UP's 1954-1956 City of LA Train in Victorville & Slow Layout Progress

In a previous entry we covered the Union Pacific's 1950-1954 City of Los Angeles train, so this time we'll visit the UP's 1954-1956 version of the train, when it had acquired its dome cars and more E8 diesels  Then we'll cover some slow progress in wiring my layout, and some help with models of Victorville buildings.

First, here's a color photo of UP's E8s with the City of Los Angeles train (see the full caption by Jeff Koeller below the photo):

This slightly down-on view shows No. 103, the westbound City of Los Angeles, running on 3-Track near Harriman, Wyo., on April 10, 1954. This new 42-mile line, opened for traffic on May 5, 1953, reduced the maximum ascending grade to 0.82 percent and allowed passenger trains such as this to surmount Sherman Hill without the use of a helper engine. 

Headed up by a 4,500 horsepower set of E8s, 926 and 926B, this day’s 14-car consist includes a 1953-built AC&F baggage-express car (note the multiple roof vents), a 1949 AC&F baggage-dormitory, two 44-seat Leg Rest coaches (either P-S or AC&F), a 1949 AC&F cafe-lounge, followed by two Coast-To-Coast sleeping cars (a Pennsy 10-6 in tuscan red and a UP Pacific-class 10-6 from the NYC), then a 1949 AC&F diner, a club car (probably LA-701, formerly Little Nugget), along with five trailing cars (four sleepers and an obs-lounge car).  Jack Pfeifer photo.

Here is a very helpful table created by Jeff Koeller, giving the COLA consist as of March,1955, followed by some footnotes:

Here now are more photos of the COLA train, supplied by UP researcher Jeff Koeller, followed by the captions he wrote.

Photographer Pfeifer was on hand the next day, April 11, 1954, to record E8 937 and a 1953-built sister unit (note the Farr-Air grills on both engines) in charge of another westbound COLA No. 103 consist about two miles east of Perkins, Wyo. (Mile Post 549.3). 

The location can be identified by eastward CTC signal No. 5474 at the right. UP signals are numbered within the nearest mile post to the east, making this location just west of M.P. 547. The last digit on the signal number is an “even” number for eastward trains (the westbound train pictured is governed by the signal shown just above the rear of the lead unit). 

The consist includes a 1942 5603-series baggage-express car (note the side sill step “notches” in the 4-inch replacement skirt), a 1949 AC&F baggage-dormitory, a pair of P-S or AC&F Leg Rest coaches, and a 1949 AC&F cafe-lounge ahead of the Coast-To-Coast sleepers (a UP Pacific-class sleeper from the PRR and a New York Central 10-6 in “eastern” Two-Tone gray). Jack Pfeifer photo.

C&NW E7 5017A and a matching E7 mate have No. 104, the City of Los Angeles, rolling eastward on the center track at the restricted speed of 60 MPH as the train negotiates the 4 1/2” super-elevated curve about a half mile west of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in mid-1955. 

The first car is a 1953 AC&F baggage-express car (note the multiple roof vents), followed by a 1949 AC&F baggage-dorm, then a pair of 44-seat Leg Rest coaches, and a 1949 AC&F cafe-lounge. Tom Desnoyers photo, Krambles-Peterson Archives.

Photographer Desnoyers also captured this nice “going away” view of the 12-car COLA Domeliner on the curve at C&NW Mile Post 23, providing us a good look at the equipment in this typical 1955 consist. 

Bringing up the markers is an AC&F dome-obs-lounge, then two Coast-To-Coast sleepers (a UP Pacific-class car for the NYC and a Pennsy Pullman-Standard Rapids-class car in UP colors), then three Los Angeles to Chicago sleepers (a Pacific-class and two Ocean-class cars), an AC&F dome diner, and the 1949 AC&F cafe-lounge (which can be seen in the “coming” view). 

The AC&F Plan 9016 cars Ocean Sands and Ocean View, delivered in December 1954, were operated interchangeably with the Imperial-class sleepers in the COLA consists. Note that once the dome-obs-lounge cars began running on the COLA, the train no longer carried a club-lounge (these cars were used on the Challenger Domeliner). Tom Desnoyers photo, Krambles-Peterson Archives.

