge and G gauge track.

This is a photo of Nancy Norris firing up a G gauge live steam locomotive.

The back of the SP Depot that houses our club faces directly south.  The California sun during the summer can be brutal.  No one wanted to run trains in the sun.  The G&O crew installed a retractable sunshade to keep the operators out of the sun.  Here are a few photos of this installation.  

G&O crew member George Downs is attaching the awning to the side of the building with large bolts.

The awning is installed and rolled out.

Here is another photo of the extended awning.  This one issue that people who operate indoors do not have deal with.

This a picture of the two G gauge temporary bridges that cross Norris Falls.  The G&O contracted with the George Downs Construction Company to replace these bridges.  The bridges were replaced in November and December 2013.

This is the new Norris Falls G gauge bridge.  G&O crew member, George Downs, built in place from individual pieces of redwood.  This bridge is absolutely stunning.   

This is a photo of George alongside his bridge.

Here is a photo of the top of the bridge.

This is a photo of the bridge from the other direction.

George also rebuilt the O gauge sidings that were located above the G gauge track.  The O gauge mainline is to the left.

Here is a side view of the bridge that holds the two sidings. 

This is the top view of the sidings.  These sidings are used for locomotive storage during operating sessions.  

During the summer of 2013 we ran some trains for the Bay Area Garden Railroad Society (BAGRS).  I have included the next two photos because I like them.

I have finished all the previous posts with photos taken during the Christmas show.  This a Lionel engine pulling a mixture of Lionel and MTH cars.  

Here is the rest of the train.

This is the Christmas village.

Here is something different.  This a G gauge MTH triplex pulling a string of gondolas.  The gondolas are filled with Christmas bows.

The G&O completes another year.

2014 began on the G&O with a run of the Coast Daylight.  These photos were taken January 1, 2014.   This is a photo of the Daylight leaving the arch bridge across Bouey Canyon.

The engine is a Williams brass Southern Pacific GS-4 class.  The daylight cars are by MTH.

This a conventional engine and we are using MTH's Z4K tracks to control it in conventional mode. 

This is the Daylight crossing the Norris Falls bridge.  This bridge will be replaced in 2014 with a more realistic bridge.  

Here is a view of the rear of the train.

This is the train crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Daylight has crossed the Golden Gate and is passing the junction for the mountain line.  The train will stay on the coast line.

 This is the Daylight rounding Coupler Curve.  Coupler Mountain is in the background.

Here is a photo of the mountain division as Daylight passes on the coast line.

The Daylight enters the tunnel.

The G&O does have a reversing loop and runs trains in both to and from San Francisco.

This a photo of N&W Class A pulling the Daylight.  The locomotive is being leased by the G&O.  The Class A is a Lionel engine that is controlled by TMCC.

This is a fairly good tour of the G&O as it exists in January 2014.  The G&O crew has many exciting projects to share with forum members this year.  I hope that you are enjoying The G&O Story.  

Joe

The SLHRS and G&O had a very successful train show last weekend (March 8 & 9, 2014).  The G&O was designed as a public display to promote the model railroading hobby.  The display operates both O and G gauge trains.  The layout has a children's area where kids can hands on experience running trains.  Here are a few photos from last weekend.

This is a photo of the San Leandro Depot.  The Depot houses the SLHRS railroad museum and the club's large HO scale layout.





The following photos were taken of the children's layout.











This is an O gauge train running on the main display.  The train is controlled uses TMCC.












This is a G gauge Challenger by MTH.




An O gauge train.



Here are some photos of the MTH G gauge Triplex.

Really fantastic effort and great to see everyone working together to produce such a great layout...Please keep it going!

Sam E.

Here are some photos from the G&O's summer train show last weekend - June 14 & 15, 2014.  Most of these photos were taken at the children's layout where we encourage kids to run the trains.

The theme of the children's layout changes for every show.  The theme of this show was the carnival.

This is the control panel for the children's layout. 

 Children running trains.

 The carnival.

The G and O gauge staging yards.

This is CA firefighting scene.  The fire fighters are trying to save the house from the forest fire.  The smoke is from a Halloween fog machine.

A SP train on the train on the coast line.  The engine is Lionel and the cars are MTH.

An UP train climbs the mountain line.  The engine is Lionel.  The cars are Williams.

Joe, This is a really great layout. I have to get over there some time and check it out. Redwood City is not that far of a drive.

One question, please. Does TMCC work well on the layout? Sometimes it can be a challenge to get TMCC to work out of doors, as there sometimes is insufficient ground (third wire) presence.

What a great story & tremendous layout. An awful large amount of work went into this. You should all be very proud.

Royboy,

TMCC works like a champ on most days.  It worked well during the entire show.  We are still working to get DCS to an acceptable level.

