That cab-forward sure is something, isn’t it? I cannot get over how big it is!
I’ve been there twice now, and both times I’ve looked at it and wondered the same thing, Eric.
Thank you for this shot. We got back to Massachusetts a few days ago and I was wondering where the narrow-gauge rail went into the roundhouse. The answer has been supplied!
Eric & Kid-zilla;
Thanks so much for your excellent coverage of this convention. While not the same as being there, it came close. OBTW the Brandywine & Gondor RR has a traveling ent instead of a rooster. (Well actually he’s Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, but that’s close enough.)
Question for the kidzilla,
Now that you’ve seen more layouts, what would you do if Mom let you acquire more land? Make more areas for operating/play value? Or more roundy roundy type stuff?
And out of all the layouts you saw how many of them were raised above the ground like yours?
Another fabulous episode, Eric! Many thanks!
And though I love* Amtrak, it’s great to see you and KZ up close and personal with the V&T!
And the C. P. Huntington is maybe the cutest loco ever!
Glad you made it and enjoyed it. I haven’t seen the new model hall, I’m dying to!
Best regards to the young man,
Cliff
Craig, I wrote these down and passed them along to him to answer tomorrow in lieu of a workbook page!
Eric
Day 5: 5 Final Layouts
We now had our routine - light breakfast, farewell to Oma and Opa, grab a sandwich, board the bus, and get ready! Though there were three more layouts to tour the next day, there was no tour bus, and I sensed we were reaching “peak train.” Our bus-mates were beginning to discuss fly-out dates and plans for the next convention, and, to be frank, we were getting overwhelmed. I assured Kid-zilla we earned the “Iron Butt Award,” and reminded him it was better to leave wishing we’d done more rather than feeling like we did too much. The former makes you want to come back; the latter leaves you exhausted.
We boarded the bus and shortly passed a grain elevator.
O.D. got another ration of crap. Keep poking while the bruise is tender!
Stop #19: Franz Family Railroad
The railroad was one of many carefully coiffed areas in a beautiful yard / garden / farm / aviary / sanctuary. This was another railroad crafted and maintained over multiple generations and two decades, and the owners’ passion for the project shone. It was one of many places to go and enjoy being outside in a single property that was actually many destinations.
The railroad effectively delivered viewers to this magnificent goldfish pond!
Stop #20: Granite Creek & Rattle Snake Gulch Railroad
This railroad took advantage of rugged terrain to give operators a chance to challenge the heights and trestles on a railroad purpose built for multi-train operations. I did not have the chance to engage the owner about an operating “scheme,” so we just enjoyed the show!
Probable staging yard…
More cool shots.
Stop #21: Maple Rock Garden Railway
This one has an interesting history. It came with the land, and the current owner lets the club operate and maintain it. There is a series of loops with a branch that passes at table top just outside of a pavillion, but this branch wasn’t operating. The whole is set in a magnificent formal garden.
Stop #22: Coyote Pass Railroad
A railroad built in spite of existing terrain, it featured a good deal of animation. Most impressive was an operating water flume! There was also a sense that nothing breaks; it only moves on to new purposes. Broken down trains served as the center point for wreck, maintenance, and yard scenes, which was pretty cool!
The flume!
Kid-zilla liked this fort.
Wild animals!
Various scenes, to include a Civil War artillery train.
Kid-zilla has been eyeing my dead LGB m2075 (battery) locos as a donor for something like this…
…but I told him that is for the “Secret Project!”
Stop #23: Deadwood, Eureka & Northport Railroad
There is terraforming and there is recreating the Book of Genesis. These folks built a world where none existed! You even have to pass through the “gates” to get there!
There was railroad built to the top of the fencline on the left…
…and more built up against the house to the right!
It all terminated where the “legend lives on from the Chippewa down on the big lake they call 'G-chee-goo-me…”
I’ll let the remaining pictures speak for themselves…
What a way to close the tour!
End of the Line
We returned to the convention center, where we were pleased to see Oma had fully recovered.
This let Kid-zilla play docent as he showed her the trains that would not be coming home with us!
I would note he took pains to explain why THIS AMTRAK train would work on our tracks! Christmas is coming!
He followed this with tours of the modular layouts.
…and celebrated the adventure with Italian-Mexican fusion food and his first spumoni gelato!
One does not end this much “train-ing” cold turkey, so I have one more report and a few closing comments before closing this thread.
Thanks for following along!
Eric
Thank you for posting all the tour layouts. Since I was helping staff a booth and got tied up running one of the trains on Matt’s layout, I missed a bunch of them. Love the ore dock, and glad to see the rooster made the rounds.
Day #6: Tapering with Some 1:1 Experiences
First, you’re welcome, John (@JohnM ). Sharing these photos highlighting the creativity and hospitality of the Sacramento Valley Garden Railway Society is the least I can do! I am glad you and others are enjoying them, and that, in your case, they can partially compensate for your volunteering to make this possible. Second, Craig ( @ctown2 ), Kid-zilla is working on your questions! We’ll get to his answers tomorrow, as I think they will fit nicely into my wrap-up.
