Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

The last Friday of the month traditionally is Operations Night at Silicon Valley Lines. The regular positions were all assigned and the railroad ran well, so I got to run train #444 Windsor to Jasper Jct with some switching chores in Silicon and Nowheres. I haven't run this train in a while and had a lot fun. Above SP 4837 leads train across the high bridge at Mt. Nickolls National Monument. 45 minutes later switching is behind us and train #444 is cruising through Mt. Marvel on the way down the loop to Jasper Jct. While this was a modern session, the Tracy Historical Railroad Society operated an excursion train from Tracy to Bayshore and back with their recently restored steam engine 1234. It created quite some excitement in cities and towns along the route, as well as kept the dispatcher on their toes. The switching job at the Hallelujah Papermill had their hands full tonight. Here's a manifest freight passing the papermill at speed on the mainline.

It's just before 6pm. Sunset on Coyote Creek Trail. A little bit further down the trail I spot turkeys in the bushes. As I cross the Bernal Rd bridge, I see a light in the distance. It's Caltrain 262 on the way to Gilroy.

This afternoon I participated in a panel discussion about "Overcoming Obstacles" in model railroading, live-streamed on Youtube by TSG multimedia. You're welcome to watch the recording at the link above. The historic Santa Clara Depot was a great venue for our discussion. The South Bay Historic Railroad Society maintains two layouts in the freight room, there's a library, and lots of local railroad artifacts.  I very much enjoyed the control panel from the San Jose Cahill St station, known today as "Diridon Station". Here are a couple behind the scenes photos from the recording session today. The recording took place in the meeting area of the depot. What you couldn't see in the recording: My view from the panel seat. Thank you, Cydney and John for hosting the discussion today. Once we all settled in a bit, I had a lot of fun.

Primer and first coat of sky blue paint on the backdrops for Untergroeningen. The layout lighting is not connected at the moment, so I took the photos below only with the garage lights on. However, even with that limited light, I'm very happy with how the the scene looks very different already . Since I had the paint out already, I also painted the background panels for Slim Staging. These panels close up the sides when the yard is packed away. Now I just need something to protect the top.

Today I operated on Dave Loveless' Monterey Branch. I ran several trains in this TT&TO session, passengers and freights moved, and 10 visitors were busy throughout the day. Dave models the Southern Pacific Coast line between Gilroy and Salinas with combined staging representing San Jose and King City, as well as the branch line from Castroville to Monterey and Pacific Grove. Since that areas is just south from where I live, the locations are very familiar. One of the benefits of prototype modeling. In the picture above I'm running the Gilroy Local. The wide shelf in front of the station is very useful for sorting car cards. I should keep throttle and paperwork there as well, instead of following bad habits and putting them in the station parking lot. Here's my clearance issued in Watsonville. To stretch time and compensate for lack of distance between towns there are markers between towns on the the mainline like the one below indicating that one needs to stop here her...

There are a bunch of neat details for model railroaders in this photo taken during the morning rush hour at Caltrain's 4th & King station. The red end of track lights. The blue light lanterns. The rolled up power cables and respective switch box in the rear. The differences in ballast before and below the bumpers. The weathering of the bumpers. The pack of bottled water stored on the ground. ... What jumps out at you?