Small Projects Around the Club (Part 3) - Bakersfield Co Shops

In this post, I'll be looking at the first steps in filling in the details of SP Bakersfield Shop Buildings.  This post is a cross-over between a "Small Projects Around the Club" series post, and the larger multi-modeler project of scenicing and detailing the greater Bakersfield Yard area, which is 120ft long!

Operations during November 2017 give a good over-view of the whole Shops area.

This has been an ongoing project by several members of the La Mesa Model Railroad Club for well over 15 years.  The last 5-7 years have seen some slow progress, but in the last couple of years I've noticed some damage occurring to some basic details I installed years ago.  Several small buildings have disappeared.  I'm not sure if they're 'stolen' or someone hit them, broke something, then removed them.  In any case things are getting damaged, so during my last visit, I set about over a couple of evenings working on some little projects that caught my eye.  I last posted about this in my blog titled: Small Projects Around the Club (Part 1) - Caliente, where I did some minor repairs to the Club's model of the Caliente station.  In Part 2, I talked about repairing damage to a removable ballast load for a Walthers Hart-Gondola.

First, let's look over what's the areas look like that are involved.

"West Structures"

The west side of the Shops are dominated by the Carpenter's Shop, Malley Shed, and inbound engine servicing tracks.

Drawing of the west end of the Company Shops, LMRC Collection

I love looking over drawings like this, digging out all the little details, such as the note about the sand blasting shed being built in 1949.  Over the years somethings changed, the Malley Shed became the Car Shop repair building in the 1930's when about 1/3 of the roundhouse was demolished and new open air "Garden" Tracks were built to service the longer cab-forwards of the AC-4 and newer classes.

Bakersfield 'Garden' Tracks in the mid-1950s with the GS-7s were working on the San Joaquin Valley. - Eddie Sims Collection.

The Section Quarters and "Company Village" have been slowly progressing since August 2011.  During my last trip to the club I found a drawing I made of the whole compressed plan for the village on the south side of the main line.

CAD drawing from 2011 give the basic layout of all the "Company Village" buildings with selective compression.

The drawing covers everything from the buildings, to pavement and concrete driveways and parking lots, to what trees and hedges were where.  The SP Trainline article on Bakersfield has a beautiful aerial photo taken around 1957-1959 of the whole west end of Bakersfield from Baker St. (Depot) to Haley St. (West End of the Yard).

In the Middle of the Action

The 120 foot turntable is the center of the action, with the crew locker rooms, etc in the foreground near the engine ready tracks where the road crews go on and off duty.  The Backshops were located over where the wooden desk is and only part of it can be modeled unfortunately.

Activity in the Roundhouse area.

The Roundhouse is one of the main hot spots of activity during operating sessions (Busy Times in Bakersfield - Part 1) as engines that are serviced.  The inspection pits are used for the routine inspections made between trips and for light repairs.  In the center of this photo, Malley 4279 has had her tender removed in preparation of some superheater and flue work, which was done in the open air.  A work cart will be placed next to the 'monkey deck' so the flues and superheater tubes can be pulled out safely.  Notice the tenders sitting in the foreground between the water tank and Carpenter's Shed.

SP 4279 forms the center of a small diorama showing how SP engines were serviced.  She's having some rod work done here.

Engines that needed moderate or heavier repairs would also be disconnected from their tenders.  The engines would then be transferred through the roundhouse, east into the Backshop Erection Shop, where overhead cranes could lift the boiler from the frames.  Bakersfield was also responsible for the shoppings of the SP Narrow Gauge engines based at Owenyo, 143 miles north of Mojave.

"East Structures"

The east side of the Shops are dominated by the Backshop structure and a large Storehouse.  A scattering of other outlaying buildings rounds out the area.

Lots of activity at the Bakersfield outbound leads and Ready Track C, adjacent to the Storehouse.

