Saturday, February 14, 2009

Santa Clara Railroad Museum




We've actually had some rain and cold weather in CA - who'd have thought it! Rather than putting me off the plein air painting, I think it actually added another dimension. Having to paint grey skies instead of blue was a welcome change (apologies to you folks who'd give anything for warm sunny skies). At one point my painting buddy complained of rain, but strangely I didn't feel any. Some time later I realised that what she thought was rain was actually me flicking the water off my paintbrush - the wind blew it in her direction! It did rain later and you can probably see the effects in my painting of the signal tower. When our fingers got too cold to paint, we retreated to the car for lunch and hot tea.
The Santa Clara Railroad Museum has a few old buildings around the current Caltrans station.
The Signal tower (above) was built in 1926 and housed the machine that controlled the signals and switching.

The railway station gives good views of the surrounding hills and San Jose off in the distance. I found a good spot at the end of the car park next to the tracks for this view.

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