Santa Fe's 1956 to 1958 El Capitan Train in Victorville & A Steam Train Ride

This time we'll cover the Santa Fe's all-coach Hi-Level El Capitan train in Victorville from mid-1956 into early 1958, and then we'll cover a bit of layout progress and a steam train ride.

Let's begin by looking at a photo of the 1956 El Capitan after it had acquired its innovative new Hi-Level cars.  Here it rounds a curve as it leaves Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal behind F3 set #33:

From my El Capitan clinic slides of 2009, here are the cars that were added to the consist for the time period of July 1956 through Jan. 1958:

Here's one of the Santa Fe ads from the time period:
 

And an ad for the interior of the new Hi-Level Lounge car:

 Here's the consist of this train, along with the HO models as of 2009:

Happily, in 2012 Walthers released a complete HO train set for this train, as seen in this ad:

 

The cars offered by Walthers in 2012 were:  the Baggage Car, Railway Post Office, Baggage-Dormitory "transition car", Hi-Level 68-Seat Step-Down Coach, Hi-Level 72-Seat Coach, Hi-Level "Sky Lounge", Hi-Level Diner, and Hi-Level 68-Seat Step-Down Coach with Tail Sign.

Here's a postcard view of the prototype train in Shoemaker Canyon, NM, in 1956:

 Here we see a rear view of the train, with a step-down coach at the end:

Here's a publicity photo showing passengers boarding one of the new Hi-Level coaches:

 

The motive power during this time period were the EMD F3 and F7 ABBA sets.  The F3 set numbers were 16-36 and the F7 set numbers were 37-47, plus 306-314.  The 306-314 were ABB sets, but they always added an extra trailing A unit from the 300 series to make a complete ABBA set.

Regarding the schedules of the El Capitan through Victorville (it did not stop there),  #21 came through at 4:12 a.m every morning,. and #22 came through at 4:23 p.m. every evening.

I don't need to model #21, as it came through westbound at night, but #22 was part of the afternoon parade of eastbound passenger trains.  I can use the Walthers Hi-Level cars to model the July 8, 1956 and later train.  

Here's a final slide covering the changes to the train in 1958 and later:

Now I'll include here my layout progress report from July 20:

I finally finished writing 47 trip reports with photos from our recent Mediterranean cruise, so I'm trying to get back into my layout work now.  This is my first layout report since June 1, when I had attended the local NMRA PNR 4th Division Spring Meet.

Craig Wisch, my favorite cardstock modeler in Victorville, has finished the final touch-ups on the five HO models of Barrio-type houses that he built for me.  He sent me this photo of two of them on his workbench:

 

He also sent me a photo of the other three houses:

 

 

They all arrived safely in a big box, and I set them up in a compressed E Street Barrio scene, along with the previously-received furniture store and church:

 

 

Here's another shot, looking down from the center of the scene:

 

Also in the box with the houses was the brand new book "Mohahve VII," published by the Mohahve Historical Society, led by Marcy Taylor.  Craig and I have been corresponding with Marcy, and Craig also meets with her in person in Apple Valley.  I've been collecting all of the society's books since the beginning, and they include lots of interviews with old-timers and photos of Victorville and the High Desert.  But right now they don't seem to have a website for ordering their books.

I decided that my first project for getting back into my layout work would be to cut the many rail gaps that are needed to separate loco parking spots on the loco storage tracks.  When I tried out my old Dremel tool, it wouldn't turn on, so I ordered a new one.  I also ordered a Dremel Flex Shaft with a thinner wand on the end, so the cuts can be made at 90 degrees to the rails.

I saw the recommendation for the Flex Shaft in a Ron's Trains 'N Things video, at 4:10 into this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0uUiVU1qB4

It took me quite a while to figure out how to connect the Flex Shaft to the Dremel Tool, and then how to attach a cutting disk to the end of the Flex Shaft.  Here's photo of the connected tools and the boxes they came in:

 

Once the set was working, I practiced a few cuts on a small test track, and then I got to work cutting all the rail gaps that I had previously marked with masking tape.  Here I am working on the gaps in the E Yard diesel loco storage tracks:

My next step was to fill all those gaps so they don't close up during heat expansion.

In another development, I bought a Spectrum US Army 44-Tonner from eBay and posed it along with the locos that will pull my trains of rock cars to the cement plant:

 

At about the same time, I tested all three of these Mojave Northern locos to verify that they can pull the train of six rock cars, at least on level track.

