The J, J & S Railroad is high above the Port of Long Beach in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. When we first saw the property, we thought this was going to be just a little railroad on a 35 X 35 plot of yard. The yard is maybe 100 feet deep, however with it sitting on the side of a hill, at about the 30 foot mark, it drops 5 feet to a planter garden, then 5 feet past that, it drops another 5 feet to a second planter garden, this posed a unique challenge since the equipment the client has would require 10 - 15 foot radius curves.

We finally decided that we would need to build 2 trestles 10 & 12 feet high that will span 43 & 45 feet. The trestle bents were hand built by Rick in our shop in Scottsdale, then transported by trailer to RPV for assembly and stain. We use Cyprus on all of our trestles because with it's natural oil and stain on top of it, it weathers remarkably well, and for outdoor railroads you can't beat it. We used in excess of 1,150 board feet of lumber in the construction of the trestles, but they are truly a sight to behold.

Because of the extensive rockwork required, we decided to ask the magician of rock Bruce Ambrose to come over and do the rock work for us. Since Rick had his hands full with the rest of the railroad and the trestles, having Bruce to the rock work saved us a tremendous amount of time.

We started the railroad the middle of October and hoped to have it running by Christmas. That was a little optimistic. We spent two weeks there getting prepped, then built the trestle bents and went back for two more weeks which took us right to the edge of Christmas. Rick left Jan 3rd for 2 more weeks, was home finishing another railroad here for 2 weeks, then went back the first of February and got trains running.

We still have a little work to do on this railroad and some cosmetics to work on, but these can be handled in one week increments and we should be done by the end of March.

Here are the pictures we have so far. Hope you enjoy them.