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Hi David (and please pardon this diversion from the topic, ridetheory).
All this sound familiar to me. I was studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and living with my family at Fort Ord. Among the other G&D operators was Jim Findley (Major, retired, US Army), who became a life-long friend and, because he lived in Korea, a frequent visitor to our house (he was working with Bobbie Hall on importing Hallmark brass into the United States - I still have a brass locomotive and other brass rolling stock that he gave me as house gifts) and Andy Sperandeo, another really great guy who was then an Army Transportation Corps captain and later became editor of Model Railroader.
When I returned to Monterey in 1974, John had passed and the old gang was operating at an On3 layout, the name of the owner of which now escapes me.
Incidentally, about 25 years ago, when Lil was working as an oral history editor-transcriber for the Military History Institute, she shared with me an oral history tape made by a retired Navy captain who was a model rail and who, on at least one occasion, arranged for his Navy oiler to anchor in Monterey Bay so that he could participate in a G&D operating session.
To the best of my 48-year old memory, all of the G&D locomotives were outfitted with momentum throttles (may have been some kind of flywheel in the locomotive rather than wiring in the actual throttle) that provided realistic momentum to the locomotive that the operator had to account for. A long drag would start very slowly, build up speed realistically, and would definitely not stop on a dime.
I have lots of memories including the dinosaurs used by a timber harvesting outfit, the infinitely large factory, the Superior Detritus Company (one of "my" industries at Andrews), the subway train that never arrived, . . . , but I think this is enough before we get back to a discussion of the baggage cart.
Don
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