UP's 1954-1955 Challenger Train & More Buildings for the Victorville Layout

This time we'll cover the Union Pacific's Challenger passenger train in Victorville from l954 through 1955, and then we'll look at four weeks of work on Victorville buildings and yard tracks.

In this fifth report on the LA Limited passenger train, the UP has now changed the train's name to the Challenger passenger train.  I'll be using information kindly supplied again by UP researcher Jeff Koeller, as follows:

To be added in a day or so. ...

 

Checking my Santa Fe Employee Timetables for 1954-55, I find that the train came westbound through Victorville (without stopping) at xxx., and it returned eastbound through town at xxx  So this was a daylight train that I should try to model in HO. 

Here now is my bi-weekly layout progress report from July 5, 2026: 

Now that I'm back home from Minneapolis, I thought that I'd jump right in with more work on the layout tracks, but that hasn't happened yet.  But I did do some studying of the A Yard throat tracks and found that I need to cut and fit some slightly longer filler tracks to close some gaps in the rails.

Here's a new photo of the side of the throat, with lots of markers where fixes need to be made for Tracks A1 through A10:

 

 

And here's a view from the narrow part of the yard throat, leading into Tracks A1 through A10: 

 

I hope to make all these corrections and connections in the coming week.

In other news, I visited my friend Bill Messecar on Friday and got a shot of the row of cement silos he has built, which will be front and center at the cement plant scene.  He did some beautiful work on creating a headhouse over the tops of the silos, using the conveyor pieces from the big cement plant kit and adding windows in them:

 

 

 

To the left of the silos will stand the Packing House, which our friend Don Hubbard has been busy constructing from the Walthers Red Wing Milling kit, which looks like this in the cover photo:

 

 

Craig Wisch in Victorville has been busy building me a cardstock model to represent the building of the Shell Oil dealer.  Here is the only ground-level photo we have, showing part of the building with its loading dock:

 

 

 

Here is the cardstock kit that Craig is using as a starting point:

 

 

I have space for an 11" x 11" lot at the front of my layout scene, as shown with the white paper square here (to the left of the Standard Oil lot):

 

 

Moving along to Jon McWhirter and his Switching Station scene with the tall gantry towers, here's his photo from two weeks ago, showing two versions of the gantry towers standing on the cutout of the available space:

 

 

 

But he's thinking that these models are too expensive and too laborious to build, so now he's considering getting simpler gantries from a kit like this on eBay:

 

 

 

He says, "The two existing gantries (in the first photo) may be usable in some fashion on the layout.  This is the last attempt at a truly prototypical look, and then the plan is to 'punt' and use the ones from eBay (above)."   So we'll see what happens next.

Last Wednesday I made my first trip in months to visit my brass painter, Gary Jordan, up in Mukilteo.  I asked him to pose by his beautiful double-deck layout again:

 

I picked up the loco he had painted and repaired for me some months earlier, the Hallmark model of the Santa Fe's big 2-10-4 #5000, nicknamed "Madame Queen."  Here's his photo of the completed model:

 

 

Another steam loco I acquired recently was the new BLI model of a postwar UP 2-8-8-0 "Bull Moose," as seen here, posed by the model of the cement plant kiln that Bill Messecar had built for me recently:

 

 

That's all I have for this time.  As I said, I need to get back to work on the yard tracks and turnouts every day from now on. 

 

And here now is my bi-weekly layout progress report from July 20, 2026: 

I was finally able to get back to work on the throat tracks at the left end of my 10-track staging yard, called the A Yard.  I thought I would have to cut some longer tracks to reach all the turnouts, but I was able to make the existing tracks fit well enough.  I used my putty knife to spread a little caulk under each loose section of track, and under all the loose ties I needed to file down and slide under the rail joiners where the track sections meet.

Here's a photo I shot while Track A4 was being glued down, before I added the water bottles as weights:

 

 

I was able to connect all ten tracks to their turnouts at the yard throat, as seen here, looking from the throat to the ten tracks (ignore the loose D Yard tracks off to the left -- I still need to work on those):

 

 

Here's a view of the completed A Yard throat, looking from the other direction:

 

 

 

Meanwhile, I received a box from Craig Wisch in Victorville, with his completed cardstock model of the cement plant's Warehouse, and the large Sign Board that was outside the plant.  I placed them in front of my growing cement plant scene (on the A Yard tracks):

 

 

They look wonderful!