 

The big event on July 19, the day before my 80th birthday, was to make the annual road trip with my wife Diane down to Elbe, WA, to ride the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railway steam train.  It's almost a two-hour drive to get there, but we made it in time for the 3:00 p.m. departure.  We found the loco (Polson Logging #70, a 2-8-2) coupled in reverse to its five-car train, ready to run backwards:

 

We boarded the train and walked to the rear car, which has open windows and no seats, so that we can stand up and enjoy the rocking motions and move from the windows on one side to the other.  I posed by the open door at the rear of the car:

 

When the train was in motion, headed east to Mineral, it was blowing its whistle for a major highway grade crossing, as seen here:

 

We were enjoying all the sights from the open car.  Here's a view of the car's interior, with Diane in the blue shirt in the middle:

 

 

Later quite a few families with little kids found their way back to this car and had a lot of fun riding in there.

Here's a shot from an open window as the train curved to the right:

 

When we arrived at Mineral, the loco uncoupled and ran forward around the train to couple onto the rear car, where we were riding:

 

The loco was now facing forward for the return trip, but with our open car now at the front.  As we arrived back at the Elbe depot at 4:15 p.m., I shot this photo from a window of our open car:

 

After we got off the train, I walked to the front to get a shot of the loco and its train:

Then the train backed up past the depot and parked on a siding, as seen here: 

We walked back to our car and drove back home, but with a stop for dinner halfway home, in South Hill.  We got home at 7:20 p.m., very tired but very happy for a wonderful steam train ride, and a wonderful 80th birthday gift for me.

 

Santa Fe's 1954 to Early 1956 El Capitan Train in Victorville & A Pause in Layout Progress

This time we'll cover the Santa Fe's all-coach El Capitan train in Victorville from 1954 into early 1956, and then we'll cover my lack of layout progress during a Mediterranean cruise and afterward. 

Let's begin by looking at a photo of the 1954 El Capitan after it had acquired its "Big Dome" lounge car.  Here it rounds the curve at Ribera, NM, with F3 ABBA set #36 as the power, and with the new Big Dome Lounge car visible near the end of the train:

From my El Capitan clinic slides of 2009, here are the cars that were added to the consist during this time period:

Here's a photo of the rear of this train, with the new Big Dome Lounge car near the end:

Also from my El Capitan clinic of 2009, here is the consist of the train during this time period:

In 2016 Walthers made four new HO model cars for the 1954 El Capitan:

the 3477-3479 Baggage-Dorms;

the 3246-3248 Chair-Observation cars;

the 1566-1577 Lunch Counter Diners; 

the "Big Dome" Bar Lounge cars, #506-513.

These were all very welcome additions for modeling this train! 

Here's the 2016 Walthers ad for their 1954 El Capitan HO models:

Here's a photo of a new Big Dome Lounge car, #506:

Here's a Santa Fe publicity shot of the inside of their new Big Dome Lounge car:

 And here's a shot showing the El Capitan observation car in Los Angeles:

The motive power during this time period were the EMD F3 and F7 ABBA sets.  The F3 set numbers were 16-36 and the F7 set numbers were 37-47, plus 306-314.  The 306-314 were ABB sets, but they always added an extra trailing A unit from the 300 series to make a complete ABBA set.

Here's a photo of one of these sets (F3 set #33) in June of 1955, on some unidentified train, possibly the El Capitan:

 

Regarding the schedules of the El Capitan through Victorville (it did not stop there),  #21 came through at 4:12 a.m every morning,. and #22 came through at 4:23 p.m. every evening.

I don't need to model #21, as it came through westbound at night, but #22 was part of the afternoon parade of eastbound passenger trains.  I can use the Walthers cars to model the 1954 through early 1956 train.  Starting July 8, 1956, the Hi-Level cars filled most of the train, which we'll cover next time.

Now I'll include here my bi-weekly layout progress reports from May 18 and June 1.

As of May 18, I hadn't written since March 30, when I got busy with last-minute preparations for our two-week cruise around some Mediterranean ports.  We flew out of Seattle on April 13 and returned very late on April 26.  Here's a map of our Viking cruise, which was called "Icons of the Mediterranean," from Barcelona on the west end to Athens on the east end:

The mysterious port of Villefranche-sur-Mer is actually for the French Riviera cities of Nice and Monaco.

Once we got back, our biological clocks were messed up for a couple of weeks, due to the long flights and the changing time zones, so nothing useful got done then.  And then I got busy with a new hobby, which is to send selected photos from our trip to various groups of family and friends, and that takes a lot of my time each day, and will continue to do so for some weeks to come.

But I wrote a May 18 report, just in hopes that it would get me going again on my main hobby of building my model railroad, which is still patiently waiting for me down in the basement.

