Victorville Operations and More Track Plan Sections

This time I'd like to give you an overview of the typical postwar operations in Victorville that I hope to be replicating during each operating session, and then I'll show a little more progress on drawing the full-size track plan sections.

Let's get started with the operations:

Through trains, both passenger and freight, would come through town eastbound or westbound from staging.  Those with steam locos would stop for water, and a few freights would take the eastward or westward siding to let a following passenger train go by.  Only low-class passenger trains might stop at the depot. 

Westbound freights and heavy passenger trains would stop to add a helper for the 1.6% grade up Cajon Pass.  But if a freight had diesel road engines (the usual case in these years), the train didn’t need to stop for water and could proceed through town, with the helper following it to West Victorville (in staging) and coupling to the rear there, where the visibility between the front and the rear was better for the crew.  (This would negate the need to couple the helper to the train in most cases on the visible part of the layout.)

One local freight from the Santa Fe (the Oro Grande Turn, or before 1951, the First District Local) and one from the UP (the Leon Turn) would each come east from San Bernardino six days a week to serve the two cement plants, one in Victorville and one in the next town east, Oro Grande (in staging).  Both trains served both cement plants, regardless of the train names. 

They would bring mostly empties and return west with mostly loads of cement.  Some blocks of cars could be dropped and picked up in Victorville or at its cement plant (at Leon), and the rest at the Riverside Cement plant in Oro Grande (which would be in staging).  But they did not actually switch these industries, which was the job of the Victorville local switcher. 

Steam locos on these local freights would take water in Victorville and turn on the wye there for the return trip.  They would often add a helper to take the heavy cement loads west up the Cajon Pass grade.

The local switcher stationed in Victorville would spend each day taking blocks of cars left by the local freights and setting them out at individual spurs in Victorville and at the two cement plants.  It would also pick up other cars from the spurs and position them on storage tracks at Victorville, Leon, and Oro Grande, where the local trains could pick them up as they passed through town. 

At the end of the day, the switcher would return to its engine track by the boiler house inside the wye and be serviced there.  In steam years (1951 and before), the Santa Fe and UP took turns each month providing the local steam switcher (normally a light 2-8-2).  After that, the Santa Fe used its own H16-44 or GP7.  During busy cement times (like the building of the LA freeways), there could be two local switchers, one to serve Leon and the other to serve Oro Grande.

Helpers that went RR west from Victorville with a train would cut off in staging (as if at Summit), wait on a return loop track there (as if wyeing at Summit), and later run light back east into Victorville.  If the helper was a steam loco, it would take water and turn on the wye in Victorville.  In either case, it would park on one of the helper waiting tracks beside the wye for its next assignment (one track for Santa Fe helpers and the other for UP helpers).

Locos of the Mojave Northern would push empty rock cars from the cement plant at Leon up to a quarry in staging and bring back loaded limestone rock cars to be pushed up the cement plant’s trestle to be unloaded. 

An Air Force switcher would come down from the base to pick up loads left by the Victorville switcher and haul them up to the base (in staging).  Later it would bring the empties down from the base and leave them for the local switcher to take into Victorville.  Dangerous loads like airplane fuel and bombs were taken to the base by the Victorville local switcher itself (the military wanted a “real railroad” to do that job).

I think that up to four operators could be kept busy with these operations: one for through trains and their helpers, one for local freights, one for the local switcher, and one for the two branch lines (the Mojave Northern and the Air Force).

Now let's look at some recent progress in drawing more layout sections full size.

Here's a view of the wye area, with some props added, as usual:

In this view we are looking from the 6th Street grade crossing (in the foreground) toward the wye at the upper left.  Along the right side of the tracks are some props representing the section houses, water tanks, bunkhouse, and propane dealer.  To the right of them, on pop-up hatches, are a few of the buildings of the barrio.  Route 66 is the steel ruler crossing the wye.  Inside the wye are the boiler house, elevated fuel tank, and sand house.  The tracks begin turning to the right as we leave this scene.

In this next scene we are looking back toward the wye from the curves leaving town:

The wye is in the right distance.  The steel ruler crossing the wye is again Route 66 (called D Street in town), and on this side of it is the Union Oil dealer with its tanks.  To the left of the wye are eight tracks, all curving toward us.  From right to left, they are: the Santa Fe helper waiting track, the UP helper waiting track, the westward passing siding, the westward mainline, the eastward mainline, the eastward passing siding, the east storage track, and the outfit spur (where the local work train would be parked).

Here is our final scene this time, the large Southwestern Portland Cement Plant:

In the foreground are the same curves leaving Victorville (two mainlines and two sidings). The white bowls are the slurry mixing tanks.  The two tracks to the left of there are the hopper unloading track and the elevated trestle for unloading side-dump limestone cars.  The blue bin is the storage building for limestone, the white tower is the rock crusher, and the shops and engine house are behind those.  To the left of there are several rows of many different cement plant buildings, including some from the Walthers "Valley Cement" kit.

There are only two more sections left to complete the full-size drawings of the layout, and I'm working on them now.  Next week the basement will finally be cleared of all of the handyman's tools and be ready for a new carpet section, carpet cleaning, and then benchwork!