Last Wednesday I attended another op session at Bill Messecar's beautiful Santa Fe layout, along with Don Hubbard and Colin Kikawa.  Here we see Don and Colin working on switching the Santa Fe's "Bull Dog" freight train at Corona, on its way from LA to San Bernardino:

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Bill and I were switching cars in the San Bernardino yard, and we posed by the Precooler there (on the left), along with Don (on the right):

 

Speaking of Don, he's been working hard on building the Packing House for the cement plant scene, using the Red Wing Milling kit (I showed the cover of the kit last time).  He sent me a couple of photos, first showing the kit's front side, with a loading dock:

 

And then showing the back side: 

 

 

I think the back side looks closer to the real Packing House, as it has more windows, so I've asked if he can turn it around and put the loading dock on this side.  He's also working with Bill to have the Head House (which is on top of of Bill's row of silos, as pictured here last time) connect with the top of the Packing House.

Returning now to Victorville, Craig Wisch has been completing his cardstock model that will stand in for the Shell Oil dealer's building, which we only have partial photos of.  Here's his recent photo of the front of the model:

 

 

Here we see the rear, which will face the tracks: 

 

 

 

And here is the front and the right side:

 

 

 

This will be another beautiful addition to my Victorville scene!  I plan to build some plastic oil tanks from the Walthers Trackside Oil Dealer kit to stand to the left of this building.

My local friend Jon McWhirter is still trying out various kits that he could use to model the tall gantries at the Victorville Switching Station.  Here's his latest photo showing two of the gantries that look the most like the real thing:

 

I'm very thankful for all the work he's been doing on that project.

My final topic this time is the steam train ride I went on yesterday (Sunday), to celebrate my birthday (which is today).  My wife Diane and son Steven rode along with me down to Elbe, WA, which is about a 95-minute drive, to the Mount Rainier Scenic Railway.  My daughter Cyndi and her partner Tim met us there, and we all rode the 3:30 p.m. train east to Mineral and back (a round trip on the train of an hour and 15 minutes).

When we arrived at Elbe, we saw the steam loco, Polson Logging Co. 2-8-2 #70, backing toward its train:

 

 

 

I got another shot after it had coupled on:

 

 

 

Here's an action shot as it chugs across the road and up to the depot for passenger loading:

 

 

We had planned to ride standing up in the open car behind the loco, as usual, but that car had a problem and had been removed from the train, so we stood in the baggage car instead, looking out the open baggage doors.  Here are Diane and me:

 

 

 

And on the other side of the car, here are Steven, Cyndi, and Tim:

 

 

 

It was fun to hold on to the door frames as the car was rocking back and forth!  At one point we got a good view of Mount Rainer behind the hills:

 

 

 

After about 30 minutes, we arrived at Mineral, where the railroad's shops are located:

 

 

 

 

This is where the loco uncouples from the train and pulls ahead, as seen here from the front door of our baggage car: 

 

 

 

Then it backs around the train, as seen here from a side door: 

 

 

 

 

And then it pulls the train backwards on the return trip to Elbe.  Here we see it rounding a curve: 

 

 

 

Here's a view of the end of the depot at Elbe, after we deboarded:

 

 

 

Here's one final shot, showing the Heisler logging loco #10 on display at the other end of the depot: 

 

 

We had a great time, and then we drove back home, stopping for dinner along the way.

 

 

 

John 

 

 

Santa Fe's 1946 El Tovar Passenger Train & My Visit to Minneapolis

This time I had planned to cover the Union Pacific's Los Angeles Limited passenger train in 1954-1956 (when it became the new Challenger), but that report from Jeff Koeller won't be ready until next month, so I'm filling in with an easy Santa Fe passenger train, the El Tovar of 1946.  

And instead of more layout progress, I'll share two bi-weekly layout reports that include my annual visit to my home town of Minneapolis.

