ATSF Los Angeles Division, circa 1949

[Cajonpassfan]

The rock casting crew is done with Troublesome Gorge on my friend's new HO layout, so today I was able to install permanently the 5' long center arch of the big bridge I mentioned previously. I was really sweating it, as it needs to sit in precise horizontal and vertical alignment and the shear size of it is intimidating for this N scaler. And there are two more towers and four more deck girders to complete the 10' (hopefully straight and level) span, and two more 80' girders on the approach. Thank you to whomever invented laser! See red lights in pics.
No wonder progress on my own layout is SLOW😬
Otto

[eja]

Impressive,  to say the least !!

[Cajonpassfan]

Thank you! The whole bridge is in now, all 10' of it, plus the approach. That's been hugely satisfying, though very time consuming. Seven separate pieces that needed to be precisely aligned in three dimensions.
Does that mean I can get back to my own layout now? Make some progress?
Time will tell
Otto

[OldEastRR]

Does that mean I can get back to my own layout now? Make some progress?
Time will tell
Otto

I wonder if some guys help finish other people's layouts (not a club) but never get their own finished. Because something drastic happens to them.

[Cajonpassfan]

Oooh, that sounds ominous @OldEastRR.
I'd hate to be one of those "some guys"😬
I better go in the train room and get some work done!
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

Okay, a little progress on the LA Division...but first a little history.
At the foot of Cajon Pass was/is a little community called Devore, but in the early days, it was known as the Glenn Hellen ranch or farm. Today it is the site of Glen Helen Amphitheater capable of hosting 65,000 country fans. During my era, Glenn Hellen was a dairy farm with its barn located just to the west of the railroad, somewhere on my backdrop. I've been playing with the idea of modeling the barn, but moving it on the east side, and recently I found a 3D barn print on eBay. It's a little too fancy, but with a little paint, weathering, and some cattle, it will do nicely as a stand in I hope Pic of the original barn and the model below...
Otto

[MDW]

Nice bridges but wrong scale & wrong layout!
Looking forward to seeing more progress in Devore.

Michel

[Santa Fe Guy]

Hi Otto.
Four of us stopped at Devore for a burger during our trip way back in 2005 if I recall.
Great spot to stop, eat lunch and watch trains run by.
Would have been really good back when!
Rod.

[C855B]

Four of us stopped at Devore for a burger during our trip way back in 2005 if I recall.
Great spot to stop, eat lunch and watch trains run by.

A regular lunch stop for our railfan gang... 30 years earlier (yes, 1975... oh my!).

There was a long-established (maybe as early as the 50s) nudist resort, Treehouse Fun Ranch, less than a mile north of the crossing/burger stand, along the tracks. SP crews called the location "Skin Ranch". It closed a few months ago, being razed for a FedEx facility parking lot. Otto, maybe you can research this to your era and model it? Noch has appropriate figures.   

[Cajonpassfan]

Sorry to say guys, Joe's Country Cafe is long gone, buried under a massive grade separation embankment. But yes, it was a great place to eat, drink and railfan. One could even arrive on horseback and tie one's steed to a wooden pole provided for that purpose on the patio. Yes Rod, fun times...

As to the "Fun Ranch" up the tracks, it later became Freedom Acres and was preceded by multiple iterations of the Oakdale Nudist colony/ ranch/ resort, and long before then since 1936 the Valley-o'-the-Sun which moved there from the current site of the Gem Ranch. According to a local history book, members then had to be married, presumably to each other, and no alcohol was allowed. There were also Sunday services, complete with a preacher who would bare more than his soul, and an equally bare church lady playing hymns on the piano. Amazing what can be learned researching history for a prototype layout.

Sorry to disappoint you Mike, but I didn't leave enough space between my mainlines and the backdrop for anything other than some dense shrubbery. Just as well, I think
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

Oh, and I found another photo of the Big Red Barn. Apparently it lasted into the 60's...
My stand-in is not quite right, but it will do for now.
Otto

[OldEastRR]

It isn't always an ominous fate. A guy I was helping build a basement-filling layout had it almost halfway finished (around the walls of a furnished basement) when his wife unexpectedly got pregnant and the "baby's playground" was decided to be where the layout was -- so the whole elaborate (multi-level (5) w. TWO helix) construction was torn down and thrown away. Track, wood, and all. There was to be a huge yard on the middle level, about 8x15 (maybe bigger, I don't remember), for which I'd drawn up on a piece of paper that big all the trackwork to scale. Before I had a chance to retrieve that as a personal momento, it was gone.
Then of course there's the marital disaster that results in a layout being torn down before its time. And yes, people have been known to die before they get their layout done.
Hopefully none of that happens to you. But I'd really like to see at least a rough version of the track plan.

[Cajonpassfan]

The history book I mentioned says the barn had large GLEN HELLEN lettering on its east side gable, so I plugged the big (and inappropriate) window to have room for the signage. Of course it's all conjecture, since there are no photos, but for now it will have to do. Maybe a bit more fading would be good. Or maybe a photo will turn up, now that I have it mostly done
Looking at the scene, the barn looks lonely by itself, so I'm thinking I need to move the farmhouse over as well, something like the pic below? The "farm" sits on a removable panel which hides the access hole (inside the abandoned helix), and maybe a property line fence and some shrubs and trees will help mask the gap. Fun stuff!
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

Wrong scale or not, today I got to test run my one and only HO locomotive, an ATSF 3800 of course, over the big Troublesome bridge and its approach. Cajon Pass fans will recognize the concrete arch bridge, although in an entirely different setting... after decades of prototype-based modeling, I'm enjoying the freedom of freelancing, though not on my railroad. Fun stuff!
Otto

[MDW]

Wrong scale but very very cool
Thanks for sharing!

Michel