Focus of the Work - June 2018

One of the nagging issues around the Roundhouse has been the Storehouse getting bumped and misaligned.  One of my goals this trip was to cut new plastic concrete platforms for the east and west ends of the Storehouse, to keep it in place.  - As with several of the projects I started working on again this week, I made progress, but none were "completed" before I had to leave.

Pole Yard & Road Crossing

My first step was to lay down the dirt and gravel road which crosses the tracks from the north side of the backshop area.  The usual method of securing the ballast is secured with a coat of 'wet water' followed by a glue-water mix.  My mix seemed a bit too diluted, so several applications were required over a couple of evenings.

View overhead from the west end of the Storehouse.

The two black lines west of the Storehouse show where the new western concrete driveway extends over to the south side of the Backshop building.

Between the Roundhouse and the Storehouse is the Backshop with the new driveway connecting them.

Here's the new L-shaped driveway which extends over to the Backshop.  Part of the reason to get this next step moving is that the small shed between the drive way and the ready track disappeared a few years ago.  So sorting out the locations and getting some of these buildings fixed down to the layout should help prevent damage and disappearing building syndrome.

In reviewing some of the other historical photos, the two small sheds need to be reversed compared to the photo above.

The Bakersfield Storehouse has taken some abuse over the years.

I noticed that there was some damage happening to the Storehouse, including some of the corrugated metal roofing starting to come up.  Using my self-closing tweezers I glued and clamped the corner back down.

Overhead view of the east end of the Storehouse.

The next major area to work on is the large slabs of concrete on the east side of the Storehouse.  I cut the concrete material yards and building foundations from large 0.06" sheet styrene pieces, left over from another project.

White styrene foundations and material yard cut to size.

I also cut out undersized building foundations to build the actual structures around later.  The process of laying out the size of the parts and then cutting the pieces with the standard scribe-and-snap technique.

Material Yards with foundation sheets for the new buildings.

There's also a future road that will need to be put in along the front edge of the layout.  Also an extension of clear plastic guard is planned to help protect the freight cars from falling off the front of the RR.

Painted and installed material yard and foundations.

I painted the plastic sheets and then marked out the edges of the expansion joints in the concrete slabs.  Once the joints are marked and I'm satisfied with their placement, I scribed the lines with a No.11 knife blade.  Normally it's better to have the scribed details put onto the parts before painting, but I planned to come back and weather the slabs and touch them up again anyway.

Here's the finished concrete slabs with a couple of SP flatcars resting into 'Ready C'

I used Testors 1226 Flat Dark Aircraft Gray with misting of Tamiya TS-68 Wooden Deck Tan for the weathering.

Closeup of the new East Material Yard slab, next to the Storehouse.

Gravel Road Crossing

As part of the Bakersfield Storehouse project, I made a small crossing on the little gravel access road.  At this point I'd already glued down the base layer of ballast and dirt.

Basic layer of ballast-gravel road glued in and new timber crossing members

The timber crossing parts are made from 16ft 'thin' ties, this is light Code 55 rail, so these timber members don't need to be very thick.  These specific timbers are actually about 0.020" higher than the rail head.

The timbers are ACC'd to the tops of the ties.  The two outer timbers are carved so as to clear the tie plates and spike heads.  I also scribe across the timber ends "dividing" the timbers into two 8ft sections.

At this point, I took a straight razor and skimmed across the crossing to shave down the excess height off the timbers.

Timbers glued down and some ballast added.

The road crossing gravel then is placed between the rails and formed into approach ramps on each side.

A second crossing was started at the edge of the layout.

I used a small block of Masonite to press and tamp the gravel into a consistent profile.

Wet-watered the whole road again.

Glue applied to the new road.

I elected to leave the track nail in the flextrack in the middle of the road.  After it was dry I painted it gray to match the ballast.

