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B&V Harbor Scene

I've been assuming that if and when I build another B&V layout, it would represent the mountain portion of the line. But in the real world, what little track the railroad built was down on the coast around Oxnard, Port Hueneme, and the southern part of what is now Camarillo.

I've been putting together some cardstock buildings from Clever Models for my Lockwood & San Emigdio On30 mini-layout. The ones I've selected for that project have been mostly small wood and corrugated metal structures typical of a remote mining area, but Clever also makes a lot of buildings more appropriate to urban, industrial or harbor areas -- in fact, they sell a collection of six or eight buildings called "The Waterfront" that includes some larger industrial or warehouse-type buildings and a small coastal freighter. Which got me thinking, why not do a shelf layout of the B&V at Hueneme harbor?

Here's a preliminary track plan, a "flipped" version of the classic Gumstump & Snowshoe shelf layout. I've made it a little larger at 8 feet long by 16 inches wide, and added a passing siding.

The first one is pretty busy. Here's a simpler version with more room for buildings.

Here are some prototype pictures I found, mostly on the Museum of Ventura County web site:

The original wharf at Hueneme, probably before 1900 based on the sailing ships in the picture.

This is identified as the Oxnard Cannery at Hueneme. Presumably they were canning fish.

Sugar beets were big business back in the day. I believe this was the American Sugar Beet Co. mill. In reality it was farther inland, and the building was much too large to model in full, but a selectively compressed version would make a great background flat. Of course, this would require a siding on the back side of the mainline -- another reason to make the shelf a little wider.

Lima beans were another important local crop. This is the first train of Limas shipped by rail from Oxnard, probably about 1890.

When the initial effort to build a line north out of Fillmore along Sespe Creek got washed out by a winter storm, the real-life B&V shifted its focus and bought out an existing streetcar line in Oxnard. That became the start of what is now the Ventura County Railway. I think I see a trolley pole on the rear of this car? It would be fun to include an electrified streetcar line as part of a B&V layout. But now we're talking about a lot more than a 16x96 shelf.

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