National Ice and Cold Storage

In the Riverside California scene during the era of which I model (40's and 50's era) stood a tall behemoth of a structure called the National Ice and Cold Storage.  As far as icing service for the railroad goes I think it only served the Union Pacific.  None the less it sat right in between both the Union Pacific and the Santa Fe right of ways.  It has been a real tough assignment collecting dimensional and photographic information especially from the Santa Fe side of the structure.  Thankfully Jim Lancaster has offered some of his Citrus industry collection on line.  His website along with some personal attention to this particular project of mine have been very critical to putting this scene together, Thanks again Jim.
I have had one false start on this project already and hope to get it nailed down this next go around.  It remains the last major part of my Riverside scene.  The rest of the structures that I will be making will be less specific to the locale and more of an improvisational effort.  That is more emphasis on the type of service they provided.  So as it is now I will have the National Ice and Cold Storage at one end and the Santa Fe/Pacific Electric interlock at the other end.  All of the major structures in between will be in their proper place and order and as accurate as I can make them.  With the exception of this National Ice and Cold Storage all these structures are for the most part done.  Catipillar building, Santa Fe Passenger station,  Santa Fe Freight station, Hal Kelly's Feed,  The McDermont Packing house.

Thanks to Pals

This weekend (2-25-12) I met Tom and Bill two of my railroad hobby pals at the Round House Gang's swap meet.  The Round House Gang model railroad club has been hosting these swap meets for decades and have gotten quite good at it.   As a participant it appeared that the event went well.  Hopefully those in charge and the Church parish are pleased with event and we'll see more here. This particular meet was held at the Adelaide Catholic Church church in Highland.  The event had been previously held at the Janet Goeske Senior center in Riverside, before that the Redland's Armory.  So to Larry C, Gary W and Herman of the Round House Gang and to the Adelaide Catholic Church Thank You.
While at the event Tom found an A&B set of 200 class SF F7's that he set aside for me.  The F7's This was a pleasant surprise as I had my eye out for a set of these for a while now.  They will be shopped and then put out for service very soon.  Apparently the previous owner of the F7 pulled out the pilot coupler and never repaired it.  However that is easily fixed.  The real treat of the event was a SD&AE caboose that Tom S prepared at his shop and a Datsun truck that Bill gave up out of a set he had purchased.  Thanks Tom and Bill for another great swap meet Saturday morning.

Merry Christmas 2011

Hope all who read this are having or have had a Merry Christmas this year 2011.

What a mess

Work continues on the Shasta Division.  So far little to show other than this mess

After the weekend 11-12-2011

Although I have not been blogging much about the NL&SC lately a lot has been going on.

• Improvements at 7th St. have been performed. 
• The Santa Fe tower for service at the Pacific Electric crossing has been built. 
• Some additional outfitting of Kelly's Feed has been installed. 
• An additional layer of detail has been added to the Passenger Depot at Riverside. 
• The Caterpillar company's building and off site construction has been started. 

Click here and see some photos 11-14-2011

N scale fun, friends and swapmeets (BP and BS)

That's right BP Balboa Park and BS Belmont Shores. Well the last two weekends have been fun with model trains and swapping. It started at the Balboa park model railroad in San Diego 10-10-2011 with my friend Tom. Then on the next weekend 10-17-2011 we joined up with a few more friends Bill(the wheel man for this operation)and JJ. It was on now for the Gang of four, from here to the Belmont shores N scale swap meet.

Although its a little bit of a drive, the four of us friends carpooled down from the IE to San Pedro for this event. For this trip it meant getting up earlier than I normally do "4am". Then on to Rendezvous at Bill's at 5:30am. Unfortunately I was the late one(sorry guy's) I hope they'll still invite me again sometime. Anyway I hadn't participated in a lot of swap meets so I just grabbed the box from the previous weekend swap meet. All of this stuff I had been meaning to sell on Ebay but hadn't got around to it yet. Although the stuff I sold would have probably fetched more on Ebay the experience would have been void of getting out with friends and other like minded people who enjoy the hobby.

Upon arriving at the Belmont Shores compound one of the guys said "Oh No its that guy". Upon looking out the front windshield I look and see the Tomcat and he was in full form out on the prey. You'll find him bending the ear of many swapper or otherwise scooping up all the best deals at most every model railroad event in SoCal. Then upon driving further up we see Chuck and the table of Athearn (and a few other goodies) Across the way was more sellers, one of whom had some great deals one of which I could not pass up a LL SD9 detailed and painted SP BW. Bruce and his N scale multi-table sensory overload. It was great.

One of the special moments at the event happened at the end when Bill had a negotiation with a youngster. The young man made an offer to Bill of Five dollars on one of Bills items. Bill said no way that's way to much and then proceeded to negotiate his own item down to a buck. Of coarse the youngster was elated but so was Bill and so was I. All in all it was a great deal of fun. Thanks Bill for driving and thanks Tom and JJ for the camaraderie you're the coolest.

Riverside's Ice plant (A cool project for summer)

I have been gathering or trying to gather Photos and information for the past few years on the subject of ice in Riverside. That is the ice plant that used to exist in Riverside California's old railroad district. Particularly a photographic facing view from the Santa Fe tracks. The Ice plant I am referring to was named National Ice and Cold Storage then later and until it's final demise the United States Cold Storage. The Structure was kind of a Behemoth of a building for the Riverside area. Which makes it somewhat critical for the scene I am building. I have shared my desire to get photos and information from a group of my friends that gather on Yahoo groups to discuss citrus modeling, they have really been a supportive group and supplied contacts and information before. In the meantime as I wait hear from them I am going to go to the Riverside city library to see what I might find there. If anyone reading this has information that they want to share I would be grateful if you would contact me.