Who's model railroad is this anyway?
It's usually someone's basement or garage layout where you'd see something approaching the features in this photo. Of course, talk of another adventure next summer caused the brain to think about last summer. Snow and slush outside also caused a longing for warm and sunny days, gone by in this case.
Who doesn't recognize Tehachapi Loop built by the Southern Pacific Railroad in California? It's been well documented by magazines, videos, books and other railroad enthusiast literature. Of course there's nothing like visiting there live. Local Maine Central Railroad expert and author George Melvin and his wife Kathy were recently moved enough to write and publish "Tehachapi Today". The resulting book is a "must own" for anyone going there, or anyone who's been there! The maps and photos would have been helpful to our visit, but they will be useful for a triumphant return.
What really prompts the time put into writing all this is the unique features found in this one photo. Here you get to see the whole train spiral around itself. This feature is itself apparent with the help of the stark contrast of many white trailers on all of the cars in the picture. The train was heading upgrade and the power had just passed along with the non-trailer cars on the point. The train was well beyond sight still behind the scene below the tunnel. If I was a few feet higher you'd see another line of trailers on the rear of the train snaking around to the right. This type of thing is usually limited to model railroads and of course this was all built before modern machinery in the real world. And, how many of you could get this many cars to stay on this track design on a model railroad? "Stringlining" anyone? I'm sure a few people out there have that many cars and trailers along with the savvy to make it work.
The last feature that makes this unique and model-like is the scenery. For one thing, it's very open. You can see the loop. The Williams Loop on the old Western Pacific farther north is buried in trees. The scenery near Tehachapi is also relatively simple. Brown colors and a few lumps of vegetation. Not too difficult to create on a layout. Of course the complete view would be tough to duplicate, but the scene nearer the tracks is a bag or two of lichen away from done once the
plaster dries. Boy did we have fun with that thought on this trip!
BC
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