Tanks for the Memories (Part 4)

Problem signing into this site. Hope Google is not purging me....

Anyway, I have finally finished (I think) Milwaukee Road flatcar MILW 650008, the 50 foot, 1941 rebuild of a 1929 flatcar to carry World War 2 military equipment and still in use in July 1951 as part of a shipment of M46 tanks from the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant to the US Army pier at Oakland California.

This has been a long slog starting in March when I first saw the photo of M47 tanks being loaded at the Arsenal onto MILW 650007. I had an Athearn 50 blue box flatcar purchased probably in 1970's for a layout at my old house in San Francisco. The Athearn 50 foot flat car seems to be scarce as I have not found any others at local auctions and places that specialize in used trains. 

I have had the help of 3 individuals on this project:

• Eric Burg who cut or provided HO scale 4x8 lumber for the deck.
• Robert Kirkham who responded to my plea for the 11 inch height stake pockets that figured prominently on the car sides and designed the STL file to print the pockets
• Jonathan Sauer who kindly printed the stake pockets and helped with minor adjustments to make fit exactly on the flatcar sides.
• Someone who's name I have lost who provided the Milwaukee Railroad car diagram for the 650001-137 flatcars with the correct stake pocket spacing. 

Anyway, this ends my initial fleet of cars for the Tanks for the Memories shipment. I  have some chocks, cleats and other braces to work on to accurately model the way the cars were shipped.

If I return to this project next year, I hope to bash a 46 foot Rock Island flatcar or 2 that was used in the US Army M46 manual to illustrate the factory to port or depot method of bracing. This will also entail new M46 tanks from the Miniature Tank Company that I can drill out the 2 tank recovery towing hitches on each end of the cars to replicate the steel rods that held the tank car in place. My layout is very small and I usually try to limit freight cars to 40 to 50 foot lengths. I can only accommodate a maximum of 4 40 foot cars on each of my staging yard 4 tracks and the stretch of the eastbound mainline on the staging yard extension. 

My next project for Little Port Costa is the long delayed large Port Costa section house build to replace a stand-in illustration board building. The paper windows on the stand-in are beginning to annoy me. The station stand-in in the same layout area was built with Tichy windows that will eventually be used on the final structure. 

Til we blog again....if Google allows...

Tanks for the Memories (Part 3)

At the moment I am stumped on decaling my rebuild of an Athearn 50 foot flat into a reasonable representation of MILW 650008. The K4decals MILW flat car set turns out not to have any usable Capy and Load as well as length and build date info I can piece into a reasonable decal for the car. 

 up this view of the Milwaukee flatcar to record my frustration:

I set up this photo to show/document my stumped progress:

The flatcar has been painted its final color Tamiya TS 62 NATO Brown on top of TS-33 Dull Red which blended together to an FCR shade that I am willing to accept. The rivet decals had been applied over the primer coat of Tamiya Gray primer. The underframe has been repaired and strengthened with Evergreen plastic shapes the bolsters are not in the picture but have been painted with my new flat standard black. Tamiya TS-82 Rubber Black. Any touch up  from this point on will be done with bruhed acrylic paints.

From my remaining half full bottle of Future, I have coated the areas I expect to decal and after a 12 hour drying period started to decal from the K4 Milwaukee Flatcar set. I should have checked before about the smaller lettering but it turns out not to have any usable Capacity and Load Limit data as well as length and build date info that I can piece into a reasonable decal pieces for this car. 

Other points to note are:

The 11 inch long cast steel stake pockets that were designed and printed for me by acquaintances in the hobby. These are on the flatcar and extras are in the rectangular plastic container. 

Next to the container is part of the decking from dyed stripwood. The main decking is scale 10 foot long 6 x 8 inch planks. A short 9-1/4 6x8  4 plank section for the brake end of the flatcar with the round cutout for the drop shaft brake wheel. 

Below the decking is the tiney Plate C 3D Printed Universal drop shaft wheel and mechanism on a piece of .015 Tichy Bronze rod. 

To the left of the stripwood decking is a plastic container with my attempt to model the chocks and cleats used retain the tank in transport. This is part of an attempt to model the transportation restraining system documented in US Army M46 and M47 Field Manuals for moving tanks between the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant and docks for overseas shipment. It assumes the tanks will be unloaded by a dock crane at their US destination. I don't have a photo of the unloading and ship loading (was it a direct transfer from the flatcar?) but I do have a photo of M46's being unloaded from a ship in the harbor at Pusan, Korea. 

