Fireworks

 Electrical Arcing at the Southern California Railway Museum.

The track was relocated but the overhead hadn't been yet. So the brakeman had to try and guide the trolley wheel. But when the wheel left the wire, fireworks ensued.

One thing the video didn't capture was the brilliant green color of the arching: 

Enjoy the fireworks and have a happy 4th of July.

Yes sir! Happy 4th of July!

Dandy

Bungalow Row

A Suburban Neighborhood Module Designed For The Southern California Traction Club Layout.

Since the old SCTC modular layout was a continuous loop, adding a module to one side of the layout required another module of the same length on the opposite side. So by adding the Tarnation Module to the industrial side of the layout, a companion module would be needed for the suburban side of the layout. So I designed this:

Bungalow Row. A standard 2'x4' double track traction module.

Nothing fancy in the way of trackwork. Just the standard double-track on a private right-of-way on the center divide of a boulevard. 

This postcard of a neighborhood in Pasadena, California with the Pacific Electric tracks down the center of the street has the look and feel I wanted to capture with this module.

A couple of narrow residential streets like this intersect the main boulevard.

These streets would be populated with various styles of craftsman homes.

To break-up the grid pattern a bit and as added interest, a dry wash cuts through the module at an angle. This would allow for a short wood pile trestle for the tracks and a couple concrete bridges for the boulevard.

I would have like to have included this passenger shelter on the module, but I just wasn't able to get it to fit. Too bad, that would have been a nifty detail.

The Models

There are some pretty decent models of bungalow style houses available out there:

Barbs Bungalow by Atlas could be built up into a really beautiful house.

Alpine Division (old Suydam) has a couple of rather nice craftsman kits of Craftsman style houses. With a lot of work, these could be built up to look great.

Woodland Scenic's Granny's House, all built up and ready to go.

 Rix even offers a couple of houses that could be built up into some pretty decent models.

Speaking of Rix, they offer this overpass that would be perfect for boulevard crossing over the dry wash.

The tracks would cross the wash on these trestle bents by Grand Central Gems.

AMB LaserKits even offers the Pacific Electric style passenger shed seen in the prototype photo earlier in this post. I would love to fit this in!

But alas... the SCTC has taken on a fresh new direction rendering this module obsolete. But the module could conceivably be redesigned to fit the new layout. So maybe there's life in this after all! Yes sir! Maybe there is some life in this after all!

Dandy

Boulevard Streetlamp / Line Poles

Attempting To Build A Working Combination Streetlamp / Linepole!

 Well here it is, a fresh 3D print from i.Materialize. But this is only the beginning. This print can't be used on the layout because one: I believe the "Prime Gray" material would be too brittle for the tensions of the overhead, and two: I want these lamps to light up. So this fella will be the "master". A rubber mold will be made from this print that all the other lamps will be cast from. But I digress...

As detailed in a previous post, each of the 6 streets feature distinct line poles. The 1920s era street pictured above is to have Boulevard streetlamps that double as line poles. Right now I have temporary wooden poles that are planted beyond the sidewalks until the streetlamp locations and hole size to be drilled in the sidewalks are determined. But for now, the temp poles are fouling where the building are going to be placed. So these lamps have become the priority project.

 San Diego didn't have these kind of poles but our neighbor to the North was kind of fond of them. The Pacific Electric sported these kind of poles in a few cities. This one was in Long Beach.

The San Diego Electric Railway attached their overhead directly to the adjacent buildings, thus clearing the streets of unsightly linepoles. But I don't want to attempt to deal with attaching the overhead of my layout to model buildings. So I thought I would try modeling these Boulevard Lamp Post / Line Poles (I really wish I knew what these were called!) instead. Besides, they look cool! 

Years ago I fabricated a couple of these lampposts out of brass. But they were very difficult to build and highly time consuming. There are so many small parts that trying to solder one part melts the joints of the other parts. Frustrating. So the project languished until either my soldering skills improved, or I thought of a better way of building these, or some sort of miracle happened.

Well wouldn't you know? A miracle happened! In the form of 3D Printing! Building this lamp with a 3D program is WAY easier than building it with brass. And a lot faster. I modeled this with 3DS Max.

My lamp design is a hybrid of San Diego style Boulevard steetlamps and the Los Angeles linepole streetlamps.

I'm pleased with how the print turned out. The lamp had to be designed with the 1mm minimum thicknesses required for 3D Printing. But I believe the level of detail is just right for HO scale.

Now comes making a silicone mold from this lamp. This will be a new adventure for me. Yes sir! This will be a new adventure!

Dandy

SDERy Niles Cars

With their signature arched windows (even the clerestory windows were arched!), cars built by the Niles Car & Manufacturing Co. were actually a rarity in Southern California. But six of them, built in the "California Car" style with an enclosed "all weather" section in the center and two open sections on the ends to take advantage of the fair southern California weather, did manage to make their way here.

The National City & Otay Railway, in 1908, ordered the six cars from Niles, numbered 105 - 110, to run on the 13 mile electric portion of NC&O's steam line from San Diego south to National City, Chula Vista and eventually Otay. Before the company took possession of the cars, the NC&O and Coronado Railroad were consolidated to become the San Diego Southern Railway.

Cars 105, 106 and 107 were retained by the San Diego Southern, but cars 108, 109 and 110 went to the Point Loma Railroad Co. The Point Loma line came under control of the San Diego Electric between 1909 and 1910, who changed the cars numbers to 401, 402 and 400 respectively. The numbers weren't changed on the cars themselves until 1911.


Around 1910, the Point Loma Railroad had car 110 repainted a chocolate brown and it became a very popular Sight Seeing Car. It ran over much of the San Diego Electrics lines, far from Point Loma.

The San Diego Southern lasted only a short 4 years before merging with the San Diego & Cuyamaca Railway to become the San Diego & South Eastern Railway in 1912. Note the nifty SD&SE monogram on car 105 (above). Car 105 would last the longest of the six. By 1915, San Diego Electric decided that their class 2 cars were more economical than the big interurbans and so retired the Niles cars.

All of the Niles cars were sold to the Pacific Electric in 1918. PE renumbered them 413- 418. Then 413 (ol' #105) was renumbered to 419, and ran under that number until 1933, when the other Niles cars were scrapped. 419 for whatever reason was spared and swapped numbers with PE 474.

Pacific Electrics spec sheet for the Niles cars.

#474 was spared yet again when it was rebuilt by the Pacific Electric as express car #1300. Car #1300 (old #474, and older #419, and yet older #413, and originally #105) was finally scrapped in 1941.

In 1970, Suydam imported HO scale brass models of PE 414 and PE 13oo Niles cars. Of which I have three. I think its time to get these trolleys tricked out next. Yessir! Tricked out trolleys!