The El Tovar (Train 123/124) was a short-lived, summer-only supplement to the Grand Canyon Limited (Train 23/24), and unlike the Grand Canyon Limited, the El Tovar actually ran up the branch from Williams, AZ to the south rim of the Grand Canyon

Not a lot is written about the train, but the 2nd Quarter 1998 issue of The Warbonnet (p.12), Fred Frailey's A Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists (p.120), and Gordon Bassett's chapter in Santa Fe in the Intermountain West (p.236) each devote a paragraph to it (Frailey also includes a table with the 1946 consist).  More recently, the train is also covered briefly on page 183 of the Santa Fe Passenger Train Compendium by Michael Flick and John Signor. 

All four sources say that the El Tovar was inaugurated in 1940, running between Los Angeles and Kansas City, with a side trip up the branch to the canyon. For the 1941 season, the train was cut back to just Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon, and then it was cut from the timetable altogether for the duration of WWII, until 1946.

Frank Peterson got a shot of the westbound El Tovar climbing the grade at Frost, just outside Victorville, in July 1941, behind 4-8-2 #3722:

From Williams to the Grand Canyon was 3.3% grade, so the train needed a helper there, as seen in this photo by D.L. Ingersoll of Train 124 arriving at the Grand Canyon station yard in June 1941, with 4-6-2 #1379 helping 4-8-2 #3722:

Besides being the name of the Train, El Tovar was also the name of the Santa Fe’s hotel at the rim of the Grand Canyon, very close to the depot.

The train reappeared for one summer season after the war, June 1 to September 13, 1946, then disappeared for good. The equipment was heavyweight, including the last open-platform Pullman observations assigned regularly to Santa Fe trains. 

Here we see Train 123 with nine cars (two more than usual) climbing the grade at Frost (near Victorville) in June 1946, behind 4-8-2 #3747, thanks to Richard Kindig:

Here are the seven types of cars the train normally carried between LA and the Grand Canyon in 1946:

Baggage-Express

Chair

Tourist 14-Sec. Sleeper (to/from Chicago on 23/24)

Diner

Bar Lounge-Dormitory

8-1-2 Sleeper (to/from Chicago on 23/24)

10-Sec Sleeper-Lounge-Observation (with open platform!)

Note that the train included two through-service sleeping cars for the Grand Canyon Limited.

The power was normally a Santa Fe 3700-class 4-8-2. 

It's disappointing that there seem to be no photos of the last operating open-platform observation car on a scheduled Santa Fe train, the El Tovar.  As a substitute, here's a photo of such a car at the end of the Grand Canyon Limited in 1940:

 

Checking my Santa Fe Employee Timetable #127 for the summer of 1946, I find that the train came westbound through Victorville (without stopping) at 7:26 a.m., and it returned eastbound through town at 5:53 p.m.  So this was a daylight train that I could try to model in HO.

I asked my friend Robert Rogers to send me some ideas for what to use for accurate models for each car, and here is his report:

The only Pullman-owned/operated cars were the 14 Sec, 8-1-2 and 10 Sec.Lounge-Obs.  The rest of the consist would be Santa Fe-owned heavyweight cars, built by Pullman, but ALL the Santa Fe owned cars have a distinctive channel side sill at the base of the sides of the car. 

For the locomotive, a 4-8-2, the best model is the late 1970's Korean brass Sunset model.

Baggage-Express:  This was likely a Santa Fe owned car.  There are very limited frugal model choices:  Walthers metal (straight side sill and kit-bashed fishbelly side sills -- which were much more common on the Santa Fe).  Of course Coach Yard does them accurately, for a price. In doing my research, when I kit-bashed the Rivarossi combine, I got two wide baggage doors, and those baggage cars were converted post-1950 on the Santa Fe, so do not fit 1946.  Not really a lot of choices.

 

Steve Sandifer adds this note:  Your best choice for a Santa Fe Heavyweight baggage is the Suydam/Lambert car. They are usually about $100. 

Chair car:  Suydam and Lambert made this car as a brass shell.  Walthers plastic includes an interior, and both models are correct.

Tourist 14 Section:  Santa Fe had Steam Ejector A/C on the Pullman pool cars assigned to them.  This car was likely off the Scout in Pullman Pool service, so had SE A/C.  Bethlehem Car works once made a kit of this car; I have two, and it comes with the correct A/C. The Walthers car is nice, with interior, but does not have correct A/C system.  Branchline also did this car, but with Pullman brine or ice A/C, not steam ejector.  This is a BIG hole in the Santa Fe sleeper model inventory, and the roof hatches can be SEEN!