Note that the tanks are being lifted by the disabled tank towing points built into hull of the tank. Unfortunately I didn't realize I would need the towing points included in the the M46 tank hull drilled out before assembling the 3D printed parts. This is making it difficult to model the 4 carbon steel bars that were used with each tank being shipped from the Detroit instead of chains. They were specially designed to fit in the steel stake pockets. I may revisit this issue in the future but it might require a new set of Miniature Tank Company HO M46's. 

Below the spare stake pockets are the Moloco 50 Ton Trucks I am using. They have depressed springs molded showing the weight of the 47 ton tank being carried. 

To the right and left of the frame are Kadee 158 semi-scale couplers. 

At the bottom is the original Athearn underframe for the flatcar. I am still debating whether to add  AB brake gear components as the minimum effort that will be visible while on my layout.

That's all for now on the 4 flatcars and tanks for the first Tanks for the Memories shipment. I will update when the Milwaukee flatcar is finally finished (I started it in March 2026.)

I am also looking into modeling Rock Island 46 foot 50 Ton flatcars as they were used in the Army manual illustration of an M46 loaded for rail shipment from the Detroit Arsenal. They also seem to appear in the 1950 Life Magazine photo coverage of the manufacture and shipping process of the M46. The specific identity of the flatcars was carefully avoided in the photos.

I am This is the only page I have from the actual M46 Army Field Manual but the tank is actually an earlier M26 model and photos do not support shipping with all the crates over the engine compartment in the rear of the tank. The crates behind the tank (in front of tank in above illustration) contain extra treads.

 

Procrastinating for Health Reasons and the Status of Little Port Costa Projects

I am procrastinating right now, mostly because the arthritis in my hands has made handling anything large painful. To top it off I had a full fall last Thursday stepping off a curb in Broadway plaza in Walnut Creek and am just beginning to recover the use of my legs without pain. 

I need to remove all the unbuilt kits from my 9 tray cart. They occupy 7 of the 9 trays. I could do with another 9 tray cart as well and dedicate both to my finished rolling stock. I also need to make major changes to the junk and storage carts that are under the layout now to be able to store 2 of these 9 tray carts under the tiny storage yard on the extension of my tiny layout. A major layout project that probably should be done before I try any rewiring

I also need to clear off everything on my layout and finish the mainline trackage and wire everything with track feeders to connect to the simple single buss running about 12 feet under the layout. After that I can ballast the rest of the trackage.

I keep putting off final full external detail versions of the section house, station building, roundhouse and a 5 smaller buildings that are currently still illustration boarf mockups Another procrastination. I only have internal detail information for the station and roundhouse buildings so more research is required.

It is taking me weeks just to add the Archer rivets to the Milwaukee 50 foot flat car.  This is the last currently planned car for the Tanks for the Memories exhibit. After the rivets are completely applied, I can spray with either a Tamiya rattle can red-brown and then gloss again for the K4 Milwaukee decals. It's been 6 months since I started this particular car. The wood 4x8's cut from the stripwood  Eric Burgh cut for me are are certainly aging...I finally got the Universal drop shaft brake from #D Central. I had to get some .015 piano wire from KS but the parts are so small they are hard to drill with #79 bit for the .015 wire.  The piano wire is stronger than the Tichy .015 phosphor bronze wire.   I keep having parts fly to places unknown on my workbench or floor. I need to find a miniature broom and tiny dustpan to sweep the floor for missing parts.  I also need a floodlight for the floor to see the lost parts. My train room is in floored with 27 year old Pergo imitation oak that seems to make finding small parts hard. 

I still have some to experiment with alternate gloss and ultra dull overcoats for decals since the loss of Future. We in the SF Bay area are plagued by the lose of train stores. I put a query for places that have modeling supplies in the bay area now we are down to just the Train Shop in Santa Clara (100 mile roundtrip from the great WC) for a full service train store. On the PCR NMRA groups.io group I started at topic about this situation.  One reply I got  showed a game and RC store in Pittsburg (California) that looks very promising.  Pictures of full racks of Vallejo and AK paints...I need to drive over Kirker Pass from Walnut Creel and visit this store.

A friend has recommended I try Quick Shine Gloss Finish and Vallejo Matt Varnish Spray. I have also heard very good things about AK Matt Varnish. 