This “going away” photo of train No. 103, the westbound City of Los Angeles Domeliner, is a good example of how the hind end of the COLA consists looked when running west of Omaha. The train is shown just after coming out of Sherman Hill’s Hermosa Tunnel on October 16, 1955. Ahead of the dome-obs-lounge car is the Minneapolis-St. Paul to Los Angeles sleeping car added at Omaha (this is a 1942 American-class sleeper with a 4-inch replacement skirt), then a pair of Pacific-class sleepers running in Coast-To-Coast service.  Robert F. Collins photo.

This picture is included with our study of City of Los Angeles motive power for 1954. It shows one-month-old E9 944 heading up First No. 6, the eastbound Mail & Express leaving Cheyenne, Wyo., for Council Bluffs on 6-15-54 (the green flags indicate a following section). 

Engine 944 and trailing E9 unit 953B represent not only the first E9s delivered to UP, but also the last group of UP passenger diesels to receive Harbor Mist Gray Trucks (E9 943-947, 950B-959B, built in May-June 1954). The E9s operated system-wide and could be found regularly on the COLA. Richard Townley photo.

This builder’s photo of UP E9 949 was taken in May 1955 at McCook, Illinois (the physical location of EMD’s manufacturing facility). At this time, UP elected to apply the 3M Scotchlite striping and lettering to their new diesels at the Omaha Shops, leaving only the paint scheme to the builder. 

This engine is part of the second group of E9s which introduced a new look for UP motive power and passenger equipment — silver painted trucks. E9 cab units 948-956 and booster units 960B-966B were delivered in May-July 1955. EMD photo.

Checking the COLA schedules through Victorville in these years (these trains did not stop there), the westbound train passed through town at 6:03 a.m. during 1954, but on Jan. 9, 1955, it changed to 6:33 a.m., and then on Aprl 29, 1956, it changed again to 6:28 a.m.  The eastbound train came through at 7:51 p.m. all through this time period.

I can avoid modeling these trains (when they require mostly brass passenger cars) by not operating during those early morning and late evening hours, or I can run these trains with the Walthers UP cars when those are appropriate.

To be continued with more COLA info.

Next we'll cover several weekly progress reports for the weeks sending Nov. 24, Dec. 1, and Dec. 8.

The week ending Nov. 24 was mostly a lost week, as the "bomb cyclone" hit my part of the greater Seattle area and knocked out power for several days or more.  At my home, the power went out on Tuesday afternoon, returned on Thursday evening, then was out again for the first half of Friday.  My wife and I survived by driving to the nearest mall that still had power and eating hot meals in their packed food court.  Luckily, all the food in our freezers survived the outage.

Meanwhile, back in Victorville, my friend Craig Wisch talked with a museum researcher who located a 1972 local newspaper article about the congregation that occupied the church in the Barrio from 1947-1968.  The article included the best photo of the building that we have seen:

Craig used the better images of the windows and doors to complete his model, with some artistic license.  He sent me a photo of his nearly completed model:

I was thrilled to see this!  I'm not sure what his next project might be -- stay tuned.

I made no layout progress that week (again), but I had some fun running the two test train around the two mainlines after the power returned to our house.  Here's a going-away shot of the Santa Fe 2-8-2 freight train, posed beside my Seattle Mariners train (I have also have a Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl train -- yes, I collect some goofy trains, not just prototypical trains):

Here's the Santa Fe PAs train of Army hospital cars rounding the curve there, posed beside some of the Victorville buildings that my friends have been building for me:

I hoped to get back on track in the next week, despite the other activities going on.

The week ending Dec. 1 was another slow week for me, partly interrupted by two bedroom remodelings going on, and partly interrupted by hosting a family Thanksgiving meal.  I did get to run two trains around the double tracks while the family was here!

I trade lots of emails every day with Craig Wisch in Victorville, as we discuss buildings that used to stand in the Barrio across the tracks from the town, and which he may be willing to model for me.

