What to see?

steamhead

Active Member
I've never been there...but Balboa Park I believe has live scale RR...There is also a mega layout in a museum there....Google it..I'm sure it'll come up...
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
The Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park. If you will be in the San Diego area on a weekend, there is the San Diego Railroad Museum in the town of Campo an hour or so Southeast of San Diego. The Museum in Campo is run entirely by volunteers so it is only open on weekends as far as I know. A couple of hours North of San Diego on I-15 in Perris is the Inland Empire Railroad Museum. In Griffith Park in Los Angeles there is Travel Town with a bunch of smaller steam engines and trolleys on display. Pomona has a bunch of large locomotives on display in one corner of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds. They include an ex-U.P. DD40x, a big boy and a challenger, an ex U.P. 2-12-4, and an ex Santa Fe 4-8-4, as well as other large steam engines. I think the DD40 is the only diesel there.

I don't know what other interests you may have, or if you have family going with you. San Diego's zoo is world famous. I don't know how well known the wild animal park is outside of California, but it is also interesting. It is owned and operated by the San Diego Zoological Society, same people who operate the San Diego Zoo. You can take a tram ride through a huge area where all sorts of African non carnivors are allowed to roam freely. There is also Sea World in San Diego, much more pricey than the Zoo. I think there is a decommissioned air craft carrier on display as a floating museum in the harbor in San Diego. Balboa Park is full of museums, arboretums, etc. No matter what your interests, you can probably find an appropriate museum in the park. The park is huge, but all of the museums are within a short walk of each other. You used to be able to buy a ticket book at a discount at the Museum of Science & Industry that gave you admission to all of the museums in Balboa Park. I forgot to mention that just North of San Diego in La Jolla (pronounced la hoya) is the Scripts Institute of Oceanography and Aquarium.
 
S

Soaring

Go to Gilroy, only 2 Hr from San Fransisco, and meet me in Hollister :D
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
Ok what should i be going to see for the week im headed to San Diego? Or people too:)

People from the East Coast often think in terms of the size of the states on the Eastern Seaboard, and think San Fran is a quick drive up the Coast from San Diego. It is 8-10 hours North of Los Angeles, so it would be 10-12 hours from San Diego. I would imagine Canadians are more used to long distances, since most of the Provinces occupy areas closer to the size of our Western states than the smaller states (area wise) on the Eastern Seaboard. This is just a warning because a bunch of people have chimed in inviting you to run up to San Fran. I thought you should be aware of how far it is before you decide to try to go to S.F.
 
I have been looking online and think i will definatly will head to the MRR museum. Im there on a training course, so i only have evenings and the one saturday to explore. San Fran is a little far for my tastes. But we shall seesign1
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
I don't know if you have left for San Diego, yet or not; but I just got back from S.D. My wife's and my 35th anniversary was April 21, and I'm retired and she was off April 21 & 22 so we went to San Diego for a couple of days. She wanted to go to the zoo. The last time we visited the zoo was about 10 years ago or so. We spent all day Tuesday at the zoo until about 2:30 pm. We were done at the zoo at that time, so we went over to the Model Railroad Museum which is less than 1/2 mile away from the zoo in another section of Balboa Park. I was amazed at the difference in the La Mesa Model Railroad Club's additions to the Tehachapie layout! For a number of years the layout construction has been delayed due to the requirement that the La Mesa club build a handicap access ramp to the second level of the layout room before they could begin construction of the upper level of the layout. They now have the ramp in place and the second floor built and the loop and Mojave are roughed in with tracks laid and waiting for scenery. My understanding is that Bakersfield and Mojave will not actually be modeled on the layout. Bakersfield is the hidden staging yard at the lower end of the layout, and Mojave will eventually be hidden from view under a mountain at the top of the layout. I was talking with one of the club members as he operated a train coming down from Mojave to Bakersfield, and he said it takes 3 real time hours to go from Mojave to Bakersfield at scale speeds!

By the way, I did not go to the Museum of Science & Industry to buy tickets to the entire Museum complex because I had very limited time and was only going to the Model Railroad Museum. Therefore, I don't know if they have maps of the museum complex available. They probably do; but if you look for the building with the San Diego Historical Society and the San Diego Sports Hall of Fame on the main floor, the Model Railroad Museum is downstairs in the basement of that building.
 
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