About 2 weeks ago I was in Just Trains in Concord (again in California) which is currently specializing in used trains and collections and spotted something interesting in the Brass Cabinet. A Sunset C-9 2-8-0 priced at $200. I could not resist. The critical cylinder parts for the Bachmann stand ins which I have supported may never come. There was no tender as Sunset sold tenders separately to allow choosing which type you needed. However, I have alternatives including an old Sunset Vanderbilt that Brian Moore sent me from England about 5 years ago. I also have 2 good 3D prints of 73-SC-1 whaleback tenders that need brass handrails and completion of working underframes along with either LocoFi or DCC decoders or receivers. I bashed/rebuilt a Bachmann Baldwin 2-8-0 rectangular tender into a good two foot viewing distance SP 90-R-7 tender which shows up in many pictures of the Port Costa roundhouse.

The 2-8-0 pony truck had been removed when I was checking the internals when I took this photo. The 73-SC-1 tender shows much of what I need to redo. The loco has been painted the dark smoky gray that was in vogue for SP modelers for many years.  Looking at many pictures of C class SP locomotives, today I would use a color called Rubber Black for repainting but have no inclination to do more than renumber. 2800 had a massive feedwater heater on the engineer side and this model thankfully does not. 

I upgraded the WiFi in my house with a new uptodate router that allows multiple 2.4  and 5  GHZ channels so I am going to dedicate one of the 2.4 channels to LocoFi instances. I am thinking that the SC tender would be better for receiving the WiFi signal than the brass Vanderbilt 90-C-??. 

So much for this painful tome from me. My typing key error rate is getting so bad that it is doubling my typing rate. That and I am still not adjusted to the keyboard on my laptop on which I am typing this missive. 

Tanks for the Memories (Part 2)

The research on the Tanks for the Memories project has had some interesting late twists. Looking for information about transporting M46 tanks to Korea, I ran across the Facebook pages of the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion which lead me to many different sources.I found an M46 loading illustration from the M46 TS operating manual But not the whole manual.

This actually showed an M46 load illustration with inset cleat design but I did not find the rest of the manual chapter.

Note the overhang on the 10 foot 6 inch wide flat car deck. Also photos of actual M46 tanks leaving the factory did  not have pallets of parts on the rear over the engine compartment.

I then located the complete Army TS operating manual for the M47 tank which had almost identical hull (chassis) and tracks as the M46 and included a section on field and factory loading onto railroad flatcars. This had a better illustration of the loading including the design illustrations for the tie down rods, steel  cleats, and steel chocks. I am talking to possible 3D printers about making these. 

There were two sections covering rail loading M46 tanks onto railroad flat cars. The first was for field loading for movement in a combat theater of operation or from armor unit locations to training exercise areas. However, I am interested in the factory loading where the tanks were loaded onto flatcars inside the factory building by overhead cranes for shipment to ports for overseas deployment. 

I also located the photos from a 28 Life Magazine pictorial on the manufacture and shipping of the M46 tanks from the Detroit Armory Tank Plant unfortunately without captions. The article in Life was probably published in 1949 or early 1950 before the Korean War broke out in mid 1950. It would have been censored after North Korea invaded South Korea.

This answered a lot of questions.  Along with the Army manual which has drawings of the metal cleats, chocks and steel rod tie downs used for factory to dock transportation. I am going to try and get those 3D reproduced as well.

And then there was this photo from 1954 after the truce in Korea

Marilyn Monroe standing in the Tank Commanders hatch in the turret of an M46 in Korea. The guy climbing out of the loaders hatch was the battalion commanding officer.  Marilyn was taking a break from new husband Joe DiMaggio who was conducting baseball training camps in Japan.

In 1967-69 I was assigned to the 3rd Battalion 33rd Armored Regiment then stationed in Germany as part of the 3rd Armored Division in Europe....we had M60A1 diesel powered tanks then but no Marilyn...

After reading Robert Bowdidge's recent blog, 

https://vasonabranch.blogspot.com/2026/06/figuring-out-more-about-figures.html, 

maybe he could design and print an MM figure in HO using AI to go in an HO M46 tank..

In Tanks for the Memories part 3 and maybe more,  I'll get back to model railroading and the flatcars transporting the M46 tanks to Oakland for shipment to Korea. 

Tanks for the Memories (Part 1)

With apologies to the late Bob Hope...

Back in February Tony Thompson in his Blogspot (https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-note-on-shipping-of-tanks.html) discussed loading and shipping of military tanks on his SP Coast Line layout. This got me thinking about military freight traffic on my tiny layout/diorama.

