UP's Alco FA-FB Diesels in Victorville, and Improving the Staging Yard Designs

This time we'll take a look at the Union Pacific's Alco FA-1 and FB-1 mainline diesel freight locos that operated through Victorville, and then we'll look at the final improvements to the lower deck staging yard designs.

From June of 1947 through September of 1948 the UP acquired 44 FA-1 cab units and 44 FB-1 booster units, enough to assemble 22 ABBA sets of 6,000 HP per set, in its effort to dieselize its California mainline freight operations.

Here is UP FA-FB set #1603 climbing the grade westbound at Frost, just after leaving Victorville, as shot by Frank Peterson in Oct. 1950:

 

The sets acquired in 1947 were numbered in the 1500-series, but they were all renumbered to the 1600-series during 1948.  Most photos show them in their 1600-series numbers.

Here is set #1603 again in Oct. 1950, this time stopped beside the Victorville Wye (see the boiler house and elevated fuel tank at the left), waiting for UP steam helper #5092, a 4-10-2, to be added for the climb up Cajon Pass:

 

Here we see an ABBA set of FAs and FBs heading west past the Riverside cement plant at Oro Grande, heading to Victorville, as shot by Donald Duke circa 1950:

Here is UP FA-FB set #1611 waiting to depart the B Yard in San Bernardino, headed east to Cajon Pass and Victorville in April 1950, as shot by Jack Whitmeyer:

Here's another UP FA-FB set, working hard as it climbs west out of the Upper Narrows at Victorville, as shot by Donald Duke:

Here's one final action shot as FA-FB set #1603 climbs westbound out of Victorville's Upper Narrows in Oct. 1950:

 

The UP's FA-FB sets operated over Cajon Pass from 1947 until sometime in 1954, when they were replaced by new GP9s from EMD.

There have been many HO-scale models of the UP's FA-1s and FB-1s.  Here are the Walthers Trainline models, which used to be made by Train Miniature:

Note that models have been made with the early 1500-series numbers as well as the 1948+ 1600-series numbers.

Here are the Proto 2000 models:

 And here are the HO models from MTH:

Rapido is now planning to make super-detailed models of these locos.  My models came from both Proto 2000 and Train Miniature.

Turning now to progress on my layout design for the lower staging deck, I erased and drew some new stub-ended yards and moved some crossovers to make an improved Version 4 track plan, which I hope is the final design.

I've checked that each train and each loco can get to where it needs to go.  Sometimes there will be back-up moves, such as backing a train into a stub-ended storage yard after its run.

Here is the revised track plan for the main peninsula:

 Here is the revised turntable area drawing:

 And here is the revised helix room drawing:

 

Here's Version 4 of the straight-line schematic drawing of the tracks, with new labels for some of the yards (the old D Yard in the helix room is now called the F Yard):

I remeasured the storage capacities for all the tracks that had changed, and here are the new numbers:
 

I think my next steps are to move a few legs on the benchwork, add a plywood triangle in one spot, sand down the joints between sections, and add shims and wood filler between some joints.  Then the track lines can be drawn on the plywood.

Santa Fe's 4000-Class 2-8-2s in Victorville, and Revising the Staging Yard Designs

This time we'll take a look at Santa Fe's heavy 4000-class 2-8-2 steam locos, some of which operated in Victorville, and then we'll discuss more revisions to the staging yard designs.  I was gone on vacation this past week, so not a lot got done since last time.

During 1921-1926 the Santa Fe acquired 101 heavy 2-8-2 Mikado locos, numbered 4000 to 4100.  These were a continuation of the previous 3160 class, which had 128 locos.  

Here is one of them, #4068, in action:

 

During the postwar years on Cajon Pass, these locos normally served as helpers.  Here's a Chard Walker photo of #4027 as it returns to Victorville after helping a train to Summit in Nov. 1948 (note the Upper Narrows in the background):

Here's another Chard Walker photo, this time showing #4025 working in Victorville, with the stock pen in the background:

In June of 1950 Stan Kistler photographed #4010 as it helped a Green Fruit Express train with F7s up the grade above Cajon station:

On the end of that same train, #4009 was a rear-end helper.  Here we see #4009 at rest in the postwar years:

By the way, #4000-4014 were a little different from the later ones, as they had Hodges trailing trucks instead of the later Delta trucks.  Locos that came with one sand dome later got a 2nd one.  Most got an extended cab after 1940, and most eventually got a modern Elesco feedwater heater.

Some of these locos operated as helpers in Victorville until about mid-1951, when the Santa Fe stopped using them in this area.  They were also sometimes used on the local freights.

There have been HO scale brass models of various versions of these locos over the decades, such as by PFM in 1962-63, Sunset in 1977, Key in 1988, and Sunset again in 1992, and I have a few of them.

Here's an example of one of the Key models:

And here is one of the Sunset models (note the variations on the box label):

In the last year or so, Broadway Limited Inc. has produced a nice styrene model of the postwar version of #4015-4100, such as this model of #4023:

These are still on the market, with lower prices now, so I might want a second one!

Before I went on vacation, I made some revisions to my staging track plan.  Following more advice from Tim Fisher, I removed most of the stub tracks that came off backward from another track, as they are not worth the cost of the turnouts to connect to them.  I also revised some of the connections among the tracks that feed into the return loop.

The plans are now up to Version 3.  Here is the revised main peninsula plan, with the large, curving A Yard of double-ended tracks, and the adjacent B Yard with stub-ended tracks: 

 And here is the revised turntable area:

 I also revised the straight-line schematic to show the current plan:

Finally, I remeasured the storage lengths of the all the tracks that had changed.  Here is the current list of storage tracks and their lengths and radii, if any:

 

I'm still discussing any further improvements with Tim Fisher, along with an operating scheme for how the staging tracks would be used.  Here are some thoughts:

Use the double-ended 10-track A Yard for freight trains, and use the stub-ended 8-track B Yard for passenger trains.

