She'll be comin' round the mountain....

One of the great pictures of The Goat with a few covered wagons and F-unit

Working on my version of the New River trestle...

Something new from the web on my SDAE search

San Diego Union Newspaper, July 17, 1950 full page add

Reasons for abandonment of passenger service on the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway

No doubt you have read recent magazine and newspaper reports on countrywide railroad losses from passenger service.

A great deal of this loss is due to the operation of trains that are really not needed, if the amount of public patronage is any criterion. In other words, the development of railroad passenger services which are popular is burdened and handicapped by losses from passenger services which the public does not use.

The losses are a burden on freight service, too, and shippers are be coming restive.
This general subject now becomes specific to the residents of San Diego served by our subsidiary, the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway Company.

The operation of passenger service over this line has resulted in heavy losses over the years. They are now so burdensome that they can no longer be absorbed, and we are now asking for public authority to discontinue passenger service over the line.

Based on present patronage the operation of the passenger trains Nos. 362 and 363 between San Diego and El Centro (and Calexico) is resulting in an out-of-pocket loss of approximately $300,000 per year. This does not consider any return on the heavy investment, or taxes.

Plaster City and US Gypsum Part 2

I am still working how I will place US Gypsum into my portion of Plaster City on The El Centro Branch of The Southern Pacific's Yuma Division or the old SD&AE. This plant is so huge, I have to decide if some of it will go on the backdrop, all of it or model portions of it. The San Diego Model Railroad Club on their SD&AE layout have a few small buildings as Plaster City. Some of the tower building and tanks can be scratch built and I know I can incorporate some of the structures I have. I know my Walthers N ADM Grain Elevator will end up as part of US Gypsum. The fine part is getting it all together and then dusting it white.

Plaster City and US Gypsum

There are so many buildings, tanks and manufacturing units, I have no idea how I can model these? In the plan from Tom, that David refined, I have a three track arrangement coming into the plant from the mainline. I would love to have the center beams loading and shipping and the incoming covered hoppers and ACF Center Flows.

Think I'm just gonna jump in and go through my structures and she what I can do to kit bash and mash this all together.

New River cut out of foam PT. 2

So a fellow modeler on RAILWIRE offered me the parts to a Heljan trestle set. It has a curved deck and the tall bents can be bashed into smaller ones.  So Tom on Trainboard sends me the picture last month and the picture is actually The Holtville Interurban (Holtville Branch) bridge coming into Holtville. Are they the same bridge? Like it matters I'm building it on a curve.


This is so cool, modeling on a shoe string budget. The kit has a ton of stuff:

If I can make this work, it will be grand.