Oakdale is the most important station along Southern Pacific's Montpellier Branch Line. This branch operates in a north - south direction between the city of Stockton and the city of Merced. Oakdale has an operational Southern Pacifc Depot, the A.L. Gilbert Feeds mill, a Hershey Chocolate plant and other minor industries. The only known watering facility along the Montpellier Branch was located in Oakdale. It was just a few yards south of the depot and across the station tracks on the main line. It should be noted that the Sierra Railroad steam engines used this same water tower to fill their tenders for the runs back up to Jamestown. Sierra's locomotives had to venture out onto the SP trackage to access the water tower.
The next stop after Oakdale was Claribel. Here vinegar was made and shipped by rail. There were a few cattle pens strung along the line. Trains would stop on the main line, a rolling cattle chute was extended and cattle could be loaded into the stock cars. Further south was Waterford. The Chateau Martin Winery was established here and shipped a large volume of wine. The winery had their own distinctive series of wine cars that they used to ship their products in. These cars were a colorful shade of purple and could be seen on foreign roads like the New York Central and the Pennsylvania. General freight, wheat, grain and fresh berries were also shipped out of Waterford.
Southern Pacific model railroad operations on my layout include several freight trains. The Montpellier Branch Pedler is the local freight train that serves the line. This train is lead by a diesel locomotive and begins its day in Stockton Yard (staging). It will enter Oakdale and is responsible for switching the local industries and the interchange with the Sierra Railroad. This train will then leave Oakdale and head south toward Merced (staging). As in real life, the engineer must stop the train prior to the crossing with the Santa Fe Railroad. There is a stop sign installed. The engineer must make a visual inspection to make sure that the train can clear the crossing without interfering with any on-coming santa Fe trains. Upon reaching Merced and completing any work, the Montpellier Branch Pedler will return to Oakdale later in the afternoon on its way back to Stockton. Once again, the train crew will complete any work that needs to be done in Oakdale prior to their departure back to Stockton.
Other Southern Pacific freight trains that will be seen on the layout are two SP Stock Extras and an SP Perishable Express. The Stock Extras originate in Stockton and are generally through trains carrying loaded stock cars of cattle for the Los Angeles area meat packing plants. On occasion, these stack trains will stop in Oakdale and drop off a block of loaded stock cars which need to be delivered to the Champion Meat Packing Plant located near Sierra Yard.
The Perishable Express originates in Merced and is generally a through train carrying loaded refrigerator cars full of fresh fruits and vegetables headed to the San Francisco Bay Area and to eastern markets. On occasion, this train will stop in Oakdale and pick up blocks of loaded refrigerator cars that came from either of the two fruit packing plants located in town.
At this point, I am debating if I want to implement some sort of Southern Pacific passenger train service on the line. Scheduled passenger service on the branch ended on December 26, 1938. However, up until the early 1960's, the Southern Pacific would deliver Harriman coaches to Oakdale and spot them on a siding near the depot in preparation for a weekend excursion sponsored by the Sierra Railroad.
Though the track schematic for the Southern Pacifc Railroad portion of my layout conforms very close to the actual track arrangement, I have had to use some selective comparison in my depiction of Oakdale Junction. This portion of the layout includes the railroad crossings at both Highway 108/120 and G Street. Because of some industries that I wanted to model, I was not able to depict H Street on my layout. The layout will feature the SP Oakdale Depot. All of the industries I am modeling on the Southern Pacific portion of the layout are not real industires that were in Oakdale.
I am modleing Interstate Fuel & Oil (Walthers Cornerstone Kit), Sunrise Feed (Walthers Cornerstone Kit), Valley Citrus (Walthers Cornerstone Kit) and Sunkist Citrus (Alpine Division Kit) and Sunkist Citrus Annex (Alpine Division Kit).
