Welcom To My Blog

Welcome to my blog.

I created this blog to share my interest in model railroading, to highlight progress on my model railroad and to interact with other model railroaders.

My HO scale railroad is the Citrus Belt Railway Company. This is the fifth major layout I have built since 1978. An earlier Citrus Belt Railway appeared on Model Railroads of Southern California Layout Tour #1. That layout was located in Mission Viejo and was the second layout to carry that name. There was a previous CBRy in Corona (my second Corona layout) and a later CBRy in the living room at the residence in Mission Viejo.

The design of the present Citrus Belt Railway in Hemet evolved from these four earlier railroads, three residence relocations, the subsequent downsizing of available layout space and a decision to focus on one single year, one general geographic location and one major industry.

The current layout fills a 12 foot x 20 foot dedicated room and highlights the 1950s Southern California citrus industry with scratchbuilt replicas of several area packing houses. Both the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific are represented as they are the owners of this imaginary short line.

The double track mainline is nearly two scale miles long and runs around the walls and a peninsula in a continuous loop. There is a visible two-track staging yard and a return loop (not yet operational) for a developing packing house and industrial district.

Most scenery and structures are in place and several mini-scenes have been created. There are a number of kit-bashed structures and a few scratch-built as well. The layout features painted backdrops and a viewblock that separates the two sides of the peninsula. Power is wireless NCE DCC. Motive power is primarily first generation diesel with a few steam engines available just for fun. Entering the layout room requires negotiating a slight 54 inch duckunder.

Layout Specifics –

Era Modeled: 1956

Benchwork: 1/2" Homasote over 1/2" plywood over 1 x 4 pine grid
Trackwork: Atlas Code 83 mainline and yards, Code 70 on some spurs
Turnouts: 27 (Tortoise on mainline and Blue Point on secondary track and spurs)
Minimum Radius: 28"
Grade: 0.0 percent
Packing Houses: 6
Other Structures: 60-plus

For a number of year I have owner and managed three Yahoo group devoted to railroad/model railroad interests. These are:

Model Railroads Of Southern California – A group for Southern California model railroaders and model railroad layout owners to share their progress, experiences, tips and techniques with each other. All Southern California model railroaders, with or without layouts, are very welcome to join.  Over 1,600 members!

We do free layout tours…51 tours/700-plus layouts since 2006.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Model_Railroads_Of_Southern_California/info

Citrus Industry Modeling Group – A group for modelers, railfans and historians.  The group collects and shares information about the operations of the Santa Fe, Pacific Electric, Pacific Fruit Express (Southern Pacific & Union Pacific Railroads) as they relate to Southern California's citrus industry. The group also collects and shares information about citrus farming, packing and shipping activities with a concentration on the ice bunker refrigerator car era.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/citrusmodeling/info

Railway Bull Shippers Group – A group for model railroaders, railfans and historians. This group collects and shares information about railroad livestock and meat transportation and the rolling stock, facilities and operations which supported it. This group covers any railroad in North America, plus the meat packing business. This group helps members to use this information to model prototype railroad equipment, conduct realistic operations on model railroads and create accurate infrastructure.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Railway_Bull_Shippers_Group/info