Before that, we have one more station stop on our trip. The day after our last tour, Kid-zilla arose to test out his new stuff.
Then it was back to Old Town to buy tickets for the museum’s rail excursion, which begins at the museum and runs for a couple miles down the river. It is neat to think the original Trans-continental started pretty close to where we began our abbreviated journey!
We viewed some of the outdoor displays…
…before getting our tickets and thus gaining access to the locomotive shed.
Kid-zilla liked the perspective he gained from by standing close to these behemoths!
We then watched our locomotive, a former military locomotive that actually served in Korea during the Korean War, couple up to a string of 100+ year old coaches.
The engineer that day had once driven the mighty cab-forwards for the Southern Pacific, which was pretty cool!
We elected for coach class, which meant no cookies or bottled water…
…but also meant we had a whole coach and two docents to ourselves!
We learned about the coaches, their ice-and-fan air conditioning system, the challenges of railroad preservation, and the history of this stretch of rail. There was a concern that an aging volunteer base and what our docents described as a willful assault by developers upon historical rights of way threatened this and other California historical railroads. Lesson for all…go ride these rails now! Even if you cannot volunteer to keep these iron horses running, public interest is ammunition for those with the time, talent, and skills to keep the rails humming.
We disembarked after about an hour, and, after bidding aloha, we left the trains and our railroad adventures behind. It was time to hand Kid-zilla over to Oma and Opa and to let them help us explore more of Sacramento and the surrounding environs over the next day and a half.
Thus ends my convention report! I’ll jot down some closing thoughts tomorrow before returning to our usual LSC activities.
Eric
Closing Thoughts on the National Garden Railroad Convention
We begin this last entry, barring a need for a “Questions & Answers” session Kid-zilla’s responses to Craig’s (@ctown2) questions, as they lead into the issue of what we learned.
Q: Now that you’ve seen more layouts, what would you do if your Mom let you acquire more land? Make more room for areas for operating and play value? Or more roundy-round type stuff?
A: I do like more operating and paly value but I also like roundy round stuff but I would choose operating
Q: Of the layouts you saw, ho many of them were raised above the ground like yours?
A: 13 or 14 railroads were raised and 10 or 9 were on the ground.
I think that this sort of sums up our biggest take away: THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO ENGAGE IN THIS HOBBY. His answers, like this site’s 25th Anniversary, speak to that. Make a railroad that suits your purpose upon the ground (or in spite of the ground!) where you decide to build it. We saw everything from fine scale to fantastical, massive to restrained, complex to simple, generational pikes and ephemeral modular layouts. Some we liked better than others, but all had something to teach. Each carried the pride and frequently the memories of its respective proprietor(s).
Given all that we saw and learned, what would each add to the Triple O if we could? I would love an operating water feature. The sound of cascading water at so many layouts added a wonderful sense of atmosphere. He would add broader curves to free the Triple O and his imagination from the constraints its tight curves places on locomotives and rolling stocks. And so the journey continues.
Neither of us left with the feeling that we are the demographic tail end of a dying hobby. The manufacturers clearly think there is a market for high-end stuff, and the boxes leaving the vendor hall suggested they are right. Still, as mentioned earlier, we have work to do to keep people involved between the ages of 18 when the leave home and 60 when they retire. Do we have national standards for 45 mm gauge modules? Do we need to think more about open club layouts? What about encouraging products that enable indoor shelf layouts? Kits to Americanize and /or modify readily available secondhand stuff? Would anyone of these things have kept me active while I was sailing about on the “Grey Funnel Line?” Not sure…
Both of us also clearly had a blast. I think these conventions, like a formal magazine, add a degree of “legitimacy” to our hobby. We met wonderful people and saw awesome things. We talked shop and swapped stories. We would offer the following:
It is expensive. Carpool if you can, rent a place with a kitchen, and prepare your own food if you can. This trip was possible only because I split costs with my parents. Even at that, breakfast was rolls from Safeway and sandwiches at 7-11!
Choose your companions with care. This trip would have been miserable if I had dragged the whole horde along. Only the hardcore and those about to spend money on their own pikes will enjoy four days in a bus! If I had brought the horde, I would have allowed folks to opt into a tour day and let the others enjoy what they wanted.
Take the Tour Bus. I would never have found half the layouts, and I would have lost a year of my life in the attempt. For two of us, it would have been a near wash had we rented a car.
If you think it is a good deal, so does everyone else. We lost out on a nice parts queen and a fancy track cleaning car, both of which were steals. I forgot I was shopping with likeminded folks. Still, nothing really moved on Day #1, the deals were gone on Day #2, and the now-or-never purchases left Day #3!
So would we do this again? Fate and finances allowing, sure. As for Kid-zilla, for whom life’s realities are blessedly more abstract, he has already sounded the whistle and placed his hand on the throttle…
“Next stop, Nashville! ALL ABOARD!”
Thanks for this wonderful journey …well photed and well writen…You now need to change you Avitar … 
Great job on the reports, and it sounds like a wonderful trip.
