Working on the Railroads – North County

Spring projects are plentiful on the central coast. CCCGRS members are adding details to existing landscapes, breaking ground on their first layout, or even building a second layout – in one case, just for the challenge!

Here we have assembled a few updates from the northern San Luis Obispo county. In a separate post, we have included updates from Arroyo Grande and Santa Maria.

We cannot wait to see these new additions to member layouts in person!

While you are here, we encourage you to browse around the website. A number of features have been added to existing pages for your information and enjoyment, including more details about The Conejo and Tortuga Railroad and Cascade Peak & Buena Vista Railway.

Take a second trip around The Conejo And Tortuga Railroad, this time in an anti-clockwise direction. This onboard imagery show more of the layout, details and operations on Bernie’s Paso Robles layout (B. Meister, image).
Plastic bird feeders styled as a house, church, and schoolhouse sourced online are just the right size for a cliffside community on the Conejo and Tortuga Railroad (B. Meister, image).
Adding realism to the scene, Bernie scratch built, freehand a multiflight staircase allowing foot traffic movement between the community and the station below. The styrene materials for the staircase were purchased directly from Plastruct (https://plastruct.com) (B. Meister, image).
The right tools for the job. Jesse Soto made fast work of laying the first trackwork on his Paso Robles layout with tools on loan from other CCCGRS members (J. Soto, image).
The use of both brass and aluminum rail is seen in this construction view of the Soto layout. Locomotives will be powered with on-board batteries (J. Soto, image)
After less than a day with a dual rail bender, a gentle “S” curve takes shape on Jesse Soto’s layout passing through a cut in the topography (J. Soto, image).
Panning left of the ol’ trestle we see the beginnings of life in The Living Desert, Diamond lathe sheaths the block wall to support decorative desert rockwork (M.S. Edwards, image)
An unpainted geyser cone is shown next to desert rockwork. The prototype is shown in the inset. Both hand cast concrete pieces will become features in The Living Desert (M.S. Edwards, image)