Thirty years on Tehachapi
Thirty years on Tehachapi? Depending upon the operating session, it also applies to the trains running over the La Mesa Club’s layout. Above, this traditional-era train blasting across Bealville Road at the town of the same name is about to bore into Tunnel 3 on its climb out of the Caliente Creek watershed into the less accessible portions of the Tehachapi Mountains, while jumping ahead three decades (below) provides a view of a stack train at the signals for Walong Siding. This siding runs between Tunnel 9 (the under- pass for the Loop) and Tunnel 10, and it took the club almost 30 years to get the track and scenery to this point. Even though the physical plant of the railroad represents the line in 1953 the anachronisms for today’s railroading are easily overlooked. Some sidings were extended by the SP to make double track sections, some tunnels were daylighted or by- passed, and lineside buildings have changed. Nevertheless, the scenes here are timeless.
be built above the yard at Mojave. This eliminated the duck-under and the wye on hinges. It also facilitated the adding of approximately six scale miles between Monolith and Mojave. Eric, Cameron crossover and the center siding at Warren could be in- cluded in a meaningful way, although the wye to turn westbound helpers at Eric was long gone by the 1950’s. The new plan creates a layout with approx- imately 27 scale miles of mainline track, and the scheduled time for a first class train approaches one and one-half hours for its entire run. (That is actual time, not a fast clock!) One thing that makes the double deck por- tion of the layout palatable is that vir- tually none of the track is visible to the public from the viewing aisle. It is mainly for operating sessions. The club’s obligation to keep trains running during museum hours, six and sometimes seven days a week, has ne- cessitated some additional design fea- tures. A number of “short loops” have been designed into the layout. They are short in the sense that they reduce the mileage that a train travels from one end of its trip to the other, thus mini- mizing the time trains are out of public view. The loops west of Ilmon and east of Cable can handle trains of 60 forty- foot cars and are essential for this pur- pose. Take the loop east of Cable, for example. If operators choose not to turn their train around at this point, the train would have to travel over 1,000 (real) feet of track to get back to Cable. And again, virtually none of this running would be visible to the public. The club has decided to go with a new material for benchwork: steel. Unistrut®
and tubular steel are readily
available locally from supply houses. The club has the capability to weld or bolt it together, and it is well suited for supporting a double deck layout. By last year steel was in place supporting Mojave, the Jawbone, east end staging and the roadbed for Marcel, Tunnels 14 through 17 and Cable.
Scenery is now complete for aban-
wye at Summit was on a hinged sec- tion. The club already had enough problems with a lift-up bridge at West Bakersfield and did not need more at Summit Switch. And third, the main- line mileage between Monolith and Mojave was on the order of one scale mile. On the prototype it is closer to 17 miles.
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It was back to the drawing board. A couple of alternatives were drawn up, and after months of deliberation the club finally made a decision. While most club members have a strong dis- like for double deck layouts, it was de- cided that everything east of Cable would be built on two levels. Thus, Tehachapi and Summit Switch would
doned Tunnel 4 east of Cliff, through Tunnels 7 and 8, at Walong, and the Loop. Traditional wood ribs, wire and plaster are being used. To give a little added strength, stucco wire has been substituted for chicken wire, and fiber- glass wallboard joint tape is included in the hardshell. The plan is to use in- sulating foam for a hill against the backdrop that extends out over the Al- lard horseshoe to reduce weight. Be- cause the Walong scene alone is larger than most home layouts, numerous ac- cess hatches have been incorporated into it. Door skin plywood has been used on the hatches where the terrain
MARCH 2012
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