Rail and Tie Material Yard

Bakersfield's Rail and Tie Material Yard with several Speeder Sheds, the tank car cleanout's to the right. - Photographer Unknown, LMRC Collection

One of the interesting parts of the yard, which will be lots of fun to detail, will be this area where the SP stockpiles the rail, ties (both standard and probably the selection of switch ties too), switch frogs, points, etc.

Basic timbers for the rails to rest on.

Several years ago I glued down some ties for the rails to be stacked on.  I noticed during this visit that some of them were broken loose.  I decided to fix the broken ties, then break out the tan 'dirt' ballast and glue it all down.

Here's what the area looks like with some rails in place. - The glue's still wet in this photo.

Looking again at the prototype photo above, there are piles of ties back behind the speeder sheds.  So lots more details to make!

Tank Car Cleanout Sump

Kitbashed Athearn SP 58215 sits at the partly completed Tank Car Cleanout Sump Pit - June 9th, 2018.

East of the Bakersfield Company Village and between the PI Yard Tracks and Kern Jct. is a long track listed as a 'Tank Car Cleanout' with associated sump facilities.  I suspect that this could have also been used to clean out the wine tank cars and other tank cars that carried other products, such as cotton seed oil, used around Kern County.

One of the main features in modeling this cleanout track will be the 'duck boards' used to ensure the workers had sure footing while working.  Scale wooden 3x10s are used for the boards and 0.08" blocks of wood and plastic are used to support them past the ends of the ties.

SP Company Fuel Oil Sump, modeled with a deeper Peco inspection pit checked for reference.

In planning to lay out the "duck boards" I used the existing fuel oil sump for the roundhouse fuel supply, on the north west corner of the drawing above.  The concrete walkways on it were about 42" wide.  Four 3x10s will provide the needed width.

A lonely SP oil tank car sits on the soon to be Oil Sump.

The next step is planning how much of the ballast I'll be pulling up.  While in some photos I can see that the sump pits did go down between the rails past the level of the ties, on this project I decided not to cut out all the middle tie sections and finished ballast.

Lots of strip wood is laid out for this project.

I decided that there was enough room for seven (45ft coupled) tank cars to be on the cleanout at once.  I know that the Athearn 12.5k gallon cars are "oversized" for most prototypes, but they're correct size for the SP's big fuel oil tank cars and also some of the 6-dome wine cars were around 40-45ft coupled.

Blasting of the old ballast has begun!

Removal of the old 'dirt' ballast starts with a knife delaminating the top layer of the upson board material.  Done properly this will not damage the track being secured to the upson board.

Staggering the boards 'ship-lap' style every four feet.

The first layer of duck board fit up next to the outside of the rail.  I left a few scale inch gap between the duck board and the rail for the spikes, etc.  New outer supports are cut from styrene or wood for the outer three duck boards to rest on.

SP 58215 rests on a section of finished duck board.

I'll be working on this project again in September, and hope to finish it up, along with the sump pits between the rails.

In Closing

While several of these projects taken by themselves might be a "Small Project", several of these each became a multi-night project.  Several of them I worked on at the same time.  Hoping from one to another as the glue dried on one.  As a result, there are several aspects of the greater Bakersfield scene project that I'll be working on in the coming months, both at my home shop and on my short visits to the club in San Diego. 

Most of these projects will probably be covered from now on in a new series focusing on Bakersfield, while my "Small Projects Around the Club" series of blogs will continue to show small 'stand-alone' projects which only take an hour or two from start to finish.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Small Projects Around the Club (Part 1) - Caliente Station

Small Projects Around the Club (Part 2) - Fixing a Ballast Load

Busy Times in Bakersfield (Part 1) - Roundhouse Operations

Busy Times in Bakersfield (Part 2) - SP Yard Operations Overview

A Trip Over Tehachapi on Santa Fe's SCX-BI - An Overview of Operations Over the Railroad

Triple Trouble on Tehachapi - A Weird Day on the Hill - Exceptions to and Bending the Rules