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The Morada Belt Railway


or two for our layout, had contacted Pat Davis to get curvature and clearance dimensions of our layout. With that in- formation in hand, Jim went to work assembling not one but two curved wa- tersheds for the Morada Belt. He shipped them to arrive as a surprise birthday present and both have been a welcome addition to the railroad.


Tequila Shiela’s


The origin of our popular Junction City hangout, Tequila Shiela’s, is a story in itself (actually, two stories). Shirley and I regularly attend the annual Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society conventions. At the 2011 gather- ing, Steve Phillips came up to greet us and get his customary hug from my wife. However, instead of calling her “Shirley,”


he blurted out


Commissioner back in her high school days, started a singles activity group in her home town of Turlock, California.


Having created a medium for events such as river raft trips and other sim- ple gatherings, Shirley went to the lo-


SP extra 4137 (above left) prepares to pass through the watershed just east of Lake Davis siding. WP modeler (and BNSF engineer) Jim Pendley of Ellensburg, Washington, built a pair of these structures for the Morada Belt based on the prototype Tunnel 12, which once stood in the Feather River Canyon. The smaller of the two watersheds sits deep in the river canyon, midway through the first helix (above right). A Pacific Motor truck eases it way past CCT 70-tonner No. 30, which is sitting at the end of the street track in Junction City (below) as an SP eastbound manifest approaches the crossing.


“Shiela.”


Shiela? Who’s Shiela? Red-faced, Steve acknowledged his moment of “mental flatulence,” at which point I turned to my curly-coiffed wife and said, “Well, Honey, I guess you’re no longer Curly Shirley. From now on you’ll be known as Tequila Shiela.” Pat Davis, who was with us at the convention, suggested Steve’s faux pas live on in infamy, albeit in 1:87 scale, and made the appropriate decals on his computer. Part two of the story dates back to the early 1990’s when Shirley, a Social


46 JANUARY 2014


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