Diner:  Least costly is the Rivarossi car with interior, then comes Suydam and Lambert (all these cars are slightly different).  Walthers does NOT have any Santa Fe prototype heavyweight diner model.

Bar-Lounge-Dorm:  Walthers metal side, and Suydam and Lambert do a nice job.  Coach Yard is even nicer, but pricey.

8-1-2 Sleeper:  I have a modified Lambert car with steam ejector A/C on roof and underfloor, built by Tom Madden, a former supplier to Bethlehem Car Works.  Walthers plastic is next, but there is no easy parts source for the roof and underfloor A/C system. Branchline/Atlas does this basic car, but again no steam ejector A/C. 

10-Sec-Lounge-Observation:  I looked this car up in the Pullman Car Catalog.  The 10 sections have a smaller forward restroom than a standard 10-1-2 (closer to a 10-1-1 -- which Branchline did make in plastic).  The Lounge part uses three sets of closely paired windows across the rear of the car, with open rear platform.  The CY car is correct, but pricey.   What I don't know is if Walthers metal sides ever did this car (I don't have access to my old Walthers catalogs).  I did get the Branchline 10-1-1 sides, and they do NOT fit the 10-1-2 interior, because the restroom size is different.  So, the Branchline 10-1-1 may be a better start to kit-bash the 10-obs.

 

Many thanks to Robert Rogers for sharing his knowledge about all these models! 

Here now is my bi-weekly layout progress report from June 7, 2026:

I'm afraid that I didn't make any progress in the last two weeks on gluing down the throat tracks of my 10-track A Yard, but I did spend a lot of time corresponding with Jeff Koeller about the LA Limited blog entry, and with other friends who are building more structures for my Victorville layout.

The new focus is on structures that were inside the large Southwestern Portland Cement Plant at the north end of town, circa 1950.  The cement plant scene will take up a lot of space, and most of it will be set pretty far back from the mainlines at the aisle, so we're going for the generic look of something similar to the real one, not an exact copy.

Here's a color slide shot during a railfan tour of the new 1949 larger kiln at the cement plant in Jan. 1950 (they rode behind 4-8-4 #2903 to get there!):

 

My friend Bill Messecar took my large Walthers styrene kit for Valley Cement and worked on building a large rotating kiln (like the one seen in the 1950 photo above) and the kiln buildings at each end of it.  The kit accidentally (and luckily) came with two very tall smokestacks (instead of the one intended), so he built both of them for me.  He also built the kit's large limestone storage building, which is a stand-in for the even larger one at the plant.

When we met for lunch on Friday (June 5), he gave me these completed and weathered structures, and I gave him more Walthers kits to work on -- two of the Red Wing Milling kit, for building the Packing House, and two Medusa Cement kits, for building the rows of cement silos.

I set up his cement plant buildings on top of my new A Yard tracks and shot this photo from the left end of the scene:

 

Then I shot a photo from the right end, showing more of the limestone storage building, and showing more of the tall smokestacks by the kiln: 

 

I also had a set of silos from an old Medusa Cement kit, which my friend Don Hubbard had built for me years ago, so I set that up too, along with the three new Walthers ATSF covered hoppers that just came out: 

 

I'm very excited to see this large cement plant scene starting to take shape!

But wait, my friend in Victorville, Craig Wisch, has also been building some other parts of the cement plant for me, in cardstock.

Here's his new model of the large sign board that stood right outside the entrance to the plant:

 

He's now working on a cardstock model of the Warehouse building that was inside the plant.  We only have partial photos of it, and we are not including the part that had cement silos sticking out of the roof, and we only have space for one loading dock, facing the mainline side of the plant.  We chose this cardstock kit as the basis for our model:

 

Craig has been working on the long side and on the end, to make them similar to what we can see in photos like the one below, shot when the plant was still new.  Part of the Warehouse can be seen in the lower right corner:

 

Here is his current pattern for the side of the building that will face the aisle, with the side of the loading dock along the bottom:

 

I'm excited to see this model starting to come together!