This week Craig has added a new roof to his model of the church in the Barrio, as seen here:

He said that he still plans to add a canopy over the front door.

We are also looking at the second-hand store at 4th and E Street, which looked like a classic Old West store.  Here's a fuzzy close-up from the background of a train photo, with the tanks of the propane dealer in the foreground:

And we are trying to learn about Zaragosa Hall, a meeting hall farther west in the Barrio.  Craig is also interested in Bower's Drugstore, which stood at the corner of 7th and D Street in the downtown area (which would not be within the limits of my layout edges).

I drove to visit Bill Messecar on that Thursday morning, to deliver some very old Walthers passenger car kits that we are jointly selling, and while there I shot a photo of his workbench, where he is modeling the Rosso Cafe that stood in the Lower Narrows:

I brought home and posed a Sunset brass Santa Fe 2-8-2 that I had bought from him:

During that week I tested my BLI 2-8-2 in both directions on both mainlines.  Here it is beside Craig Wisch's model of the Lime Rock plant:

And here it is as it passes beside the F Yard in the staging room (with the Mojave Northern 0-6-0T on the next track over):

But the testing of the 2-8-2 revealed a lot of problems at the turnouts, where the loco would often go clunking over the frog areas and stall there if not going fast enough (the frogs are not yet powered).  I'll need to do a lot of work to fine-tune the turnouts, it seems.

I was busy in the first half of the week ending Dec. 8, finally completing my Nov. 17 blog entry about the 1954-56 Super Chief and adding the three weeks of layout reports up to Nov. 17

Bill Messecar paid me a visit on Friday, but I had no projects ready for him to help me with, so instead we discussed the state of my layout progress and what to do next.  It has become obvious that I should have settled for a one-deck layout, as everyone advised me, but it's too late now!

Here's a photo of the two us posing beside the layout:

We decided that I should focus on two main tasks:

1.  Keep on laying more of the staging yard tracks and adding the feeder wires to them.  The yard we want to complete first is the C Yard, which will be used for storing diesel sets.  I will cut and fit the turnouts and tracks together, and when Bill (or others) visit me, we will glue them down and add the feeders.

2.  Build the first mainline control panel (for C Tower) and complete the wiring for it.  I had begun that job but then didn't continue with it, so I will get back to it, in parallel with laying the C Yard tracks.

On Saturday I got to work on the C Yard by cutting and fitting together a turnout and a number of flextracks for Track C5, which runs parallel to the previously completed Track C4.  Track C5 is not yet glued down with caulk nor wired (I'm saving those jobs for when helpers are here), but here's a photo of the new Track C5 as it looks today (it's the 2nd gently curving track, counting from the left, with all the push-pins holding it in place):

In other news, my helper Craig Wisch in Victorville has completed his model of the Emmanuel Temple C-M-E Church for the Barrio, now with an awning over the front door:

Thanks to Craig for his beautiful work!  He is now planning to build the 2nd-Hand Store for the Barrio, and he is also planning to build the Bowers Drugstore building that was at the corner of 7th and D Streets (not part of my layout -- just for his own interest).

He also has an interest in a Barrio meeting hall called Zaragosa Hall, which was at the far west end of the Barrio, but we haven't found any good photos or plans to go by.  He has been talking about this with Marcy Taylor of the Apple Valley History Museum and with Rene de la Cruz of the Victorville newspaper.  

One of our resources is the large map of the Barrio that Felix Diaz and his family drew long ago.  Here is a portion of it, showing most of the Barrio but cropping out most of the the labels for the buildings:

I am anxious to get back to the layout now, with my new goals to guide me.

Santa Fe's 1954-1956 Super Chief in Victorville, & Some Slow Layout Progress

In a previous entry I covered the Santa Fe's Super Chief of 1951-1953, and this time we'll cover the next version of the train, during 1954-1956.  Then we'll look at some slow layout progress and continue a photo tour of Bill Messecar's excellent HO Santa Fe layout.

