Watsonville junction


Hi everybody out there,

I'm living here in Southern Germany near to Stuttgart(the hometown of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche..) and i want to intodruce my first US-layout which I started building in November 2009.My prototype area is the Salinas Valley and the Pajero Valley in California,located 80-100 miles south of San Francisco.Let's start a layout tour from the Castroville North District to Watsonville yard.It's the first part of the project,the second might be start in September.Now I want to give you first impressions of my layout,more informations in the next thread.

The layout at a glance:

Name:Watsonville junction

Scale: HO

Protype:Southern Pacific Coast division

Period: Mid 90's,the 'older' rolling stock is already sold......

Tracks: Peco code83 Streamline

Structures: All scratchbuild(exxept the Walthers elevator)

Digital Command Control,powered by german producer Uhlenbrock


First picture is a track plan that i drawned by hand.It gives you a overlook of the layout,the second and the third are showing shematic drawings of the staging yard and the future operating scheme.

KULISSE=backdrop APFELPLANTAGE=apple plantation






































Next time I'll give you more impressions of the DOLE Fruit company canning plant and the Watsonville yard.

Looking forward for your comments,
Frank
 
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That is very nicely done!! You do excellent work! And your English is fine. (It's much better than my German!:D)
 
As promised,here is the second part of my layout presentation.
Thanks a lot for your friendly comments.
@ Motley:I have started with the benchwork construction in November 2009.
Well,I'll have to do some detail work,but I guess the most work of the first layout part is done!


Here you can see the other structures of the Coast Grain Company. The old elevator at the front has a"body" of plywood,the "walls" are made of thin corragurated cardbord.



The Braykovich apple plantation packing building(in the background you can see some trees of a indicated apple plantation)




An old shed of a fruit farmer....with the obligatory junk collection...as I watched on many trips to the USA....


The spanish' styled DOLE Fruit Company Canning plant.

































The left track is the connection from the North yard to the Santa Cruz Branch line,the next project(in the track plan the "white" part above the "mushroom" of the Watsonville yard)













Cooming soon.....
Best regards from the very hot german south,
Frank
 
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I would say you have a great layout. It is hard to create a layout from 1,000s of miles away. and relying on memory and pics. thanks for the trip around your layout.

Trent
 
I am really Impressed! I used to be a sales rep in that area and you have nailed it well!
And your English is very good!
keep us up to date.
What did you use for your ground cover and dirt? It looks great.
 
Frank,
Your layout is excellent! Nice detail, not over crowded and busy but not too neat either, nicely balanced. Being a structure guy, I'm impressed with your scratch built buildings. They look fairly simple, yet capture the look you're going for. Please post more!
 
Hi flatlander,
First I want to thank you and all the other guys for the nicely comments and the friendly admission to your forum community.That's a fine motivation for further threads!

Did I mention it that "Watsonville junction" is my first US-prototyped layout?Before I started my serious interest for modelrailroads 'across the big ocean' I was a hardcore modelrailroader for the german prototype-railroad 'Deutsche Bundesbahn' and my last project became a well-known layout that was published by a german modelrailroad journal.
Now it's a year ago that I bought some older modelrailroaders' in a secondhand store and from this moment on I want to be a real US modelrailroader!
A few weeks later I teared down my layout for getting space for my new dream.Then a few days later we started our first family vacation(before this trip me and my wife have made four trips to Pacifica and through out the west in the late 90's) to visit our friends in Pacifica,CA,that's near to San Francisco.After a couple of days in Pacifica we're headed to Felton,Ca. for spending 10 days in our friends cabin.We took a few trips to the Salinas and Pajero Valleys and with the new hobby challenge in the back of my mind I've found there the perfect prototype and from this time on I began collecting anything I can get about this railroad area and my new favourite road,the Southern Pacific.

I used to be a sales rep in that area and you have nailed it well!

Now you know a bit of my special relationship to this area,to California,the amazing West and of course,the USA!


What did you use for your ground cover and dirt? It looks great
.

For the ground cover I used several components:
-different kinds of sand from HEKI.To some sands I added chulk-powders for getting several colours.
-I also took Woodland ballast(beige/light grey ,fine and medium) and Talus fine bluff.
-Dried and sieved soil from our garden.
-for ballasting tracks I used Woodland material,different mixtures for mainline and siding tracks









It tooks some time to find out what it needs to look so that I'm satisfied.

Frank
 
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LAWJZ
(L.A.to Watsonville junction manifest-Extra 6802 East)
This northbound train,pulled by engines#8864 and #4823 has picked up a couple of reefers in Salinas witch are loaded with fresh harvested strawberrys and letucce.Follow the train from Castroville to Watsonville junction.
































My engines and cars all looks too new,therefor my next project become wheatering the rolling stock.

Use this link:http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?p=189144#post189144
 
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Men at work(1)....

Men at work(1)...

Just pictures,no words! ;)




Shove it or leave it...... :eek:















Any problems?..... :cool:











(o.k.,a few words...! If you wonder, where the third biker came from...He watched the scene beside the Farmers Supply building,and when the cops has left,he moved from his hiding place).



This guy called the police, because the three dudes were a bit impertinent to him at Joe's Yard Cafe......






More to come,
Frank
 
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Awesome

Outstanding work and detail. I am very impressed with your modeling skills and also your photographic eye. Very nice!
 
I don't know how I've missed this thread before, but you've done some really fine work, Frank. I used to live in the San Francisco Bay area and am verfamiliar with the Watsonville area. You've done an excellent job caputuring the overall dry and kind of dumpy look that's so common in Watsonville. You must have taken many pictures to get all the details so well done.
 
I don't know how I've missed this thread before, but you've done some really fine work, Frank. I used to live in the San Francisco Bay area and am verfamiliar with the Watsonville area. You've done an excellent job caputuring the overall dry and kind of dumpy look that's so common in Watsonville. You must have taken many pictures to get all the details so well done.

First I wanna thank you all for the nice comments.That's the best motivation......

Yes,I took many pictures on our two trips to Salinas and through the the Pajero Valley.On the following pictures you can see that the dirt and ground cover looks more grey than the colors that I used.I guess the beige/light brown/yellow shape looks better and friendlier for capturing the athmosphere of this country side.If you travel through the Salinas / Watsonville area, the first impression you get is that all shines very green because of the (watered)endless fields.But if you take a closer view you realize that it is a dry landscape.
















Coming soon:men at work!

Regards from Southern Germany,
Frank
 
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