The Following Article
Appeared In The
Inland Empire Outlook Section Of The Los Angeles Times
On August 14, 1993.
Camaraderie helps keep
modelers on same track
By DAVID LUSTIG, Special Sections Writer
very Tuesday
and Thursday night in a commercial section of Pomona, long
after most businesses are closed, a cacophony of construction noises,
conversation and laughter mixes freely from the second story of a brick
building on First Street.
As you draw closer in an attempt to understand what is being said,
the
nearby Southern Pacific railroad tracks seem to come alive as a train
approaches. A voice from the second story yells "Train break,"
and most of the
windows quickly fill with faces, obviously enjoying the noisy diesel
rumble of the passing freight.
Train break? Who's interested in trains at this time of
night? And what are these people
doing that they can afford to stop working and watch one go through town?
If you go up a set of wooden stairs at the base of the building, be
careful how you ask that
question. Because you'll find out. Big time.
Welcome to the world of the Pomona Valley Model Railroad Club, where
railroads are in
Please see TRAINS, Page JS3
TRAINS: Members like
working on the railroad
| Continued from Page JS1 HO gauge and still use steam engines, passenger trains are the premier way to travel and freeways just plain don't exist. As some club members are laying track and stringing electrical wire to power switches and miniature lights in far corners of the layout, others are looking over |
a little mind boggling: 1,500 feet of track, more than 650 switches, hundreds of miles of hidden electrical wires, not to mention the more than 20,000 freight and passenger cars and 1,500 locomotives if the club members brought in all their equipment at once. When it is finished, 30 people will be able to operate it | a charter member of the club which
was conceived in 1958. "I saw a sign about the starting [of] a new model railroad club," recalls the retired Los Angeles County worker. "I had always been a rail fan," he says with an impish grin, "just didn't know it." The club then known as the West Covina Brotherhood of Model Railroaders, used the loft of a West Covina drug store as its first meeting place, only to be displaced a few months later when the store closed. Other places came and went, including a new building on one member's property, says Lazzeroni, only to have a disagreement force the member and the club to part company. By 1963, however, they were firmly entrenched in the upstairs of a former hotel for agricultural workers, this time in San Dimas. "We knocked down the room walls and took out most of the bathrooms," he remembers, "then used the wood from an old house we tore down in Puente. The two-by-fours had crystallized. They were so hard we had to drill nail holes in them first. That was tough." Building another layout, and still calling it the Sierra, Cajon and Pacific, the club remained in San Dimas until the 1960s when members and the building owner couldn't come to terms on a new lease. It was moving day again. While some structures and bridges were salvages, most of the railroad, which Lazzeroni remembers as being 90% done, was done away with. Shortly thereafter, the group found its present quarters in Pomona and is in the process of officially changing the name to the Pomona Valley Model Railroad Club, a name that club members have freely used for the last couple of years. Today, the track work is 90% completed, scenery about 50% and wiring 20%. Which also means that for every operating session, there are many more work nights. But that doesn't mean the trains don't run. On the contrary, members say, model railroads were made to operate and so does the SC&P. |
|
'To me, this is a hobby. To my
wife,' it's an obsession. |
||
| schematic diagrams and mixing foul-smelling
ingredients to become scenery. People from all walks of life and occupations are members of this beehive of activity, all glued together by one common bond: the love of model railroading. "It's a fascination with trains," says Greg Robertson, 41, a 19-year club member and current president, who in everyday life is a machinist from Upland. "It's relaxing. You're doing something that takes your mind off of every day problems." Jerry Bridgeford, 56, an aerospace engineer from Chino Hills and club member for 15 years, agrees. "I enjoy the people here. The camaraderie, the ability to trade ideas and modeling experiences. "To me , this is a hobby. To my wife," he says smiling, "it's an obsession. I try to keep a happy medium and not abuse it. I'm down here two nights a week. My wife come with me once in a while." One point to be made here is that to many people, working an a model railroad usually conjures up images of a circle of track on a four-by-eight foot piece of plywood in a corner of the garage. But not there. The club's railroad, known as the Sierra, Cajon and Pacific, is just a tad bigger, measuring something in the order of 25 feet wide by 130 feet long. And the physical statistics can be |
at once. Members have been working on it
for almost two decades and it will take almost another [two] to complete. The theme of the Sierra, Cajon and Pacific is of a western railroad that starts in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and heads west to the Pacific Ocean. With that in mind, a number of towns, some real, such as Crescent City, Red Bluff and Glendale, blend with the fictitious, Sierra, Diablo and Mesa Grande, in no particular order, to create railroading as seen through the eye of the club members. "Every foot of track is hand-laid," says Robertson as he gives a visitor a tour of the railroad. "Every individual tie, every spike. Every switch is built in place, custom fit for each situation." He's proud of that fact. Pre-assembled track would of taken far less time to install, he explains, but it wouldn't look nearly as authentic.
|
|
Photo by JOHN OLIGNY
From left, Mike O'Neill and Greg Robertson, members of the
Pomona Valley Model Railroad Club,
set up scenery alongside their model railroad.
 nd
here again, different members find different areas of the hobby to
participate in.Bridgeford. who usually winds up doing wiring on work nights, prefers to work the yards moving cars around and assembling trains for the mainline during an operating night. So does Ken Leeper, 52, a truck driver from West Covina who is usually knee deep in making scenery on work nights. It's a hobby, a pastime, something a person can do and ignore all the problems of the world around you," says Leeper. "I used to have other hobbies, but not any longer. This is it." Tom Ballard, 40, a plumber from Pomona, says his interest in trains started as a youngster with a Lionel train set. Now as a 14-year club member, he enjoys being one of the dispatchers and helping to keep up to 20 trains at a time operating. "There's always something to do," he says, "I love to work with my hands and build things. I enjoy building trains. When I'm |
through with a model, it doesn't gather dust,
it's operated." Part of the enjoyment on an operating night, members say, is to get a train over the entire layout. They average 20 cars but one time a 150 car train was successfully run over the entire railroad, which, running at about a scale speed 10 seconds for five feet of track, is the equivalent of a real train running 30 miles per hour. When everybody is running, it may take up to three hours to have one train make the entire circuit. While the club is open to both men and women, on any given Tuesday or Thursday night, a small group of spouses will get together and talk among themselves as their mates are crawling on the floor trying to track a short circuit or trying to straighten a kink in a piece of rail. Sandy Robertson, 41, laughs and says no when asked if she knew about this when they first wed 19 years ago. But she does enjoy Please see TRAINS, Page JS9 |
TRAINS: Club
welcomes new members
Continued from page JS3 coming down to the club and talking with everyone, and as with most
spouses, helps during open houses and swap meets. Membership in the club is open to anyone with a sincere
interest in the hobby, say president Greg Robertson. There is a
one-time initiation fee of $50 and a probationary period of 90 days.
After that, everyone pays dues of $20 a month. Minimum age is 18. |
ver on
a work bench, new member Rodney Cole, 45, is soldering wires together on a
power supply he is custom building for the layout. He admits he does
the same thing in his day job as an aerospace engineer, but doesn't get as
much time doing hands-on soldering. "This ," the Claremont
resident says, releasing the trigger on his smoking soldering gun for a
moment and gesturing to a mass of wires, "this is enjoyment to
me."