We have a work crew at the G&O every Wednesday morning from about 10 to noon.  Then we do lunch.  You are welcome to join us.  The G&O is also open on Saturday from about 10 to noon.

 Let me know when you can come and I will give you a tour.  I am retired so I have a fairly flexible schedule.

Joe

Very impressive, looks like a lot of fun to operate. 

Here are some photos from the G&O Fall train show held Sept. 20 & 21, 2014.

Looks like drug tests around for the folks involved in that accident. 

Art

The G&O was open for Halloween on Tuesday, October 28.  We enjoyed the trains while cheering for the Giants to win the World Series in six.  Alas, the G&O put on a better show than the Giants Tuesday evening.   The Giants came back the next night to win the World Series - Go Giants.

Here are some photos of the G&O Halloween show:

What a beautiful layout.

The San Leandro Historical Railway Society held its annual winter show the weekend of December 13 and 14, 2014.  Here are a few photos taken on December 14.

Joe

You guys are having WAY too much fun up there. Good job. 

Major work continued on the G&O throughout 2014.  The most significant change to the display took place in October when the G&O spent considerable capital and time to daylight the G gauge tunnel under Coupler Mountain and significantly improved the O gauge line around Coupler Curve and through Coupler Gap.  

This is a view shortly after the G gauge line had been tunneled under Coupler Mountain in 2012.  The O gauge line had just be laid through coupler gap.  The O gauge route through Coupler Curve had not yet been started.  This photo shows the City of SF as it slowly moves through Coupler Gap.  The G gauge tunnel is clearly visible.

 The next photos show the original construction of the route around Coupler Curve.  We used a piece of railroad rail to bridge the dry wash.  The bridge spanning the G gauge line was from forum sponsor American Made Steel Bridges and was assembled in 3 sections.

This is a photo of the backside of Coupler Mountain.  It shows the original bridge spanning the G gauge line. 

 The next photos show Coupler Mountain and Curve as they existed until October 2014.

Starting in October 2014, the G gauge tunnel was day lighted.  It had become a maintenance problem.  The O gauge track alignment through Coupler Gap and around Coupler Curve were upgraded at the same time.  More work still needs to be done.  Here are photos of this area as it exists today.

Merry Christmas Everyone.   Joe

This looks very impressive - must visit!

My compliments to the author and all those involved in preserving, not only a piece of railroad history, but taking the time to create a whole new railroad in scale inside the old depot. Absolutely fabulous and a true testimony to our love affair with trains. Both real and in scale.

Really nice.

Pete

Yesterday evening, December 30, 2014, was very windy here in the SF Bay Area.  Many trees came down including a large eucalyptus that was located just to the left of the San Leandro Historical Railway Society Depot.  The tree crashed onto both the Depot and the Norris Falls water feature of the G&O railroad.  No one was hurt and the damage to the Depot does not appear to be significant.  

We won't know the extent of the damage to the G&O until the tree is removed by the City of San Leandro.  The tree belongs to the City as it is in Thrasher Park.  

The G&O crew will be getting out the Lionel TMCC cranes and working to get both the G and O gauge lines running again as soon as possible.  Watch for more posts as we repair the line.

This was a very big New Year's surprise.  Here are some  photos that i took this morning.

That's a shame, what a mess.  Hope there isn't as much damage as it looks like there is.

Art

As much as I am on here how did I miss this great thread?  I am so sorry to first see it after the fallen tree damage.  I am certainly glad no one was hurt!  I will keep up with the latest developments and go back to the beginning of the thread to read through and look at all the wonderful photos.

A powerful wind storm hit the San Francisco Bay Area on December 30, 2014.  Among the many trees that were blown over was a large eucalyptuses tree that hit the Depot that houses the San Leandro Historical Railway Society (SLHRS) and the G&O Garden Railroad.  We were fortunate that the Depot received only relatively minor damage and the SLHRS could continue to function.  The G&O also had relatively minor damage considering that it took a direct hit.  The damage could have been much worse.

The tree belonged to the City of San Leandro.  City crews removed the tree in early January 2015.  Here are some photos.

The tree landed directly on Norris Falls - the G&O's water feature.  We were fortunate that the G gauge bridge only suffered minor damage that was repaired in a day.  The O gauge bridges weren't as lucky.  A trestle and the O gauge Norris Falls bridge were destroyed.  They will be replaced.

G&O crews began rebuilding the O gauge Norris Falls bridge two weeks ago.  A temporary bridge has been erected and tested for clearances using a Lionel VL Big Boy.  This bridge will be used as the template for the permanent bridge.  

The G&O crews have a target date of April 1 to get the line back in operation.

Work on rebuilding the O gauge Norris Falls Bridge continues.  

Work continues on rebuilding bridges.  These photos were taken March 14, 2015 and show the rebuilt G gauge bridges spanning Bouey Canyon being installed.