October 2020:
The G&O crew has been making slow progress rebuilding the display. A group of crew members wearing masks and being careful to work in different parts of the display get together on Wednesday mornings to work.
The first project has been to repair and replace the irrigation system. This has taken a long time because we never seem to have the right part and we have to make multiple trips to Home Depot. This is especially frustrating because the G&O has two big boxes stuffed with various irrigation fittings, PVC parts, tools, etc., but never the right one. This seems to happen with every project that I work on.
Our second task has been to replant the display. Nancy Norris and Nancy Lagomarsino are doing a great job refreshing the garden.
Two weekends ago, vandals climbed over the fence and tore up a portion of the G gauge track and damaged the G&O's scratch built truss bridge spanning Bouey Canyon. The also bent an O gauge bridge.
The damage could have been much worse. The crew believes that it wasn't worse because the vandals were probably high on weed and/or something else. The crew found several marijuana butts scattered around the display. Since this happened, security cameras have been installed and the club is going to raise the fence height from 6 to 8 feet.
Here are some recent photos of the G&O:
This is the East End of the O gauge yard. It was torn out to be re-leveled. This is where the tree fell on the display in December 2014.
This is the G gauge Howe truss bridge that was damaged by vandals. It has been removed for repairs. It will also be revarnished to preserve the wood.
The G gauge track shown below was wrecked by vandals and will be replaced.
The photo below shows where the Howe truss was removed from the display. The crew is going to repaint the Bixby arch bridge before the Howe truss is put back in front of it.
The next photo shows two of three park benches that were donated to the G&O by the Kermit Paul estate. Kermit passed away a couple of years ago. The crew will restore the benches and place them around the display. Right now the benches are being used to store cactus planting soil.
Kermit was one of the best known model railroaders in the SF Bay Area and in the NMRA. He was a Master Model Railroader. His HO layout was featured in many of the well known model railroad magazines. He also had a very large garden model railroad.
