california beach scene

[jcgisel]

california beach. Has anyone ever made one. Where do I start. I want to show a surfer surfing. How should I make the water and sand so it looks right? Any comments would be apprectiated.

[SpaceMouse]

Work from a picture. Most beaches where people lay out are not surfing beaches. In fact, the majority of surfing areas are rocky points. There are exceptions. But most lay out beaches have surfing restrictions.

The challenge will not be getting the surfer or the beach right. The challenge will be getting a realistic surfable wave.

SpaceMouse
Surfer, Retired.

[jrbarney]

Jcgisel,
Using "beach"as the search term, here are two article citations from the Index of Magazines:

Roads & waterways Scenic Railway Modeling page 41 ( "AHERN, JOHN", BEACH, CANAL, LOCK, ROAD, SCENERY, WATER, WATERFALL )

Water and Seascapes Scenery for Model Railroads, Dioramas and Miniatures page 99 Streams and Ponds; Epoxy Water; Coloring Envirotex Lite ( BEACH, ENVIROTEX, HARBOR, POND, SCENERY, "SCHLEICHER, ROBERT", STREAM, WATER, WATERFALL )

I agree with SpaceMouse, getting a "tube" is going to be the biggest challenge.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[Jetrock]

Scale is part of the problem--California only has beaches along one edge, and most of the places where one is most likely to see trains near the waterfront are inlets and bays where the surfing isn't very good (Los Angeles Harbor, San Francisco Bay, etcetera.)

What part of California are you modeling, jcgisel? Beaches along the California coast very widely between San Diego and Crescent City...

[SpaceMouse]

There are several places I know where ther are tracks along the water. There is about a 60 mile stretch from Ventura to Gaviota and there are several surf spots--all rocky. Some of the most famous are: Fairgrounds, Tressels (named after the RR bridge), Rincon, Gaviota Point. There is also a stretch from San Diego to San Juan Capistrano, but I'm not familiar with that area. There is also a 10 mile stretch from Fort Bragg to 10 mile River, but no surf spots I know of.

[Anonymous]

Theres a little place in the Santa Cruz mountains called Roaring camp. They have narrow, and standard gauge trains there for ride-alongs through the redwoods. The Standard gauge they have is a diesel and travels through the redwoods, then to the beach for a picnic type thing. It passes the Santa Cruz beach, as well as a boardwalk they have there, right on the beach. The beach isnt surfable, but about a mile down theres a rocky area I've surfed once. The link is here http://www.roaringcamp.com/beach.html . I've thought about modeling a little scene like that but just dont have the space.

[Anonymous]

I'd be willing to bet you could make some pretty good looking ocean waves using clear silicone bathroom caulk...might be worth a try.

[Anonymous]

For modeling beach scenes:
"Modeling surf and sand" by Ken Patterson
Model Railroader, July 1996 page 68

In terms of picking a place, it's true that "Trestles" (near San Onofre) is farily rocky for the most part, but there are sandy spots just to the south at the legendary "Old Man's" (San Onofre State Surfing Beach).

There are often surfers (on today's shorter boards) at San Clemente State Beach, where the tracks run right along the beach. During daylight hours check out the beach cam.
http://216.231.10.155/home/JViewer.html
You might even see a train go by
It's kind of flat this (monday) morning

These were Santa Fe tracks.

From Ventura north they were Southern Pacific tracks. There are a lot fo places the tracks run right along the sand, other places they are on bluffs (Bates / Rincon) or bridges (Naples, Gaviota). Sometimes there's a highway or freeway between the tracks and the beach, like at the "cove" section of Rincon south of the point.

If you are just making something up, there are many, many spots in California where sandy beaches are just in front of the tracks. Depending on the conditions, there are often people surfing. Even in places that seem inpossible to get to, surfers will. And in their bare feet. Go for it, Dude!

Jon

[Medina1128]

There's an article about CA's Sante Fe oceanside routes in a recent MR issue..
and again in the Modeling Railroads of the 1950s special issue that came out this year.

