Category Archives: Caboose Project and Other Trains

John and I are getting ready for this Friday’s caboose move.
We talked with the manager of the RV storage area this morning (and
gave him our final month’s rent) so he knows to keep vehicles
from parking near where the low boy flatbed truck and crane will go. We
are telling all of our neighbors so they can see the lift and stay for
Bar-B-Q after. We bought red DANGER tape and yellow CAUTION tape to
keep avid photographers and little kids from getting in the way or
standing someplace which might be dangerous.

We have also been getting the yard ready for visitors and caboose fans.
It was mostly in good order because of the annual work preparing for our
Easter Egg Hunt but we have done some special projects as well. John
and our neighbor Felix replaced the rotten wooden fence corner along the
riverbank with a new chain link fence and gate section. I can now open
the river fence gate without lifting up the entire fence too. I finally
gave up on my two frost-killed mandevilla vines and filled their big
pots with cannas. I was going to pull out the frost-killed bougainvillea
vine too when I noticed that there were three new leaves growing from its
base. Hooray! It was probably waiting for us to turn the grass sprinklers
back on since it grows next to the lawn. I am still cutting off brown fan
palm fronds killed in last winter’s cold. These are 5′ long with sharp
curved thorns so care is required. We want the house and yard to look
good in the background of all of the caboose move photos.

John talked with the San Jose building department today and we
are approved to move! We are moving our 16 ton 91-year-old railroad
caboose this next Friday, May 11th. WP668 will be moved 3 blocks from its current storage location and then lifted by crane onto the tracks in our
backyard.

We bought WP668 in January 2006 (see

We Bought a Caboose! blog entry). She moved from San Francisco
to San Jose in February 2006 (see

The Caboose Has Landed! blog entry) and we have been working
to bring her home ever since.
Hooray!

This week, we finally got the formal recommendation from our Civil Engineer with regard to securing the WP668 caboose for earthquake safety. His formal report (with an official Registered Professional Engineer seal and everything) gets submitted with John’s latest drawings to request the San Jose building permit. The drawings are of the steps and railing which will enclose the entry platform of the caboose, and the associated deck. John will go over to City Hall early next week. Once we have the building permit, we can schedule the crane for the caboose lift onto the wheels and track in our back yard.

Our home club, the
Silicon Valley Lines Model Railroad, was invited for a
visit and joint operations tonight by the California Central Model Railroad
club. The California Central Model Railroad has been in the historic
depot building on the other side of the tracks from Sun’s Santa Clara Campus
(formerly Agnews State Hospital) since the late 1960’s. It is located at:

4185 Bassett St

Santa Clara, CA 95054


(408) 988-4449

John and Paul and I did not stay for the entire session but saw
much to admire at this friendly club. The building is small but they
own it and pay nominal rent
to the railroad that owns the land itself. They thus do not have the high
monthly rent problem that plagues many clubs. The building is fully built
out with a raised floor layout. The space under the layout is well
used for corridors, the dispatcher’s desk (with monitor screens and
switches), access to remote layout areas, a lavatory, even a small
coffee room. Communications with the dispatcher are by dial telephones
mounted to the panels under the layout. Paul was fascinated by the
dial telephones (he had never seen one used before)!

Cal Central Meetings are Fridays, 8:30-11:00 p.m. Their
National Model Railroad Association
(NMRA) listing says:

Call for directions and upcoming show/events.

The layout is HO scale with a dual guage branch line for those of the narrow-minded persuasion. The layout is a “folded dog bone” or point to point with a turning loop at each end and is located in the turn of the century South Pacific Coast Agnew Station. The main line is approximately 300′ and the scenery is 90% complete. This club layout has been on several convention tours and also on the cover of RMC and MR multiple times. There are several NMRA Master Modelers in the ranks and even some past NMRA officers and it shows in the layout.

We took away many good ideas from our short visit. This is a club
and layout worth seeing.

Our neighbors and we got a notice in the mail this week saying that our Variance
Permit hearing would be held on 21 February. Oddly, the notice said we
wanted to build an auxilliary structure; I thought we were moving a
caboose into our backyard. We need to talk with our neighbors so they
know to come to the hearing and cheer for the project.

John and San Jose’s Plan Implementation Division planner have been trading email
and phone calls all week about paperwork details. She asked for a revision
of one of the drawings. He went to City Hall this morning to give her a new
printout. We learned that even though we created the application electronically,
the Plan Implementation Division needs a paper copy so that they can stamp
it, image it for electronic storage, then give us our own stamped paper copy.

After the Variance is approved, we still have to apply for a building permit.
We hope to get a refund soon of the almost $2,000 in fees the Plan Implementation
Division had us pay for the first permit request last November. We had to pay
about the same amount again for the Variance Permit submission in January.
I am sure there will be more fees due for a building permit.

Part of preparing a building permit plan will be to hire a Civil Engineer
to write a specification on railway equipment safety during an earthquake.
We need to find a Civil Engineer with a knowledge of railroads and a sense
of humor.

I checked out the web for what happens to trains during earthquakes
and found two examples:

1. 1999
   “Hector Quake” was
   Magnitude 7 (out of 10 possible on the
   
   Richter scale*) quake near Barstow,
   California. Track shifted during the earthquake which caused a very
   minor derailment (no overturned cars). There were no serious injuries.

   * The 1906 quake which destroyed San Francisco was an 8 on the Richter scale.

2. 
   2004 In Japan’s Niigata region, a high-speed train (Shinkansen)
   derailed following a 6.8 earthquake (out of 7 possible on the
   
   Japanese intensity scale). The train was at the quake’s epicenter
   and running at about 210 km/hour at the time. This is Japan’s
   first Shinkansen derailment in 40 years. Eight out of 10 cars
   derailed but there were no serious injuries.

It is clear that at this rate we will not have WP668 moved before her
first birthday in storage.