A first for the orange county module railroaders

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
This past weekend the club I belong to, Orange County Module Railroaders did something we have never done in our history which dates beck to a few years before the founding of N-trak. We participated in two shows simultaneously on the same weekend. Part of the club set up and ran trains at the Getty Center in Los Angeles while other club members set up a layout and ran trains at the South Coast Botanical Gardens in Orange County. The Getty was featuring a photography exhibition of photos taken from 1860-1900. As a result to try to somewhat fit in with their program we ran steam only at the Getty and the diesel guys went to South Coast. Her is a link to pictures one of our members took at the Getty:

www.pbase.com/trainrides/getty
 

N Gauger

1:20.3 Train Addict
That's great!! Looks like fun!! but when is running traind not fun?? :D :D

I'm guessing - Squaredancing on the stage?????

Nice outfits!!
 

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
Russ, thats SO COOL!!! I did not know there was an Orange County Railroad club :eek: :eek:ops:

Where is it at? Maybe i can stop by someday and say :wave:
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
Mikey,
They were doing a bunch of traditional California music from the 1850's-1900 on the stage. My wife watched that stuff more than I did. I suspect it was the Spanish dancing and music that you would have heard and danced had you been in California in the middle 1800's. California won independence in 1848, and became a state in 1850, so most of the early music was Spanish. The Saturday was the annual Family Festival, and there were a bunch of arts and crafts programs for children to participate in, music, and of course us model railroaders.

Josh- We meet for monthly business meetings on the second Wednesday of every month at the Sunkist Branch of the Anaheim Library on Sunkist between Lincoln and Ball Rd. Sunkist parallels the 55 freeway and is the first street west of the freeway when you exit at Lincoln. I'm not sure about Ball Road, but if it isn't the first street it will be the second one.

Mike- J Paul Getty designed and endowed the museum and I think he bought the property before he died. It is a huge, sprawling, art museum built on the side of the Santa Monica Mountains on the West side of the Sepulveda Pass. It is on the side of the mountain almost to the top. The Santa Monica Mountains divide Downtown Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley. The facility consists of 4 main buildings N, W, S, & E. I suspect the letter designations stand for North, West, South, and East, but they are not laid out in a square, so directions are approximate. There is a water feature at the top of the museum that flows into a stream going through a huge, long garden that changes plant types as it goes along to replicate native plants in California from the Oregon Border to Mexico. There is also a desert garden. The buildings are all 3 or 4 stories tall, and laid out so that the tiles in the walkway line up perfectly with the tiles on the sides of the buildings which line up perfectly with the tiles on any ceilings that are in place. Some of the outdoor are open, where we set up the layout, their was a roof, but it was open on all sides. It is hard to see it because of the way the sky blends in, but in the first picture on the first page the lower part of what looks like sky is actually the Pacific Ocean probably 10-15 miles distant. We received parking passes because we were a part of their program, but normally parking costs $10.00 for the day. There is no charge for the museum. If you took public transportation to get there, the museum would be entirely free! I suspect that the parking fee goes to maintain and operate the trams that are used to bring people up from the parking lot to the museum. The parking lot is about 2 miles away down the hill!
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
That looks like fun. Makes me want to build a module for my local club and take it shows to set it up.
 

steamhead

Active Member
Good show..!! Efforts like yours will bring in new blood to the hobby...:thumb:

Oh...Nice digs as well....:mrgreen:
 
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