I am not a militarist by any means but I did serve in the US Army, 3rd Armored Division 1967-69 in Germany and have since had an interest in US tanks.  My HO Little Port Costa layout is set in 1950-55 on the Western Division double track mainline between Oakland and Sacramento known as the Martinez Subdivision. Freight traffic is narrowed to what would be seen in 1950-52 with some exceptions for PFE cars. I check prospective acquisitions and rebuilds against a PDF copy of the ORER to verify the car number and existence of non-SP freight cars.

I researched on the web and found that at that time the US Army was shipping M46 tanks to Korea as the fighting intensified. The tanks were assembled at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant in Warren, Michigan which was served by the NYC subsidiary Michigan Central. Military supplies for Korea and all US bases in the Pacific were usually loaded on Military Sealift ships at the Oakland Army Depot and Docks. The ocean route from Oakland and the San Francisco Bay area is the shortest route to Korea and Japan due to the westward curvature of the California coast. 

Finding an HO model of an M46 tank was not straightforward. Several HO modeling sources have M47's but production on these did not start until 1952 and none were shipped to Korea before the armistice talks and the winding down of the fighting. The M47 was shortly superseded by the M48 which was the main US tank until the M60's with which I was all too familiar in Germany. I finally happened on the Miniature Tank Company of College Place, Washington State. They produce an interesting variety of military equipment through 3D printing.  They were quite inexpensive and I ordered 4. They arrived and I spent some time finishing them to reasonable 2 foot viewing level. The primary problem was with the turret which came in two pieces with a very visible joint. It took several applications of Vallejo Plastic Filler and sanding to get a reasonable one piece casting appearance. 

The Miniature Tank Company HO prints had one other flaw in that the tank hull was designed a scale 12 inches too wide. I couldn't fix this so the tank treads are 6" to wide and thus hang over the side of HO 10'6" wide flatcar decks by a very visible almost 1 foot on each side. The M46 and M47 shared Patton Tank series hulls and a photo of the M47 being loaded show about 6" of overhang. 

At  first I was going to forget the project due to the overhang but finally decided I was going to live with it. The 4 tanks on separate 50 ton flatcars will normally only be seen on the  background  westbound mainline trackage about 2 feet from the layout viewer.

The other thing that I was needed was the addition of a travel lock to hold the main 90 mm gun in place outside of combat and training conditions. All modern US tanks travel with their turret and main gun pointed to the rear. Up until the M1 Abrams tanks this was a clamp at the rear of the engine heat ventilators. I fabricated a non-detailed stand in replica of the M46 travel lock based on the US Army M46 Technical Manual illustrations. 

I simply took a 1 mm slice of Evergreen 1/4 inch tube and a similar slice of 1/8 inch u shaped channel. I glued these together with plastic cement on a glass tile with the tube on the bottom of the channel. See illustrations. After the assembly was dried I sliced the tube party in half so I could fit it around the main gun. I glued the assembly around the gun barrel with canopy glue in case I needed to adjust the positioning. 

I painted the parts of the tank kit with rattle can Tamiya gray primer and then Tamiya TS-28 Olive Drab 2. This is a darker greenish olive drab flat that reflects brand new tanks. I have not weathered the tanks assuming reasonably good weather while in transit from Michigan to California.  These are the tanks awaiting appropriate flatcars for rail transport.

Now on to the flat cars on which the tanks are traveling to Oakland.

M46 tanks weigh 47 tons and there were few 100 ton flat cars available for shipping 2 tanks per flat car in 1951. the most available flatcars were AAR 50 Ton capacity 53 foot 6 inch length cars.  This means one tank per flatcar. Wide decks were needed for the tank tread overhang and as the tanks were going west this would mean cars from western railroads were used as they had wider cars for their more generous clearances. I pretty much ruled out SP flatcars such as the F70-7 of which I have models as they were in demand for lumber shipments to support postwar building boom still going on in California. 

I have a great photo o f6 M47 tanks being loaded onto  4 flatcars indoors at the Detroit Arsenal. I am not sure I should post this as I have lost the attribution.