A third project in the works is being done by Jon McWirter, who has been exploring ways to build the tall gantries that supported all the transmission lines within the Switching Station north of Victorville.  He found a 3D-printed water tower kit that happens to have parts he can use for making each leg of the gantries.

This photo shows one leg of a gantry partly built, with two sides already connected at right angles and two more in a jig:

 

When he puts all four parts together, he gets one leg of a gantry, which stands over 8" tall:

 

 

He writes, "There will be two circuit breakers on each side of the control house, and each circuit breaker requires 2 gantries, so that's 8 gantries.  The bus will require 4 gantries, so I believe 12 is the total number of gantries."  And we'll need three of those 8" long structures in the photo above to make each gantry -- two for the legs, and one for the horizontal connecting structure.  It's quite a project!

Besides the new covered hoppers, my other recent acquisition is the BLI 5-car 1947 Freedom Train set.  But I don't have the matching PA yet (I have the decals for it, but where are they?), so I set a Santa Fe PA at the front of the train for this photo:

 

I love special passenger trains like this!

If you can help me in any way, please get in touch.

 

Here is my next bi-weekly layout progress report, from June 21:

 

Most of this two-week period was taken up with my annual trip with my wife Diane to visit my siblings in the Minneapolis area, where I grew up.  So, I made no layout progress, but some friends did make progress on various models for my Victorville scenes.

My cardstock-modeler friend living in Victorville, Craig Wisch, completed his model of the cement plant's Warehouse building (or the part of it that fits within my cement plant scene).  Here's his photo of the completed model, showing the side that will face the aisle, and which includes a loading dock:

 

Many thanks to Craig for all his work on this!  He'll be sending it to me soon, along with the cement plant sign board that you saw last time.

My local friend Bill Messecar has been working with two of the Walthers Red Wing Milling kits to create an approximate model of the Packing House that was front and center at the cement plant, but he has no photos to show us yet.

He has also been busy adding lettering and new trucks to the very rare Pecos River brass tank car, Santa Fe class Tk-J, which I finally found and won on eBay.  He posed it on his layout, within his work train, and it will be running on his layout until my layout is ready to run it:

 

When it's on my layout, it will serve as the Domestic Water tank car that was filled in Victorville and taken to Summit periodically to provide water to the Summit residents.

Another local friend, Jon McWhirter, has continued to experiment with building electrical gantries as seen at the Victorville Switching Station that will be on my layout.  He's been trying various 3D printed parts and assembling them into the shapes needed.

Here's one progress photo from a week ago:

 

And a 2nd photo from a week ago, using different parts:

 

Today he sent me this photo of two gantries standing up on the cardboard shape of the switching station area I will have on my layout:

 

It's exciting for me to see the good progress he's making with this!

Now let's look at some of the photos I shot while in Minneapolis.  On the main "hobby shop day" with my brother-in-law Scott, we made our annual visit to the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum, where they have a large O-scale layout running all the time.

Here we see a Great Northern passenger train passing a paddle-wheel boat along the river:

 

Here we see the same train curving around the roundhouse scene:

 

They have a nice model of the former GN Depot in Minneapolis.  In this scene, a Milwaukee Road Hiawatha passenger train is parked there (at the wrong station):

 

They have another O-scale layout nearby, which does include the proper Milwaukee Road station in Minneapolis:

 

Back on the main layout, we see a GN freight on one of the bridges over the Mississippi River:

 

And now the GN passenger train crosses another one of those bridges:

 

Finally, we watch the GN passenger train round the curve at the left end of the river scene:

 

On a second "hobby shop day" with Scott, I visited his basement layout, with his interurban seaside layout with overhead wires.  I asked Scott to pose by his waterfront car ferry scene:

 

And then I posed by his car barn, with many of his interurban locos outside:

On another day, my wife and I drove with Scott to Lake Harriet to ride the restored trolley car.  Here we see the trolley after it pulled up to the station:

I also went around to the front to get a photo there:

 

We had a fun ride along the old route, and at the end, after the other passengers had de-trolleyed, Scott shot a photo of Diane and me inside:

 

We had a good time in Minneapolis, as always.  Next week I'll get back to work on the layout.

If you can help me, please get in touch.