I got back in touch with the hobby on May 17 by presenting 80 color slides during our annual Northwest Santa Fe Mini-Meet.  These were color slides from the glory years of Santa Fe's late steam and early diesels, which I had bought from Tom Gildersleeve in the 1970s.  

Here's a photo of me in front of the screen before the lights were turned down:

 

And here's a photo I shot of most of 22 attendees:

It was another successful Mini-Meet, thanks to the organizers, Bill James and Colin Kikawa.

My only other activity was to get back in touch with Craig Wisch in Victorville, who has now begun another S-scale scene of old Victorville, this time at the intersection of 5th and D Streets, along Route 66.  

He sent me this early mock-up, with his previous cardstock models of the Barrel House Liquor Store on the left and the newspaper office on the right, with a photo backdrop behind them:

 

But instead of the newspaper office, the corner on the right should have a gas station, so he is planning to build one from a cardstock kit like this one:

That's all I had at that time.  I hoped to have some layout progress to show two weeks later, but that didn't happen yet, as we shall see.

My next update was two weeks later, on June 1st: 

It seems that I won't really get back to working on my layout until I finish my long series of photo reports from the Mediterranean cruise that we took in April.  I've been sending another trip report out to family and close friends almost every day.  This will be my hobby for now, and I'm okay with that.

But here are a couple of photos of new HO trains that I got recently.  

After being delayed for years, Walthers finally released (without notice) the car model that has been missing from their UP City of Los Angeles set, namely the Club Lounge car.  I sent for two of them -- one with a 1956 car number on the sides (#6201), and one with no name on the sides, for the years 1949 to early 1956.  I bought a set of decals that will let me put the name "Mojave River" on the sides, which I chose because that's also the name of the river that will flow though my Victorville layout.

I posed the two UP Club Lounge cars on my layout, with each car facing a different direction:

 

On Wednesday, May 28, my wife and I drove up to Mukilteo to visit Gary Jordan, who has been painting brass locos for me for a number of years.  We hadn't been there since last fall, due to all the cold, rainy weather, so he had four steam locos and two diesels to return to me.  

 

I posed the two diesels (Hallmark brass GE 70-Tonners), painted as Mojave Northern #5 "Leonardt" and #6 "Merrill," on my layout beside the older MN 0-6-0T and the loaded MN side-dump rock cars:

 

 

The other event that week was the annual NMRA PNR 4th Division Spring Meet on Saturday, May 31.  We gathered at about 8 a.m. at the beautiful Snoqualmie Depot, as seen here:

 

 

As our train was approaching at 8:30, we all crossed the tracks to the loading platform:

 

The museum's tourist train of heavyweight passenger cars, pulled by a diesel switcher, arrived for us to board::

Then the loco pushed our train back to the museum and shop area in the woods between Snoqualmie and North Bend.  Here's a shot of some of the passengers riding the train:

 

When we arrived at the museum and shop, we all walked down the platform toward the rear of the train:

 

Behind the shop we could see an old 2-8-0 steam loco and a nicely-painted diesel lettered for the Northwest Railway Museum:

 

 

At about 9 a.m. we began some hour-long clinics and shop tours.  I attended two clinics, then went into the shop where they restore old equipment.  We heard about plans to restore an old interurban car that had just arrived and an NP Alco HH660 that was well along.  Their NP 0-6-0 steam loco is currently being repaired in there too.

Our lunch sandwiches were late arriving, so we did the business meeting first, which included plans for us to host the NMRA National Convention in Tacoma in 2027.  This should motivate me to get my layout into a presentable form by then.  

 

Here's the inside of the Museum building, where we had our annual meeting: 

 

 

After we ate our late lunches, we rode the train back to Snoqualmie, but by now some rain was falling.

 

Then I set out to visit the HO home layout of Jame (pronounced Jamie) Boyd, way down south of Auburn.  Once I found his home, I had an enjoyable tour of his circa 1970 Stampede Pass BN layout in progress (not much scenery yet).  It's upstairs in a separate building behind his home.  I shot a few photos there.

As you enter the room, you nod your head as you pass under a high upper-deck bridge:

 

 

On your right is a tall helix that moves trains between three levels, as I recall, and there is some nice scenery around a tunnel that enters the helix there:

 

Here we see two trains, one on each main deck, and a control panel for the staging yard that is just under the lower deck:

 

Here's an upper-deck scene with another tunnel and some scenery near the entrance to the room:

 

 

I asked Jame to pose for me, and he agreed:

 

 

Then I left for the long drive home, happy that I got to attend another great Spring Meet.

 

That's all I have for now.  Once I finish all the cruise trip reports I've been writing, I'll get back to work on the layout.

 

If you are in the Bellevue, WA, area, please visit me and the layout when you can.