The first flatcar which I can read the number on is probably Milwaukee 650007 or 6500107 (the number is partially obscured by the stake pockets), This according to the July 1950 ORER had a 10 foot six inches wide deck and was equipped with special tie downs in the deck and stake pockets for large vehicle loading. The tie downs show in the picture. I cannot read the road id and number of the the second car and the tank is already on deck being tied down. I can see the indent at the ends of the deck common to AAR 50 ton flatcars and it appears to have 2 axel trucks. According to the July 1950 ORER I have, the Milwaukee cars in this series are only 50 feet long not 53' 6" as most  postwar AAR 50 ton flatcars. 

I haven't found a 50 foot flatcar that will meet the wide deck design needed for tank shipments. Originally I was going to use a P2K car as it looks like the Milwaukee car but am now thinking I will remove the deck from an old blue box Athearn car I have in my collection and work from there for a more accurate car. 

Behind the first two cars are two flatcars with two tanks loaded on each. No markings are visible. I can barely make them out but they possibly have 3 axel trucks. These must be from the earliest Magor order for 100 ton flatcars or earlier USAX 100 ton flatcar purchases. 

In my own collection of non-SP equipment, I found 2 Tichy GSC 54 foot flatcars already built I acquired probably 10 or more years ago. They were not in my 1950 ORER but research showed the first large group of these flatcars was by the GM&O in the summer of 1951. For variety I am going to add one to the shipment. Decals are coming from NSC for these cars. I have repainted one of my Tichy GSC cars with a lighter shade than Tamiya primer freight car red (FCR) using Vallejo Model Color 70-xxx Cavalry Brown. As with the original kit I am not attempting to model the underbody details.

For the two flatcars shown in the picture I will use a C&NW 53' 6" AAR 50 ton car and a USAX AAR 53 foot six inch one that Jim Eager pointed has pointed out to met had been acquired by the DOD in two small orders in July 1950. For these I acquired a pair of P2K AAR 50 Ton flat car kits at the recent NMRA Pacific Coast Region Convention swapmeet. These have already been stripped of IT and NKP lettering, primed with Tamiya Fine Oxide Primer and are awaiting K4 decals to arrive.

One of the original P2K car's lettering being stripped using 91% IPA:

After priming I am debating whether to use the Tamiya Oxide Primer as the final FCR color for both cars or a different shade of FCR. My current information indicates the USAX car were probably US Army olive drab at this time.  I need to make the final decision before applying Future (I still have half a bottle of the old Johnson and Sons) floor finishing prior to decaling.

I understand the air brake components and piping cast into the frame of the P2K cars is fairly accurate for an AAR 50 Ton flatcar and does not need modification.

I am unsure about the fourth car. Only the GM&O flat cars fit my timeframe but more than one would seem unlikely. 

All that was ready for BAPM on June 27 were the GM&O, CNW and USAX flatcars so I added my SP F-50-16 42 footer to the parade in order to keep it to flatcars that would have been available in July 1951.

On June 26 I received the enlarged stake pockets by delayed mail from Jonathan Soares. I didn't have time to get anything further done with the MILW 650007 or 8 car so that is what I showed at BAPM.

I am  going to go back in the next post and cover some interesting research....

I am not lost and gone forever, just not having the personal bandwidth to keep a constantly updated blog. My ongoing medical issues have taken a lot of my personal time.

I have slowly continued my "lightening" update to the little Port Costa layout. The original plan was to re-align and re-ballast  the trackage west of the turntable and expand the use of 2 mm foam as the basic ground cover on almost all flat and almost flat surfaces except in the fiddle yard which is not a prototypic part of Port Costa trackage. It does however "represent" flat yard or siding trackage for freight car storage that existed "around the bend" curve of the Carquinez Strait towards the strait side location known as Eckley. Eckley, like 19th century main part of Port Costa was built on piles on the strait side of the SP tracks. 

The scope of the project has expanded as I have decided to split the structure and scenic model of the station and buildings behind the station for easier work on parts. 

The speeder sheds, Port Costa Station building and freight house are now on the main layout as separate mini scenic modules and the area behind and above the retaining wall including the large section house, water treatment building, and telegraph maintenance and maintainer's quarters cabin are on a new scenic base. 

The house track in front of the freight house, approach to the turntable, and the garden tracks have now been ballasted using ivory colored sanded grout. Rails have been painted a rust acrylic originally from 

This is a work in progress photo of the area:

 

The structures are still stand-ins built with illustration board. I have started work on the proper model version of the section house. I have been re-evaluating all of the sources I have about the prototype.  The outline of the existing section house is included in the scale drawing of the proposed new station building dating from 1930 that I obtained from the California Railroad Museum (CSRM). I have not found many photos of the section house itself in the 1950's but have pieced together the window locations and other features that appear behind photos of the station and other buildings.   I magnify the my copy of the original photo and then cut and save the part showing parts the section house and save them to the section house structure prototype folder. 

