New video

New backdrop

This was quite a process to get the mountains right. I took ten-eleven pictures in a row parked on the first off ramp after the climb from the desert floor to The Desert Tower. Back when it was the old US 80 there was a garage there. Mountain Springs is the area. I used these pictures in the first backdrop and wasn't happy with the outcome. Last weekend my grandson and I cut out the pictures I printed at work (shhhh) and I didn't put them in order, I used the pics, but mixed them up. I cut them to seam them and rubber cemented them to the backdrop. Couldn't be happier with the results this time around. The pictures are all on the blog, a few months ago. Here's a link to the In-Ko-Pah area on I-8 (then US 80).

http://gbcnet.com/ushighways/80pics_d.html

Nothing like The SO CAL Desert!

I was watching Huell Howser last night and he was touring Anza Borrego State Park which takes up 70 miles North to South and 30 miles East to West in San Diego County. We know the area as kids growing up and going on grand Sunday drives out to Julian and down the canyon to Anza Borrego. As I became interested in the modeling process of The San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railroad, a little known fact, the line skirts the far Southern tip of the park in Dos Cabezos. I hope to make it down this Spring to see the wildflowers in March and also to see Dos Cabezos.

Patrick and me made a new backdrop for Coyote Wells

1983 When Men at Work was a new group

Grandkids running SD&AE

Don't take any wooden trestles?

The Imperial 1950

San Diego's original railroad outlet to the East was via the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; during the "railroad wars" of the 1880s a locally chartered company, the California Southern, constructed a line from San Diego north through Temecula Canyon to San Bernardino, where it was met by Santa Fe crews constructing a line over Cajon Pass west from Barstow. The first through train to the East would depart San Diego on November 16, 1885.

However, the line through Temecula proved untenable. The canyon was subject to severe flash floods; indeed, even before the link to the Santa Fe had been completed the California Southern had been shut down for a nine month period due to flood damage. After the Santa Fe had secured entrance to Los Angeles by their purchase of the Los Angeles & San Gabriel Valley railroad in early 1887, a branch was constructed southward from Los Angeles along the coast to San Diego and the line through Temecula was abandoned.

But San Diego backers did not easily give up on their hopes of a direct outlet to the East. If building to the north through Temecula had proved impractical, what about the south? And so the San Diego & Arizona Railway was born. Some engineers of its day referred to it as "The Impossible Railroad" due to the logistic challenges involved. But the road was built south through Mexico and eastward to a connection with the Southern Pacific at Calexico; following financial troubles in the Great Depression it was reorganized as the San Diego & Arizona Eastern under control of the Southern Pacific.


http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track9/extras/sdaeterm195103.pdf

Random Thoughts

With my daughter and her family in North San Diego County, I am hoping to plan a trip down there in March and then off to Campo, Coyote Wells, Plaster City and El Centro. I need to take some pictures of the area and I have to see the raised stations. I still can't believe The ONION PACIFIC tore down those old colonaide depots there. I would love to spend some time at the PSRM in Campo and really get a handle for the railroad. I will keep you posted. I have a long three day weekend (This weekend) and plan to get some work done on the layout.

Campo, Tecate and barking dog

We're back....

Sorry posts have been rare lately, been real busy with work and my wife
lost her job a few weeks ago. Been kind of tied up. Ready to get back
at it.