The Not-Pretty Side of Los Gatos
[When you’re modeling a location on a prototype railroad, part of the fun and challenge is figuring out what to model. For most places, you can’t model a location exactly because it won’t fit on a model railroad. (If you can model a place in its entirety, then perhaps you’re modeling a place that’s not quite interesting enough for a model railroad, or maybe you’ve won the lottery space-wise.) Instead, you're forced to pick and choose the interesting bits of a location that'll help you tell its story and give you a fun place to run trains.
When I started sketching out the Los Gatos scene for my model railroad, I had to make my choices of what to model. Los Gatos is a confusing location to model, with a mix of interesting operational and scenic attributes, but not enough activity to make for a great model railroad location. The city sits in an enviable location up against the Santa Cruz Mountains and at the mouth of Los Gatos Canyon. Railroad-wise, it represents the end of straight track and easy grades. It served as a key point for controlling trains entering Los Gatos canyon, a terminus for commute trains to San Francisco, and a place for steam locomotives to take on water. The downtown area along the railroad tracks is interesting architecturally, with a mix of grand storefronts and less attractive back sides of buildings. It’s less interesting for freight traffic - a freight house, the Hunts cannery, a team track, and a couple other rail-served businesses are the only source of freight traffic.
In terms of structures, I knew I wanted to model the former Hunts cannery, both as a source of traffic for the layout and to keep my focus on the fruit industry in the Santa Clara Valley. Other potential scenes included the houses along the right of way north of downtown, the team track behind the Santa Cruz Ave. shops, and finally the passenger, freight depots, and water tower on the south side of town.
Any reasonable person would have modeled the station as a destination for passenger trains, a spotting location for freight cars, and an iconic and identifiable spot for visitors from the local area. My problem was that I didn’t have space to do the depot scene justice. Because of the Vasona Branch’s focus on freight operations, sidings and industries won out over passenger facilities. Instead, I modeled (1) the cannery, (2) the houses along the tracks to remind folks of the scene of tracks running through the backyards, and (3) the track and backs of businesses to highlight the urban part of Los Gatos. I’d already filled in the first two scenes, but hadn’t yet done the team track area.
So what did the track look like around here? Historical documents hint at how the area changed over the years. It’s been easy to keep compare the changes over the years - I’ve scanned and saved away the various maps on the computer so I can consider my plan. My notebook is full of of map sketches of towns that tell me where I’d found inspiration 15 years ago, and which photos I should look at when I started building.
Los Gatos track arrangement, 1880. From Southern Pacific valuation map, California State Railroad Museum collection.
When the South Pacific Coast Railroad came through Los Gatos, Los Gatos was the point where extra power was needed to pull trains through the Santa Cruz mountains. We can see this in the track arrangement: the mainline and three sidings in front of the depot for pausing trains, a turntable for turning helper locomotives, and a spur off to Los Gatos Cannery's plant in the middle of what is now downtown. Only thre buildings are marked on the map: the Lyndon Hotel on the west side of the tracks, and the station and Wilcox House on the east side. Development hasn't yet reached Los Gatos.
Los Gatos track arrangement, 1909. From Southern Pacific right-of-way boundaries map, California State Railroad Museum collection.
By 1909, we see that the turntable has been removed and replaced with the team track behind the storefronts on Santa Cruz Ave. Apparently, the turntable was unneeded after the end of narrow-gauge operations in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The available map was intended only for showing the right-of-way, so it doesn't show any of the buildings to help us understand how developed Los Gatos was at this time. Interestingly, the lot trackside on the other side of Elm Street has a gas tank for the former coal gas plant - this is where I've placed the ice cream factory.
Los Gatos track arrangement, 1930. From Southern Pacific valuation map, California State Railroad Museum collection.
In 1930, the team track is still present, and the valuation map shows the buildings backing on the team track. Not all the lots were built out - there was a gas station at the corner of Elm and Santa Cruz Ave, showing us Santa Cruz Ave. wasn’t yet the continuous strip of high-end retail it is today. The valuation map still shows the coal gas plant - perhaps I was hasty to put the ice cream factory there?
A final valuation map from 1946 shows a much-reduced Los Gatos. Two of the four sidings have been removed. The team track is also long-removed - a sad ending for a track that started out serving the turntable for the narrow gauge. The photo from 1953 shows the alley behind the buildings on Santa Cruz Ave., hinting at what the area around the team track looked like. It also seems to show that the third siding is still here - perhaps the SP considered it out of service and hadn't removed it.
Alley behind Bank of America, 1953. Charlie Givens photo, from Arcadia Publishing's "Railroads of Los Gatos"
The day to actually start building the Los Gatos scene finally arrived recently - the bare plywood around the team track in Los Gatos finally got on my nerves enough for me to start building. Taking a look at both my past thoughts and what I know about the location, I had a strong idea of what to build. I wanted arow of buildings backing the space behind team track, and giving a place for a detailed scene highlighting that the railroad was a bit hidden from Los Gatos’s commercial strip, but that we’re still in an urban area. The passenger station would be out of scene to the left; passenger trains stopping in Los Gatos will stop anywhere along here. I wanted to capture some of the back-alley feeling from that 1953 photo, but also wanted the area to still appear in use.
Panorama of the finished scene.
Finishing this scene required several building flats. From the 1944 Sanborn map, I see:
- The leftmost building would be the Bank of America branch, just where the railroad tracks crossed Los Gatos’s Main Street. This was a modern building, appearing around 1928, and matching the style of many other Bank of America buildings in California. It’s a known landmark and an interesting building, and so it’s an important location to include.
- There would be the backs of several older brick buildings along the alley paralleling the railroad. The first was a low one story building as a store. It held a liquor store in 1950’s. I haven’t been able to track down what was in this back-alley storefront in the 1930’s, but it’s still a valuable place to model - I hadn’t thought there would be storefronts along here until I saw the liquor store in an old photo. That same photo also encouraged me to make a wider alley along tracks. It’s a good building for setting the feel of being in an alley behind the main street, so I’ll make sure to model this.
- The next was the Masonic Lodge building - two story with high ceilings. (It disappeared and the lot currently has a one story 1950’s store.) I’ll model this as well.
- Next was another fraternal society - the International Woodsmen of the World - again multi story brick from the 19th century. Still there.) This will complete the row of buildings, and block the view of the backdrop neatly. (Probavblty the Templeman building, built 1921 from reinforced concrete?)
- There was a series of one story buildings.
- Finally, there was a gas station at the corner of North Santa Cruz and Elm. I won’t model this, but I will add some fencing.
The various brick buildings could be built using whatever scraps of buildings I’ve got in my box, but the Bank of America building deserves a bit better treatment. I'll talk more about Bank of America next time.
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