Tehachapi Pass Mezzanine Opens to the Public

Saturday August 6, beginning at 11 a.m., the Don and Gretel Mitchell Tehachapi Pass Mezzanine will be open to public for the first time.

The museum plans a daylong Tehachapi Pass Celebration with shows by Richard Steinheimer and Shirley Burman, steam stories by retired Santa Fe engineer Vince Cipola, railroad folk music, and a late afternoon barbecue supper in the Pacific Beach Club Room. Cost is just the regular adult museum admission—$5 adults, children under 15 Free. It includes a great dinner, too!

The Quest for the Dream Layout

For more than 24 years, the La Mesa Model Railroad Club has engaged in a demanding and expensive undertaking. Members have planned and built well over half the railroad line through plaster mountains from Bakersfield to Mojave, California. The actual 70-mile line is being constructed in HO scale (1/87 actual size), where one scale mile equals about 61 actual feet in length. The 70 actual miles was compressed to 25 scale miles in the la Mesa Club model.

This is a “joint line”. Two railroads come together at the end of the California’s Central Valley. Trains from both railroads march over the mountains as one line, then split back into two lines at the desert town of Mojave. Both historical railroads—Southern Pacific/Santa Fe have been merged out of existence, but every day up to 23 actual trains still roll over the Tehachapi Pass. It is still considered the busiest single-track freight railroad in the USA.

Before the club acquired space in the Model Railroad Museum, even before the San Diego Model Railroad Museum was conceived, this group of rail enthusiasts determined that they wanted to build a scale model of this great railroad across the southern most range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Turning A Dream into Reality

To fulfill this dream, the La Mesa Club joined with the San Diego Model Railroad Club, sought sponsorship of the City of San Diego Park Recreation Department, and at the urging of the manager of Balboa Park, incorporated as a museum in 1980. The city gave the museum half of a basement in Casa de Balboa. Because of the low (18’) ceiling, the club had to carefully choose where the mountain railroad would be located.

By early 1982, after the city and museum had signed a 25 year operating agreement, and two La Mesa Club members, Nancy and Dana Pettingale gave it enough money to create an entry. The clubs—three of them now with the inclusion of the San Diego Society of N Scale—started layout construction. The La Mesa Club began with the easiest part of its layout to build, and the easiest access to the actual area in southern Kern County to photograph and document—the village of Caliente to Cliff siding.

In 1989, downgrade from Caliente, the model of Ilmon was added. In 1996 the SP yard at Bakersfield became partially operational. By1998, the club was ready to tackle the mezzanine. Thanks to Don and Gretel Mitchell, along with several more generous donors, nearly $200,000 was raised in less than four years. Mezzanine construction commenced in August 2001, and the city finally issued a permit of permanent occupancy in May 2004. At last the club could begin construction on the dream layout filling the mezzanine.

In a little over a year, the club built five scale miles of railroad. The scenery will come later. In the last great piece of the railroad from Walong through Tehachapi Summit will be tackled in a couple more years. But first, the club work crews will return to the floor level and complete another missing portion of the pike, the Santa Fe Bakersfield yard and the track between Edison and Imon. As the leading model magazines tell the tale, it’s a dream come true. The club is ready to celebrate and wants to have museum members and public join in this moment of joy and fellowship.

 

Click here to see a pictorial of progress on the Tehachapi Loop Mezzanine