Last weekend was the annual Summer Open House at the San Leandro Historical Railway Society.

Here are a couple of pictures that I took with my phone during the event.

This first picture is of one of our members at our completely full setup yard.

This next picture shows a banner that a couple of visitors brought in.  I am not exactly sure where it is from, but it was rather impressive.

San Leandro Historical Railway Society

Saturday June 5th and Sunday June 6th I will be running trains at the annual summer open house at the San Leandro Historical Railway Society.

We will be running trains in a variety of scales, HO on the main layout, G and O scales on the G&O garden railroad.

Also we will  be selling cookies and have a yard sale.  All proceeds raised go to the upkeep of the historic depot and the model railroads.

Its located at:

1302 Orchard Avenue
San Leandro, CA 94577
Phone: 510.569.2490

We will be open from 10am to 5pm on Saturday and noon to 5pm on Sunday.

San Leandro Historical Railway Society

Here are some pictures that were recently emailed to me showing the impromptu golden spike ceremony for the children’s area of the G&O.  This area was completed less than a week from our upcoming show at the San Leandro Historical Railway Society.

Here are more pictures from Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad north of Santa Cruz, CA.

Trestle on a curve:

Watering the Dixiana, two truck Shay locomotive:

This picture below demonstrates the tremendous traction of a Shay locomotive.  You can see the train on the right fork of the switchback, the picture was taken right over the switch.  At this point on the switchback the grade was 9.25%.  To put this in perspective 4% is considered a very steep grade for your average railroad, most grades are less than 2%.

Today I went down to the SLHRS layout and worked on adding piping from the refinery to the storage tanks located next to it.

I used the Walther’s kit to create this.  Today my goal was just to build the shapes, I will paint and weather them once I get all of them assembled.  I ran the piping from the refinery down so that it will go underground to get to the storage tanks.  I intend to come back up on the other side and connect the loading platform for the tanker cars and also the storage tank on the hill overlooking Oleum (further to the right).

Here is the left side of the refinery.  I have this piece fully constructed, however I am considering making this piece bend towards the ground right at the refinery so that it doesn’t stick up as it hits the backdrop.  I also intend to add to the scenery in this area so that it doesn’t look so much like a soccer field (or UFO landing site as various club members have suggested).