[jcgisel]

I actually surf and the spot I'm trying to model is the area just south of rincon where the higway, train tracks, and La Conchita will all be parts of my layout. I'm trying to figure out what I should use for the beach sand and the water. For the water i was actually thinking of using surfboard resin. For the white water water, there is an additive for the resin that they use to fill holes in surfboards that i think i can make look pretty realistic. The cliffs are about 20 feet tall and there is a little bit of sand. I really want to know should I paint underneath the sand and should I just use beach sand. The cliffs are going to be covered with rocks. Thanks for all you answers.[8D][8D][8D][8D][8D][8D]

[Medina1128]

I think that you'll find that beach sand will be a little too large to be scale. Try N-scale fine ballast.

[SpaceMouse]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jcgisel

I actually surf and the spot I'm trying to model is the area just south of rincon where the higway, train tracks, and La Conchita will all be parts of my layout. I'm trying to figure out what I should use for the beach sand and the water. For the water i was actually thinking of using surfboard resin. For the white water water, there is an additive for the resin that they use to fill holes in surfboards that i think i can make look pretty realistic. The cliffs are about 20 feet tall and there is a little bit of sand. I really want to know should I paint underneath the sand and should I just use beach sand. The cliffs are going to be covered with rocks. Thanks for all you answers.[8D][8D][8D][8D][8D][8D]

Hmmmm. If I recall the area, there is a little beach, but also a lot of rocks. Are you talking about around the houses there? Or just north of the houses before the hwy turns out towards Rincon.

BTW: Where you from? I grew up on Oxnard Shores. Surfed with the Cambell's who invented the Bonzer, the first tri-fin.

[Anonymous]

If it's breaking the right way (strongly left-to-right from a NW swell), you can carry across from the point (some of the locals call it "indicator") across kind of a dead spot and come out at the "cove", which is basically the sandy beach that fronts the Freeway at La Conchita. The SP called the spot Punta (earlier, Punta Gorda). There's a pretty good lay out beach there and if you continue south, you come to the Mussel Shoals break (at the Arco Island pier). And just south of that is the SP siding known as Seacliff.

It depends on the tide and the time of year how wide the beach is there, but it can be pretty wide.

After the big landslides at La Conchita, it would be kinda sad for me to put it on the layout, but if you've picked an earlier time, pretty cool spot. Spent many hours there when I should have been studying.

As Spacemouse says, there's also a lay out beach at Bates just north of the Rincon point break. The SP location was called Wave and I think there was a short siding there in the 80s. The RR is in front of the Freeway on that side of the point (looking from the beach).

Jon

[Anonymous]

jcgisel,

Where do you live man? I live in Ventura (have spent college years "and beyond") in Goleta, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and now Ventura.

I've driven by the area you're talking about modeling approximately 10 billion times, give or take.

I'm planning a small downtown SB model railroad - sort of a "one location" type of deal. I was thinking about also having a beech scene, maybe representing the area between Ventura and La Conchita.

Check it out - I just read last night in John Signor's book on the Coast Line, that for about a 3 year period, just before 1990, there was no freight on the Coast Line. Crazy, huh? For a while, it looked like that line was going to die.

I may be biased (I most certainly am), but that seems like about the coolest stretch of railroading there is! Trains and ocean! Who could ask for more?

P.S. I tried to learn to surf in La Conchita a few times. I was a wimp for the cold water though, and didn't last too long... It's a shame what happened there a few months ago.

Almost forgot - about a year or so ago, there was a Z scale layout in MR with a California beach scene - it was like a 4-season layout, I believe. It was nice!

[Sperandeo]

Hello "jc,"

I think you'll find exactly what you want in tthe article "Modeling surf and sand," by Ken Patterson, in the July 1996 "Model Railroader," page 68.

Good luck,

Andy

[HAZMAT9]

I grew up in S. Cal in Santa Barbara and built my first railroad about 23 yrs ago. In fact I modeled the area around Rincon but added a ficticious oil pier which went jetted out to an oil rig I built...which was out of scale but it was great. Back then I used urethane with blue paints for the ocean and actual beach sand for the beach area. I modeled SP and had a fleet of tank cars which switched from the mainline to the pier. At the end of the pier was a small refinery and catwalks to the rig. I sold the layout many years ago, though on the current railroad I'm building I plan on putting a similiar scene in on a smaller scale. There were some interesting hobo camps between Summerland and Gaviota just off the beach which may add a touch of years past to your scene. As for adding a surfer, it would be neat to add a short pier and have the surfer "pier surfing" like we used to do at Rincon. I believe most trestles were over the beach, so having for example an Amtrak cruise by on the trestle while surfers pier surfed to the west would be an idea. Steve