Model Railroading > Memories of Redwood Regional Park--Oakland

From 1948 to 1971, the trackage of the Golden Gate Live Steamers hosted many wonderful get-togethers of the membership and the public-at-large. In 1971, the Club moved from Redwood over to Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley hills, right next door to Erich Thomsen's "Redwood Valley Railroad" !

The track at Redwood Park was 'special' because it had been built with the wonderful assistance of the Southern Pacific Railroad shop forces at West Oakland.

Today, everything is gone-- but the memories remain !

In this 1953 view, a SIX year old 'keyrouteken' sits behind his beloved Grandpa, pulled by an SP P-4
Pacific # 2422. Its tender has not been completed at the time of construction. KRK has his hand resting on a copper water tank, the outlet runs thru a copper pipe along the edge of the riding car and then into the locomotive via a flexible rubber hose!

My older brother 'Jim' sits behind me!

Today, # 2422 sits on display in the home of a Collector in Palo Alto, CA along with the all-Brass SP Dining Car made by Harold Collins that used to frequent our basement layout so many years ago!

Cheers.

KRK

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I didn't realize the move happened that long ago. Seems like it was not that long ago my father and I used to go up to Redwood to watch. Way back in 1927, he built a live steam model of SP 2762. Unfortunately, being so long ago, he built it to his own scale. Back then, he simply went down to Bayshore roundhouse, made his measurements, converted them to his scale, and machined the parts in his high school machine shop. He never actually finished it. To this day, I'd swear he stopped working on the model after he started working on real locomotives at Bayshore starting in 1928. He never did admit to that one! Anyway, years later, we were going to finish it together, but the folks at Redwood said it was too far out of their scale to run. I still have the model. Man, do I feel old.

Thanks for sharing, Ken.

Walter



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/15 16:54 by drumwrencher.

Wow, I remember seeing the train set up at Redwood Regional Park as well. I don't recall exactly where it was, but I remember it being right off the road. I can't believe that it moved that long ago. I had to be 7 or younger at the time.

Gary