San Diego 9/10: Model Railroad Museum, MOPA,Timken

San Diego Model Railroad Museum - Sunday, September 10th
Sunday, John & Sue and Margaret went to Mass at a nearby Catholic church - not difficult at all to find in a place called Little Italy. Frank and I joined them after, for breakfast pastries at a sidewalk bakery called Frost Me Cafe. The apple strudel I had and Frank's cinnamon bun were huge, enough to save some for later. Yes, we were indeed acquiring a stockpile of food at home. We had to build up our strength for the day's outing, Frank's most anticipated event of the trip, the San Diego Model Railroad Museum.

The San Diego Model Railroad Museum is in Balboa Park, and is reputed to be North America's Largest Railroad Museum. John & Sue walked the 1.7 miles 41 minutes to Balboa Park, getting in those 10,000 steps which I learned is about 5 miles (upper half of following map). Margaret, Frank, and I took a 10 minute Uber ride service (lower half of following map).

We walked along the stone arched corridor down to the Model Railroad Museum.

On the right upon entering, we saw the Cabrillo & South Western exhibit in O scale a 1:48 size ratio, one the most popular and oldest scales in the model railroad industry (bottom-most area on museum map). Scavenger hunts printed on slips of paper listed items to look for among the layouts, such as a graveyard,  dog in doorway of a store, or a stage coach. The O-scale had whimsical scenes such as a Halloween picket fence and a train conductor leading along his pet dinosaur. 

On the left upon entering we saw  the San Diego & Arizona exhibit in HO scale, a 1:87 scale or 3.5 mm to 1 foot. It is roughly equivalent to half O scale and hence the nomenclature HO. The HO exhibit was more extensive and had viewing from three sides. Both of these layouts were at waist to chest height with intermittent convenient stair risers for children and very short people. The detail was incredible. Scavenger hunt items included a woman feeding birds, skunks, or a crop duster. Most clues were tiny and a challenge to find. Those birds the lady was feeding were less that ¼" high; they would show up as specks, at most, in any photo I took.  Following is one scene from an accident complete with police car and victim under the overturned vehicle. 

Running along the floor between the O and HO displays were railroad ties listing donors to the museum. This arrangement was a creative alternative to selling bricks for donations. This was a good spot for Suite Six's traditional photo of all our feet. Clockwise from the top are Frank's, Diane's, Sue's, John's and Margaret's shoes.

Along side the display wall (right side of museum map) Frank and Diane paused for some photo ops by life size train signals.

 

Still on the lowest level, the Pacific Desert Lines N Scale exhibit (upper left corner of map) was built as if looking in through the windows of a passenger car. N scale is a popular model railway scale, 1:159 which is  9 mm to 1,435 mm. Standard regulation full scale rail spacing would be 4 ft 8 ½ in. Scavenger hunt items included a radio tower and an ice storage building.

There was a model locomotive displayed in one corner that was large enough to ride, 1/8 full size with a scale of 1 ⅜" = 1 foot. It was a near replica of a 1863 type of Civil War Era locomotive.

Contrast that locomotive with the Z scale models we'd seen at the far end of our first aisle in (far right bottom corner of museum map). Z scale is one of the smallest commercially available model railway scales (1:220), with a track gauge of 6 mm / 0.25 in. The chart below summarizes the scales. Frank's father's trains are not on the chart. His were S scale 1:64. S scale track gauge (space between the rails) is 22.48 mm (0.885 in).

We briefly walked up to the mezzanine level where there was a display of Tehachapi Pass Southern Pacific Santa Fee HO layout. Since this track was traveling through a mountain pass area, it was heavy on scenery and light on small activity details like the HO layout along the entry. We did not find the oil sludge pits nor the peacock. We moved on to the far room where we were positively blown away by an extensive, extremely detailed, toy train layout by the San Diego 3 railers built on O gauge track. The large size of O scale trains had often required a third rail of power in order to run smoothly. The larger scale also provides the opportunity for complicated landscaping and creative expression. These photos cannot capture it all.

We learned that the club also deployed live cameras on the set up @SD3R.com that can be viewed on the internet when the gallery is open and the trains are running. The signs confirm that you are never too old to play with trains. A friendly museum goer took a photo of all of use prior to us leaving the museum.

We broke for lunch at the nearby Cafe in the Park, a floor above the train displays. Thinking it was a modest little snack bar, we were surprised at the variety and quality of the food... salads, sandwiches, desserts, coffees. I had a huge, plump, cheese quesadilla, from which had at least a third left over for another meal, and Frank had a chili dog. Afterwards, Frank wanted to go back for more train viewing at the Model Railroad Museum. The rest of us moved ahead to make brief visits to a couple other art museums, the MOPA (Museum of Photographic Art) and the Timken

Museum of Photographic Art
Just down the arched corridor from the train museum was the Museum of Photographic Art MOPA. An exhibit there at the time of our visit was The Water Holds Me with the work of artist Suda House. The scenes were all in cool blues and greens with women submersed in water. Reading about the collection, we learned the coordinating theme was the struggles of women such as between motherhood and career. The two tall side by side images are from her saving grace series; they are Electra with the turtle and Celaeno with the whale photos. When I returned to the Museum of Photographic Art the next day to share these photos with Frank, I learned they were closed on Mondays. I was glad I could go the website to show him and see his take on the strange images. I did not understand them but I liked them to the degree of their calming tones and intricate poses. More of Suda House's work can be seen can be seen at https://www.sudahouse.com/. 

Timken 
The Timken Museum of Art at Balboa Park offers a rare and intimate encounter with world-renowned European Old Master paintings—including works by Rembrandt, Hals, Bruegel, and others—as well as 19th-century American art and a unique collection of Russian icons. Unfortunately I was plum tuckered out by then. I plunked myself down in the lobby while Margaret went off to view two galleries branching off at either end. John & Sue had already set off on their walk home. I have only entrance and lobby pictures as proof I had indeed been there.

Frank eventually caught up with Margaret and me and the three of us took an Uber home. All five of us rested up from our busy Sunday and stayed home for the evening, enjoying a dinner of leftovers. We also finished the Harbor Town puzzle.