San Luis Obispo Southern Pacific Roundhouse
The San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum (SLORRM) is building an HO Scale layout (the Central Coast Model Railroad CCMR) of the Southern Pacific (SP) Coast Route from Paso Robles in the north to Surf in the south (near Lompoc). The San Luis Obispo SP yard is in the mid point of the layout and a major feature of the layout. The roundhouse is a center piece of the yard.
We have a couple sheet of the original blue prints of the roundhouse. We also scoured books and the net for all the pictures we could find. From this data we designed from the ground up a scale model of the roundhouse.
The roundhouse was built by SP in 1897 with 12 stalls and expanded in 1902 to 17 stalls. Stalls number 11 and 12 were used as a machine shop. The roundhouse was made of brick, except for the left wall which was a studded wood wall, the accepted explanation for this is that SP planned to expand the roundhouse again but never did.
The model is all laser cut from a combination of MDF, Baltic Birch plywood, and Laser Board. We designed the CAD files from the ground up.
Work still to be done, in not particular order:
- Roof
- Lighting
- Interior Details (We have only found two pictures of the inside, so there will be lots of guess work)
- Machine Shop Details
- Apron between the round house and the turn table
- Tracks from the turntable into the roundhouse
- Weathering
NOTE: Click on an image to open a larger version of it in a new tab.
| The roundhouse in place on the CCMR layout in SLO Yard. |
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| The right end of the roundhouse. |
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| The left end of the roundhouse. |
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| The right end of the roundhouse. |
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| The roundhouse |
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| The roundhouse. |
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| The back of the roundhouse. |
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| Detail of the front of the roundhouse. |
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| Detail of one of the windows. |
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| Detail of the inside back wall. |
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| View of the back wall. |
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| The right end of the roundhouse. |
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| One of the back wall sections |
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| The parts to make the windows. |
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| Detail of the back of stall 11, the machine shop stall had a people door in it. |
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| The left end of the roundhouse. |
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| Inside of the left wall. |
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| The roundhouse was assembled from the right wall across the back of the building. Then the front was added. |
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