In a previous entry I covered the Santa Fe's Super Chief of 1948-1950, and this time we'll cover the next, peak version of the train during 1951-1953. Then we'll look at some progress on layout wiring, and we'll begin a photo tour of Bill Messecar's excellent HO Santa Fe layout.
You may recall that when we studied the 1948-1950 Super Chief, the first thing we noted was that it normally passed through Victorville after sunset (eastbound) and before sunrise (westbound), so any photos of it in Victorville would be very rare. I will be showing photos of the 1951-53 Super Chief, but they will be in other locations, or the locos will be pulling some other train.
First, here's a classic photo of the 1951 Super Chief behind F7 set #304, with the new Pleasure Dome visible halfway back in the train:
The scheduled times for the westbound Super Chief (Train 17) to pass through Victorville (it did not stop there) were 5:42 a.m. during 1951-1953. The eastbound Super Chief (Train 18) came through at 10:55 p.m. in 1951, until Apr. 27, 1952, when it changed to 11:03 pm, but on Sep. 27, 1953, it changed back to 10:55 pm.
With my layout operating plan of not running any nighttime operations, this means that I don't really need to model this train, but since Walthers has made models of most of the train's cars, which I have collected, I'll have to run the westbound Super Chief a little later in the morning though Victorville (running behind schedule).
Here is the consist of the 1951-1953 Super Chief, which I presented as part of my 2019 Super Chief clinic (as an update of my 2006 clinic, after more HO models were made):
Here's a summary of this consist:
And here's a slide with some additional notes about the cars:
Now let's look at all the types of locos that pulled the Super Chief from February, 1951, through December, 1953, based on the loco assignment records posted by Loren Joplin at santafe.gmbus.com.
At the beginning of this time period, the train was being pulled by F3 ABBA sets #16-36, and F7 ABBA sets #37-41, and F7 ABB sets #300-305. In May, 1950, these were joined by F7 ABB sets #306-312, and in June, 1951, by F7 ABB sets #313-314. In October, 1952, F7 ABBA sets #42-47 were added to the train's power pool.
Let's look at some photos of these locos. Here is F3 set #33 at Sullivan's Curve, thanks to Jack Whitmeyer:
Here we see new F7 ABBA set #38 at the San Bernardino depot, thanks again to Jack Whitmeyer:
And here is the new 1951 Super Chief at Summit behind F7 set #40, as shot by Robert Hale:
Here's a Santa Fe photo of the new Super Chief in Cajon Pass, behind F3 set #35:
This concludes our coverage of the 1951-1953 Super Chief and its locos.
As for layout progress, I need to catch up on the last four weeks, as I got way behind with this blog.
And here are the right side and rear of the cafe (but we don't know what they really looked like):
Here's a close-up of an aerial photo from 1953 that has been a little help in sizing and modeling the hotel (on the left) and the cafe (on the right):
I had a helpful visit from Bill Messecar on Thursday morning, Sep. 26, to try to get me going on my layout again. We both soldered some feeders that got skipped last time, and we inserted some loose ties under a few rail joiners. I crawled into the pop-area of the main peninsula to solder some of the feeders at the ends of the C Yard tracks, as seen here:
Meanwhile, Craig Wisch in Victorville had made a few more improvements to his cardstock model of the La Paloma Cafe, as seen here on Sep. 29:
Here is his photo of the other side of the model:
He tells me these photos reveal some areas he wants to touch up, and then he will mail it to me, as usual.
I will continue sharing the photos I shot of Bill Messecar's layout when I visited him, so here are the next four photos, showing the rest of his San Bernardino B Yard, west of the precooler area. Here's a view of the yard, showing the east end of the yard tracks and the ATSF work train he built from resin kits:
Here's the same yard, looking back from the west end (and by the way, all of his cars are accurate prototype models):
Here's his engine terminal, which happens to be at the west end of the B Yard (instead of in the A Yard), including a model of the sand tower and its loading ramp at the far left:
Finally, as the 3rd District mainline track curves out of the west end of the yard, it passes by a model of Colton Tower (on the left), plus a residential neighborhood:
As of Oct. 6, I felt that might be getting a little less sleepy (knock on wood), so Don Hubbard suggested that I make a resolution to work on my layout one hour a day, and I started on that right away.
With outer mainline block L1-A previously working, I got mainline block L1-B hooked up to terminal strips and then to a power pack, and then I got block L1-C hooked up and tested with an old loco. As a quick solution to labeling the wires, I'm still just using making tape, with good intentions to replace them with labels from my new label-maker someday.
Here's the TV tray you've seen before, showing the new connections to the new terminal strips and a power pack:
Craig Wisch has not yet mailed me his completed model of the La Paloma Cafe (we've heard that the real cafe was a very rough place), as he's been working on a fantasy cafe model in S scale, using the parts from his initial attempt to build my HO model. Here's a photo he sent me on Oct. 6, just for fun:
Let's return now to my recent photos of Bill Messecar's layout. After the 3rd District mainline curves to the left past Colton Tower, it enters Riverside behind a large model of the National Orange packing house:
To the left of there (going westward), we see a bulk oil dealer and other buildings in the town:
Here's a view looking back at the Riverside Depot, with a gas station in the foreground:
To the left of there, here's one more Riverside scene, showing an ice plant:
By the way, I've begun discarding my older magazines, starting with my NMRA magazines from the 1970s and 1980s. I'm a compulsive collector, but it's time to start letting go. I look through each one, but I rarely save any of the pages.
During the week of Oct. 7, I worked on the wiring and labeling for the L1-D and L1-E outer mainline blocks and completed them. These each took a couple of days, as not all the feeder wires had been connected to the bus wires, and L1-D was a long block that needed a lot of labels and connections. L1-E's bus wires needed to pass under the layout to the far side to reach a pair of feeders there and then run back again to the terminal strips and power pack area.
Now all five blocks of the outer mainline are wired and labeled, and I was able to run the test loco all the way around the outer main. Photos of wiring are not much to see, but here's a view showing all the bus wires arriving at the terminal strips and power pack:
Next week I'll start working on the inner mainline wiring, which may be a lot more work, as I've never had that mainline hooked up before.
I don't have any new photos from Craig Wisch this week. But he's interested in modeling some typical Barrio houses, using off-the-shelf cardstock plans and modifying them as needed. We'll continue discussing this next week.
We also discussed modeling the two small monuments that were in Forrest Park by the depot, as seen in this photo from the Route 66 Museum in town, where they are preserved:
The small black grave marker on the left is for Brownie, a railroad dog, as seen on page 90 of Chard Walker's "Cajon" book. We decided that I should make these models myself, if Craig can send me a photo like this, but shot in even lighting.
On Oct. 12 I had a great time at an operating session at Bill Messecar's layout. I was paired with Cajon Pass modeler Jeff Schultz, and we had fun running the Fast Mail behind 4-8-4 #3759, and then the Riverside Turn behind a GP9. I found this online clinic where Jeff had presented his Cajon layout:
Returning now to my photo tour of Bill Messecar's layout, here are a few more photos from the Riverside area. First, here is our Fast Mail train behind #3759 approaching the Riverside depot:
At the left end of town (the west end), here we see Bill's model of the Calhoun Bros. industry, along with a small bridge over the mainline at the left:
On a long spur farther around the curve there, we find his beautiful model of Jennings Lumber:
On the fascia below each town scene, he hangs a track diagram to help the train crews figure out where all the industries are located. Here's the diagram for Riverside:
Next time we'll continue west along the towns of Bill's excellent layout.