I also have some excellent photos of the section house and old freight house from 1905. These were sent to me by Steven Lane along with the rest of his collection of Port Costa photos.  The other sources for my Little Port Costa are photos of Port Costa from the Contra Costa County Historical Society (CCCHS) and photos purchased from the late Bob Morris. The source of timetables is the Espee.groups.io forum files section. I was mentored and provided with a lot of material initially by the late Ron Pies when I started this project in 2019. 

Another part of this rebuild is the yard area between the station and the mainline tracks platforms. Port Costa did not generate a whole lot of passenger traffic by the 1950's. The old town built of wood structures on piles west of the ferry slips had burned down in several fires prior to 1930. Only the homes, hotel, post office and the large concrete warehouse located in Bull Valley remained.   My guess is that most of the passenger traffic were SP employees working at the roundhouse and steam engine maintenance buildings behind the roundhouse.  They would likely have passes to ride between Martinez and Richmond. 

I have analyzed the April 1951 Western Division Employees Timetable and built a spreadsheet showing the passenger traffic eastbound and westbound on weekdays (which I model) through Port Costa on the double track mainline. 

Revised version due shortly

NOTE the above schedule is being revised with corrections)

The rows with a light blue background are passenger trains that could stop on the two open macadam platforms on a weekday basis. The At Port Costa time column is estimated for all except the late night #26 eastbound unnamed passenger train which has a scheduled stop (Train 26 in 1951 would run beyond Sacramento over the Sierras ito Reno/Sparks. The westbound would have been Passenger #25 from Reno/Sparks. This shows in the Sacramento Division timetables as arriving in Sacramento at 5:00 AM but is not appear in the Martinez Subdivision timetable continuing on to Oakland.) 

The Port Costa Time Estimated or Scheduled Column shows all named trains and Sacramento Oakland service trains did not have a scheduled time. I took the Martinez-Crockett scheduled time and split it to come up with an estimated time the train would come through Port Costa.The line is has no grades as it runs alongside the Carquinez strait.  

Distances used to estimate. The actual distances between the stations is:   

2.1 miles Crockett-Port Costa

3.6 miles  Port Costa-Martinez

Total 5.7 miles  Crockett-Martinez

The Ticket Required notation from the timetable indicates that at the passenger wanting to detrain or board a train at Port Costa must have a ticket to Port Costa or a ticket from Port Costa by the time the train stops at either Crockett or Martinez. The Engineer and Conductor would then be issued a train order to stop at Port Costa.  

A Flag Stop would only be allowed for the EB 24x Statesman and the EB 24x El Dorado.

All is the above is background to building the walkway and track foot crossings from the Port Costa station across 5 yard tracks to the mainline eastbound and westbound platforms. 

The walkway is shown in this drawing I obtained from the CSRM of the 1946 Proposed Water Tank Changes. 

This drawing is actually the closest I have of an official SP track plan for Port Costa for the 1950-1955 time period I am setting my layout. As the layout has limited space before curving to the left at the west end into staging, I am modeling the platforms as extending equally to the left and right from the footpath.

This 1950 photo looking east in the Port Costa yard area also shows the walkway detail.

This is the current state of the layout area modeling the walkway:

There is one track behind the short 4 car Sacramento-Oakland train westbound train at the platform at back pulled by a PA1 returning to service on long distance trains out of Oakland. I lack any SP Pacifics for these trains in regular service in the early 1950's. The dark roofed all day lunch and 2 coaches are GGD early releases with lot of problems and I have not relettered for the 1946 SOUTHERN PACIFIC instead of SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES. Upgrading these is another project.  The baggage is a highly modified MDC "Harriman" baggage closely approximating a 60-B-10 that I did back in 2018. 

The background in the above photo is my train room wall masquerading as the Carquinez Strait in a dense fog...

that's all for now folks.  

The Track Alignment effort I started in August is still going on

See the additions to the August post...When I finish the scenic stuff and track ballasting I will create a new post about it. 

In the meantime the layout looks like this as of today:

The white pad thing is a new battery light mounted on an old soldering stand that I am using in afternoons when the sun doesn't shine on my train room and office on the east side of my home.