Home of the Sunset Pacific Ry.and

Bob & Carol Westover23041 Tulip Ct.

Tehachapi, CA 93561

The story of our love for garden railroads began in 1990, when we lived in San Diego.Our eldest son Paul came home one day, all excited and talking about G Scale model trains andmore specifically, garden railroading. He’d made friends with Larry Rose, an avid G-scaler andfine scale modeler. The Rose’s back yard layout has been featured in numerous issues of GardenRailroad, a Kalmbach publication dedicated to building and maintaining garden railroads.

We immediately began drawing up a plan to have a garden railroad of our own. Wejoined the San Diego Garden Railroad Society, and every year we helped build garden railroadsfor the San Diego County Fair. Over the next 10 years, our own railroad slowly took shape. Wedecided to call it Sunset Pacific (because our eldest son hired on with Southern Pacific beforethey were bought out by Union Pacific).

In 1998, we signed up to take part in the 16th National Garden Railroad Convention to beheld in San Diego in the year 2000. That commitment meant we would have to have the railroadcompleted by July 1, 2000. Sunset Pacific Ry. was going to be officially open to the world atlarge.

Over a three day and two night period, we hosted over 800 visitors to our garden railroad.Here’s the description that went into the convention program. We had to have a ‘back story’telling what era and area of the country/world the railroad represented.

The Sunset Pacific Ry. is a newly completed railroad. The finalpiece of track was laid and the ceeremonial Gold Spike driven onFebruary 9, 2000. The railroad is a short line spin-off of theSouthern Pacific Ry. The hub of the railroad is Eden Prairie, atown of approximately 200 residents. The town draws much of itsincome from a mining operation and tourism. Visitors staying atthe Riverview Resort enjoy beautiful scenery, excellent weatherand fine fishing in the nearby Red Rock River and Lake. Therailroad is a basic dog bone folded back on itself. The 300+ feet oftrack is Llagas Creek Code 250 aluminum. There are two tunnelsand four hand-built bridges. The layout will accommodate sixtrains running at one time. One of the highlights is the hand-built 6foot double-track suspension bridge over Eden Prairie. Most of therolling stock is Aristocraft with some Bachmann, USA Trains andMDC (Roundhouse). Track power is by radio control. The layout iswheelchair accessible.

Photos of the Sunset Pacific Ry.:

This is a photograph created by friends from the San DiegoGarden Railway Society, and submitted in the convention’sphoto competition. The photo won 2nd Place. They created thephoto by combining resized photos of the Gold Spikededication monument, us, and the passenger car sitting on thetracks. Note they added the Sunset Pacific logo to the drumhead (round sign) on the very back of the passenger car!

Red River Resort (yellow building behind the tree). The RedRiver flows from the mountain beyond the bridge down into thelake.

Main Street – Eden Prairie (the mountainthat feeds the Red River into the lake is atthe top of the photo, beyond the 6' double-suspension bridge).

“The Bridge” – painstakingly built by Robert, we were able to salvage this bridge when weremoved the garden railroad prior to selling our home and moving to Tehachapi in 2008.Ultimately, we had to cut it back to a single track, but it is now part of Sunset Pacific Ry. No. 2.A wedding is taking place in the Gazebo, and you can just see the two story Depot to the right ofthe tree.

Hazer Farms signs up as a freight customer Sunset Pacific: At Christmas, my cousin (BeckyHazer) made Blackberry Jam for us as a Christmas present. We told her we would name our nextaddition in her honor–thus was born our Apple Orchard and packing plant.

Just down the way from Hazer Farms is the grain elevator for W-R Milling Co. This was anactual flour/grain milling company in McPherson, KS, that Robert’s dad and uncle retired from.His dad was a flour miller, as was his uncle. They worked alternate shifts at the mill for manyyears.

Cars on the road ... We have a nice collection ofmetal bank cars/trucks and we like to displaythem, so this is our road – the road that leads tonowhere via the tunnel at the wall. Note the rockwall next to the tunnel. Each of these rock panelswas hand carved and created by Robert.

Moving forward, when we designed our current home for our hillside property, we knewwe wanted another garden railroad, so we planned a room on the lower level with a window thatthe trains could move through to reach the layout outdoors.

Robert is bringing a train out ontothe layout, using the removablebridge and train room access door.Trains are stored indoors in the trainroom.

The train room – five storage tracks wide with oneadditional shelf on the wall above for rolling stock.Bookcases hold his slide collection, railroad andaircraft magazines, and numerous reference books.His hobby work desk at the end of the room.

Access door to the outside at the end of thestorage tracks:

End of Part 1. Part 2 to follow.