To get us started, here's a beautiful painting of the Super Chief by Rod Aszman:

The big change for the Super Chief in Jan. 1954 was the addition of the four transcontinental sleeping cars that previously ran on the Chief, but now they had to be all Santa Fe cars (no foreign paint schemes allowed).  Two were for the NYC, one for the PRR, and one for the B&O.

Between Jan. and Sep. 1956 the Vista-series observation cars were (sadly) rebuilt to have blunt ends, for possible mid-train use as needed.  When a car was in the shop for the rebuild, it was replaced by a recently blunt-ended pre-war observation.

Here is the consist of the 1954-1956 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:

The scheduled times for the westbound Super Chief (Train 17) to pass through Victorville (it did not stop there) were 5:31 a.m. during 1954-1956. The eastbound Super Chief (Train 18) came through at 10:55 p.m. in 1954-1955, except during the summer months, when it came through at 9:55 p,m.  But on Oct. 30, 1955, it changed to 9:55 p.m. through the end of 1956.

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).

Now let's look at all the types of locos that pulled the Super Chief during 1954-1956, 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, F7 ABBA sets #37-41, F7 ABBA sets #42-47, and F7 ABB sets #304 and #311-314.

In Oct. 1954 the following 300 Class units were made into 4-unit sets to add to the Super Chief power pool: 306LAB-48A; 307LAB-310L; 308LAB-310A; 309LAB-310B; 312LAB-311L; 313LAB-311A; 314LAB-311B.

As of May 1956, the 300 Class units were in these 4-unit sets: 306LAB-310L: 307LAB-310A; 312LAB-311L; 313LAB-311A; 314LAB-311B

Let's look at some photos of these locos in action on the Super Chief.  Here we see the westbound train #17 in Apache Canyon in a Santa Fe photo:

Here is Train #17 descending Cajon Pass below Keenbrook behind F3 set #35 in another Santa Fe photo:

Here we see the observation car of the westbound Super Chief on Raton Pass:

Finally, here is the eastbound Super Chief #18 on the Canyon Diablo bridge in a Santa Fe photo, with F7 #310 leading a 4-unit set:

Here now are some layout progress reports for the weeks ending Nov. 3, Nov. 10, and Nov. 17, 2024.

All I did on the layout during the week ending Nov. 3 was to put a BLI Santa Fe 2-8-2 on one mainline and a Walthers Santa Fe PA set on the other mainline to watch them run and to test the tracks and wiring.  Here's a photo of the two locos meeting on a curve:

Then I got out some IHC WW2 Army Hospital cars for the PAs to pull, and some random freight cars and a caboose for the 2-8-2 to pull around the mainlines.  Here's a shot of a meet on that same curve, but from the other side:

I found that the PAs ran smoothly with no problems, but the 2-8-2 (which is DCC-DC with sound) picked one of the turnouts each time (so the turnout needs repairs), and it hesitated on a few other #8 turnouts, indicating that the #8 frogs should be powered, as expected.

I planned to test the 2-8-2 in both directions on each mainline, and I wanted to try some other kinds of steam locos too.  I'll make a list of where the track problems are that need fixing.

Meanwhile, I received the cardstock model of the La Paloma Cafe that Craig Wisch had completed.  I placed it next to the Santa Fe Hotel that he'd also built, to see what that end of the Barrio scene will look like:

I shot the same scene from the other side, to show roughly where his Old Jail model will be located relative to the hotel and cafe, on E Street:

Craig and I had been exchanging lots of emails about the Barrio and the buildings that were there, and about Felix Diaz, who wrote the book "Footprints from the Barrio" and who I corresponded with before his passing.

Craig sent me this photo, showing his second model of a typical Barrio house:

Many thanks to Craig Wisch for all his help and all his interest.

