Over the Labor Day weekend my wife and I traveled up to Eureka, California.  While we were there we went to a couple places around the area that contained items from the history of the local area.

At Fort Humboldt they had many examples of logging equipment from a wide range of years.

This picture shows a logging “disconnect” car.  These were used in pairs, with the log providing the frame for the car.

Here is a picture of a Dolbeer Logging engine, or steam donkey.  This was invented right in the area, and they had several examples of different types of engines.  This was used for many different tasks in the woods, one of which was loading railroad cars.  This is an example of one of the smaller ones.  I will post pictures of some of the larger “bull” engines later.

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.

]]> http://www.railroadredux.com/2010/06/pics-from-the-go-backyard-railroad/feed/ 0 http://www.railroadredux.com/2010/05/roaring-camp-big-trees-narrow-gauge-railroad-part-2/ http://www.railroadredux.com/2010/05/roaring-camp-big-trees-narrow-gauge-railroad-part-2/#comments Sat, 15 May 2010 05:05:52 +0000 Dom http://www.railroadredux.com/?p=272

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).

]]> http://www.railroadredux.com/2010/05/oleum-ca-on-the-san-leandro-historical-railway-society-ho-scale-layout-piping/feed/ 0 http://www.railroadredux.com/2010/05/roaring-camp-big-trees-narrow-gauge-railroad/ http://www.railroadredux.com/2010/05/roaring-camp-big-trees-narrow-gauge-railroad/#comments Sun, 02 May 2010 14:40:14 +0000 Dom http://www.railroadredux.com/?p=266

Last weekend my wife and I went to Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad north of Santa Cruz, CA.

Here is a sample of some of the pictures I took while there:

Water tower:

A two truck Shay locomotive:

Close-up of the cylinders:

My wife and I took over 200 photos and about 40 min of video while we were there.  As soon as they are uploaded and edited I will post them.

I have been pretty busy lately down at the SLHRS depot.  Recently I have been working on moving some telephone poles that had been installed too close to the track.  These are pictures that I took from my mobile phone after putting the finishing touches in place.

This picture is taken looking east.

Now a view looking to the west.

And finally, a view of the south end of Oleum, where I have placed one of the models I featured previously.

As I was on vacation over the Christmas holiday I did not have any time to work on any of my projects so I decided to post some pictures I took at the San Leandro Historic Railway Society while running some of my trains.

This picture shows my F7 A&B units from Proto 2000.  They were the first two models that I installed NCE decoders into, a really easy process as it was just a matter of removing the existing DC chip and plugging in the new decoder.

This picture shows a view of the same train heading across the top of the small helix heading towards Antelope.  Notice the weathered look of the boxcars and gondola in the picture.  This was done by drybrushing two different colors of paint, and then using pastel chalks to complete the affect.

Happy Holidays from RailroadRedux.

This last weekend was the annual winter Open House at the San Leandro Historic Railway Society.  Overall it was a really good show, with no major problems or mishaps.

Here is a picture of three of the members running trains in the Roseville Yard.

And here is JJ dispatching.

And here is the temporary display set up on the future home of the G&O railroad.