I have 15 old freight cars, along with a batch of new trucks and couplers, that I had intended to work on during the super bowl, but the game was too exciting. So there sits some of my oldest equipment (up to 50 years old): Athearn, Model Die Casting, Ulrich, and even a Varney. Wait to next weekend!
They're all 40 foot cars, which fits the scenario I am developing in proto freelancing a layout design. The railroad will be from the CA coast at Ventura/Oxnard, trackage rights with SP up the coast 15 miles, to Rincon, then inland and over the mountains to the Bakersfield area of CA's Central Valley. Motive power will be short wheelbase steam and 4 axle diesel due to grades and curves. Customers will be local agriculture and oil with products going out, ag and oil raw materials and chemicals in, lumber and building materials in for the post WWII building boom, and bridge route/ alternative route for SP and maybe SF traffic to Southern California. Grades and curves are more severe than Tehachapi, but route miles are much less. The line will also serve the deepwater port of Hueneme, although I don't have room for port operations, just interchange. There may be an around-the-perimeter sea level route for SP trains up and down the coast, if I can fit it in.
The inclusion of a Santa Fe connection at the Central Valley is all the more interesting due to the less than congenial history SP and SF have had thoughout the development of rail routes in California. As I develop the history of my might-have-been line, some interesting stories could be written.
The room is 10.4 x 12.4 feet. A 2 x 6.5 feet closet at one end will hold staging yard(s), storage, and work bench areas. I'm looking at either an around three walls with a lift-up at the door, or (as is noted in the disussion forum thread on "Background" Helix) a "C" plan with a narrow 24 inch aisle on one long wall, to add run length on the back side. I have been following the Helix discussion to see if I can add a level to increase run length and distance between towns, but avoiding plans with just spaghetti cris-crossing scenes is difficult.
I have a CAD plan of the room with a 12" grid and some circles of different main radii, but I work better with pencil (and eraser) on that basic background plan, so no CAD track plan exists, yet.
Major stops (LDE's, if you want)
-the terminal and SP connection in Oxnard, with lots of industrial service. Oxnard today has trackage wandering around the strangest places. industry, agri warehouses, sugar beets, cement wholesaler with rail service. Interchange with the port off-scene.
-Ventura: branch to oil refineries, and cattle pens and agriculture warehouses.
-Coast north of Ventura: coastal cliff running, and the Occidental refinery.
-turning in off the coast up the rincon creek valley at "County line".
-over the mountains: cattle, feed crops, then oil fields around Taft.
-connection with the SP and SF via the "Sunset Railway."
Trains:
a hauler the length of the line each way, each day
local that alternates days up the Ventura branch and up the coast
local switcher - every day
SP through freights, mostly lumber for the SoCal building boom.
passenger run each way, alternate days, with a 2-8-0 or RS-3 with two or three 60 ft. harriman cars: there is where the track plan and scenery need to disguise the overhangs on outside curves-- we'll see!
Don - CEO, MOW super.
Rincon Pacific Railroad, 1960. - Admin.offices in Ventura County
HO scale std. gauge - interchanges with SP; serves the regional agriculture and oil industries
DCC-NCE, Rasp PI 3 connected to CMRI, JMRI - ABS searchlight signals