Now it's time to visit the final town on Bill Messecar's Santa Fe layout, which is Placentia.  As we enter the east end of the town, after leaving Corona and Atwood, we see the Bradford Brothers Sunkist packing house on the right, Southwest Drilling in the foreground, and the Placentia Depot in the distance:

Here we see the Placentia Depot from the other side, with a busy service station scene in the foreground:

Next along the way is the Placentia Orange Growers Assn. (Sunkist) packing house:

To the left of there, we find another big packing house, run by the Placentia Mutual Orange Growers Assn.:

At the west end of Placentia we see the big plant of Inland Cement:

Here is the diagram of the Placentia tracks and industries:

From the left end of Placentia, the mainline curves to the right and sneaks back to the Colton Tower area,  where westbound trains can then pretend that the San Bernardino yard is Los Angeles, and the depot scene beyond there is now LA Union Station.  Here is the track diagram of the yard, which I failed to include when we were looking at the yard photos:

This concludes our photo tour of Bill Messecar's wonderful layout.

In the week ending Nov. 10, I fell off the wagon and didn't test the steam loco on all the mainline tracks as I had intended.

The big event that I and the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club had to prepare for this week was our annual Swap Meet on Saturday, Nov. 9.  It's one of the largest events in the area, and has been for decades.  My jobs, as usual, were to check in the vendors at 7:30 a.m. at one of the entrances, and later to sell tickets to the public starting at 1:30 p.m..

This year I decided to shoot an overall view of the activity in the larger of the two rooms, which is a gymnasium:

At lunch time I was joined by my Union Pacific consultant, Jeff Koeller, and we discussed the consist and locos of the City of LA train during 1950-54.  Jeff is currently writing some text on this that I can use in my next (delayed) blog entry.  I asked Jeff to pose for a photo, and he agreed:

I was very tired by the end of the day!

My friend in Victorville, Craig Wisch, decided to build me a model the church that was in the E Street Barrio, halfway between 3rd and 4th.  Here's a circa 1945 aerial photo showing that part of the Barrio, with the church (with a scalloped facade) on the far left, and the Santa Fe's two water tanks on the far right:

In the center of the photo is the "second hand store," which we hope to model later.

Here's a close-up of the front of the church, which I got years ago from a member of the congregation, who have since moved to a newer building:

Note that "Emmanuel" should have two M's, but we'll model it the way they spelled it.

Here's a color photo of the UP's first gas turbine, with the church in the distance, behind the propane tanks:

Here's a final bit of evidence for building a model, which is the 1943 Sanborn Map of that block, with the church in the lower center:

Based on these sources, Craig has been busy making some HO drawings of the church.  Here is the front:

And here is his side view:

Many thanks to Craig Wisch for undertaking this model for my Barrio scene!

I had good intentions to test my mainline tracks during the week ending Nov. 17, but my long to-do list of other commitments got in the way again.  One of those was to finish my blog entry of Oct. 27, which I finally did, thanks to lots of input from UP researcher Jeff Koeller.

On Wednesday of that week I attended a mini op session at Bill Messecar's layout, along with my friends Don Hubbard and Colin Kikawa.  Bill showed me his progress on building a model of the Rosso Cafe that stood in the Lower Narrows (but no photo yet).

Here's a group photo I shot after the op session, with Don, Colin, and Bill:

My job was to switch the industries in Riverside, under Bill's able direction.  While there, I shot a couple of photos of the foreground industries that didn't make it into my previous photo coverage of the town.  Here is the A. Lewis Warehouse:

And off to the left of there is the McDermott Packing House:

We had a good time, and then we went out to lunch together.

On Friday I was off on another adventure, to visit Gary Jordan and his On2 / 3 model railroad, the Gilpin Tram, up in Mukilteo, WA.  I found this online video of his layout tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9GeEWjCoHA

I shot this photo of part of the lower deck of his layout:

And this photo of part of the upper deck, where there are gold mines off to the left:

But my real purpose in the visit was to pick up some brass steam locos he had painted for me, and to leave a couple of GE 70-ton diesels to be painted (for the cement plant).  My wife came along, as usual, so we could get fish & chips for lunch at the waterfront there.

As usual, I spent a lot of time trading emails with Craig Wisch in Victorville, as we discussed the details of the Emmanuel church in the Barrio.  I did find a distant aerial photo that shows the number of windows along the side of the building.  Here is Craig's photo of his progress on the model, as of today:

As you can see, it was coming along very nicely!