San Diego Depot (Mock-up)

With Capistrano well under way, I turned to another big work area - San Diego. While I was drawing the parts for the new San Juan Capistrano depot, I also finished a rough drawing for my rendition of the Santa Fe depot in San Diego. I realized that I would not have enough space to put the full size of it on the layout.

After measuring the available space I decided that what is pictured on the photograph above, would perfectly fit. On the original there is almost the same size with another 11 arches to the left.

From measurements on the pictures I took during my last vacation in San Diego, I came up with about 1.25 metres (approx. 50") for the model. I got the wall segments laser-cut and they were basically just a copy/paste of the master and joined with tabs and slots.

The main wall will be flush against the backdrop with only the arched collonade and one tower modeled in 3D. Because I laid the track first I have to make some compromises with the depot now.
I still have to make some minor adjustments to the collonade and trying to get additional information for modeling the tower.

As always .... to be continued.

San Diego

Following are a couple of pictures with the key elements that I try to recreate (from top down: Library of Congress, San Diego Historical Society and the color photos are from one of my last trips to SoCal)

The Santa Fe depot as it looked in its early days.

This is a view from the 1930's looking down Broadway Avenue to the Pier

This view shows Consolidated Aircraft Company with part of Lindbergh Field to the right. The 4-lane road is Pacific Highway

The depot like it looks today, surrounded by Palm trees and skyscrapers

This is the turning wye with Washington Street leading into the US Marine Corps Recruiting Base (right). To the left are the fences of today's International Airport

This view shows the diverging tracks that pass under Pacific Highway

Here the highway crossed the tracks at the same level. I suppose that the wye was bridged for security reasons.

The lead tracks curve to the right into the Marine Base. In the background you see an Airport Tower and the tail of an airplane