1. Is the "Southern California Railroad" real? They were supposed to take over the UP (SP) track between El Centro and Plaster City in 2002 to serve U.S. Gypsum. When we were there a couple of years ago, we could find no signs of the Southern California but the railroad is on the other side of USG from the highway and so we couldn't be sure. The USG office was closed so we couldn't ask anyone but we did get pictures of USG's narrow guage engines.

Southern California Railroad is real, but isn't a common carrier. They are owned by American Railroads Corp., who also has the Sweetwater Central in Sweetwater, Texas (another USG plant), and the Gulf, Colorado and San Saba (Texas shortline). SCRR does the standard gauge switching under contract for USG at Plaster City, and used to switch them three times a weekday. SInce taking over loading the centerbeams, the engines are now parked within the plant and not readily visible. Due to the extreme downturn in construction, they might only work one shift a few days per week.

2. Do you have any suggestions of how to photograph the Pacific Sun Railroad. The last time we were in Oceanside, it appeared that their engines were in the ATSF yard within the Marine base and thus inaccessible. Or maybe we could have just driven in but we felt uncomfortable doing that.
The yard at Stuart Mesa (adjacent but not accesible from I-5) is also the yard and shops for the Coaster commuter train, and a few Metrolink trains also layover there at night. This facility is on Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, and I do not know what the current restrictions are to get on the base. The yard is wedged between I-5 and the mainlines, and probably doesn't present to many opportunites for visitors without an escort. Pacific Sun runs the Escondido Branch (MWF?) after the Sprinter shuts down for the night; and can run down the coast to Miramar on the other days. Unless you are into night photography, not much to see.
oth trains picked up and set out at Oceanside.

In the late 1970s, there was a 4th district local that worked out of San Diego at night up the main to Miramar, Solana Beach (a transfer company got cars), Oceanside (swap out local power), San Onofre (nuke plant) and just short San Juan Capristrano (carrots). The Escondido local worked out of Oceanside weekdays, with yard switching on Saturdays. Before it was abandoned, the Fallbrook branch had their own local, but then the 4th district local took care of the stub that was left. There were also two mailine freights almost every night, the Night Coast out of Hobart (Los Angeles) with 3-6 GP30/35 or big power, lots of TOFC, lumber, and copper concentrate off the SP for export. The SDX (now the BARSAN-SANBAR) almost always had C-C power.

During the 80s recession, the 4th district local was dropped, the Econdido worked Miramar Tue and Thur, to Escondido M-W-F. Since then, Miramar has lost much of their rail customers, and continued urbanization has killed much of the agricultural loading (Stuart Mesa was the sight of a packing shed, Vista and Escondido shipped citrus and avocados years before). The Escondido's primary traffic was sand (plant is now gone), lumber, beer (to trucks?), and feed grain to several mills. Most of the area's chicken ranches are gone or get their feed from the Perris branch mills.