Great looking layout, I only wished I had known it was there. I lived in Charter Oak and San Dimas area from 1954 thru 2001.
This is my all time favorite layout, ever since I saw the feature of it in Model Railroader. As a resident of Pasadena, I still kick myself for having missed seeing it in person when it was included in a Southern California layout tour some years ago.
I've called San Dimas home for the past 22 years and live in the Southern end of town.
Also right next door to the LA County Fairgrounds where the UP 4014 BigBoy sat until recently taken for restoration at the UP Steam Shop in Cheyenne, WY. Lots of RR history in the area.
The town of San Dimas began in 1887, a product of Southern California's great land boom. This boom was one of four such bursts of population and development in the southern part of the state in the half century between 1876 and 1923. Among the major reasons for the land boom was completion of a transcontinental railroad as well as more localized rail expansion. For San Dimas, the catalyst for development in 1887 was completion of the Santa Fe Railway's main line through the area. In short order, the San Jose Ranch Company was created and began to lay out plots of land and streets in the town. More development followed in a fast domino effect, and by 1890 San Dimas had a planing mill, a hardware store, and fourth-class post office at the corner of Bonita and Depot, a brick kiln at the corner of Amelia and Cienega, two pipe yards, and its first telephone and restaurant. The community grew as an agricultural region, though its crops gave way to houses and other development by the middle part of the 1900s.
San Dimas Southern slideshow
WOW!
Bear "It's all about having fun."
Colorado RayVery nice slideshow and some great period modeling.
I whole-heartedly agree.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
I was fortunate enough to have Andy Sperandeo select the layout and have it featured in Great Model Railroads 2011. If that issue is archived somewhere it has a detailed backstory that I wrote up.
Very nice slideshow and some great period modeling. Any companion narrative or track plan?
Ray
Hi,
Home created and printed on decal film. Coat with flat clear, let dry and apply. Lots of Solvaset.
I'm new since your last post, but welcome back, you have some outstanding detail and weathering there. And it's photobucket without ads, a miracle in itself.
How do you do the signs like Pumpkin Center and Hardware, where the heigth of the letters change?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Its been a long time since I’ve logged in here and finally finding time for my layout.
Figured I reintroduce my layout, the San Dimas Southern.