If You're Vacationing in the Ft. Myers, FL Area ...

[P5se Camelback]

To clarify my earlier description of what’s powering the layout, a little homework has revealed that the Command Station cabinet for the layout has a DCS100 command station, and three DB150 boosters. Four Model Fuel Tanks from Loy's Toys act as the power supplies for each of the units. As you can see from the photographs, the command station also has air filters and fans to keep the heat sinks cool. The layout has 14 PM42 power management units to establish smaller power districts and for control in automatic reversing sections.





O.K. … with that out of the way … now to answer Russ’s query re: Cajon Pass …

As I’m not at all familiar with it, being an abject novice on the subject of the Santa Fe, its routes and geography, the Cajon Pass area, between Cajon and Summit is an area that takes up the entire end of the aisle that portrays the track from east of San Bernardino, through Cajon, Cajon Pass, Summit and then through the high desert to Victorville. Until I can take a few photos of the actual area, the following images, borrowed from the Club’s web site, taken during layout construction will have to suffice …

Construction in the area of Sullivan's Curve and the climb to Cajon Pass ...


Scenery begins to take shape at Sullivan's Curve ...


Mormon Rocks ...


… and this early shot of the approach to Summit from the Cajon Pass …


And to answer Gary’s question … the Fort Myers area is about 2 to 2½ hours south of Tampa, around 150 miles or so down I-75, depending on where you are in Tampa, a little bit more than a cross-town drive! Florida is an interminably long state … not all that wide but very long!!
(And the club is actually in North Ft. Myers, but who’s quibbling.)

And just for the curious, San Bernardino Depot is between three-and-a-half and four feet long (I haven’t crawled up on the upper level to measure, nor had I thought to ask the builder.) It is pretty cool, though, to hit F1 on the throttle approaching the Depot’s long platform, turning on the bell, and slowly bring your train to a halt there along the platform in San Bernardino. It should be more impressive when the neighborhood around the depot is finally populated with the small houses and bungalows that several of us are scratch building!

[I have much to learn about the Santa Fe! Everything about it is very, very different from the good old Reading Company, with which I am so intimately familiar!]