Use the turntable tracks and the track that loops around it (Track S1) for storing steam locos, and use the C Yard, D Yard, E Yard, and R Yard (all shorter tracks) for storing sets of diesel locos (F-units, E-units, Erie-Builts, PAs, FAs, etc.).

Keep tracks T1 and R1 open as switch leads into the A and B Yards.

Maybe add one more track to the C Yard and one more to the R yard.

We are thinking that a mainline operator should take his assigned loco to his train, then take his train up the helix and through Victorville on the upper deck, return down the helix, return the train to its empty track, and take the loco back to its storage track.  

 

The cabooses would be left on the freight trains in the yard.  The passenger trains would be backed into their stub-ended storage tracks.

Consider eliminating some of the mainline crossovers, and maybe run left-handed on the lower deck mainlines, and maybe have the trains make a trip around the lower deck before they climb the helix and when they return from the helix.

I'll get back to work on the design this coming week.

Santa Fe's FT Diesels (1st Paint Scheme) in Victorville, and Redesigning the Staging Yards

This time we'll take at look at Santa Fe's EMD FT freight diesels in their original paint scheme as they came through Victorville, and then we'll look at progress in redesigning the staging yards on the lower deck.

The Santa Fe bought 80 four-unit FT diesel sets between Dec. 1940 and Aug. 1945 to help with the war effort, numbered 100 to 179.  Here's a famous publicity photo they shot at Sullivan's Curve in Cajon Pass:

 

Until mid-1945 (when WW2 ended), all the units were in blue and yellow with a thin red stripe separating those colors for the full length of the carbodies, as seen here:

 

They later had several other paint schemes, but we will only cover the full red stripe scheme this time.  From mid-1945 until about mid-1948, they gradually repainted all of their freight FTs so that the red stripe was only on the cab.  So, during my time period starting in 1946, there were many of these with full red stripes in 1946, fewer in 1947, and not many left in 1948.

Here's a 1942 photo showing a set of FTs entering Victorville eastbound through the Upper Narrows by the Rainbow Bridge:

 

Here's a beautiful postwar shot by Chard Walker as a set of FTs leaves Victorville westbound through the Upper Narrows, headed for Cajon Pass (these units may have only partial red stripes, it's hard to tell):

During WW2 these FTs were all configured as ABBB sets, to settle a union dispute about having a crew in the trailing cab of an ABBA set.  Here's one of these sets, #129, crossing the desert during the war:

 

But in Sep. 1944 it was agreed that no crews were needed in the trailing cabs, and the Santa Fe began reconfiguring almost all their FTs (except #100-104) into ABBA sets.  This was completed by Sep. 1945, just before my time period begins.

Here's a Jan. 1945 photo of FT set #107 arriving at Summit from Victorville, still in its ABBB configuration, as shot by Fletcher Swan:

A couple of other notes: During the summer of 1946, eleven of the FT sets were converted to passenger service and Warbonnet paint, and we'll cover those another time.  And in the spring of 1947, some of the freight FT sets were broken into smaller sets, such as ABB, ABA, and A, with new numbers of 180-185.

Years ago Stewart made all of the Santa Fe FT paint schemes in HO scale, and I have at least two ABBA sets with the full red stripe for use in 1946-1948, as seen here:

Now let's get back to progress on the layout, which happened on the drawing board again. Taking Tim Fisher's advice to move as many turnouts as possible close to the aisles so they can be thrown manually, I erased all the turnout locations and most of the tracks from the Version 1 track plans you saw last time.  

I redrew the whole thing in pencil again, using #6 turnouts everywhere except on the mainline crossovers, which are still #8.  Here is the new Version 2.1 of the main peninsula staging area:

The double-track mainline still follows the edge of the benchwork around, and inside of that is the 10-track double-ended staging yard.  The rest of the yards here are stub-ended.  Three of the legs will have to be moved a little, and I'll add a small triangle of benchwork beside the post, for the lead into the small yard there.

Here is Version 2 of the turntable area trackage (I moved the turntable a bit to the left, to center it between the joists):

 

Last time I didn't show you the drawing of the tracks in the helix room (staging room), but here it is (the roadbed for all these tracks was laid down many months ago):

A lot of this past week was spent drawing various versions of a straight-line track schematic, so that I can study the flow of trains through staging.  I also gave names to the various yards (A Yard, B Yard, etc.) and numbered the tracks in each yard from the closest to the mainline (track A1) to the farthest away (track A10).

This latest schematic is laid out to scale along the mainlines and looks like this:

Note the A yard with the 10 double-ended tracks for trains, and the adjacent B Yard with about 10 stub-ended tracks for storing trains.  The C Yard has short stub tracks and is probably for loco storage, like the turntable area.  The D and E Yards are in the helix room.  The dashed line for the return loop track looks long in this schematic, but it's actually only a few feet long.

I used a string to measure the length of each staging track, and I converted the lengths to actual feet.  Here's a table of the results:

Today I got lots of suggestions from Tim Fisher on how to further improve the track plan, so I'll be studying and implementing these changes during the next week.

UP's 4-10-2 Locos in Victorville, and Designing the Staging Yards

This time we'll look at the UP's 4-10-2 steam locos that worked in Victorville, and then we'll discuss some progress on designing the staging yards for the lower deck of the layout.

The UP owned 10 steam locos of the 4-10-2 "Overland" type, which were initially three-cylinder locos in the 8800 series (built in 1925-26), but which were all converted to two cylinders in the 5090 series in 1942.  They were all assigned to the Cajon Pass area and were often seen in Victorville as helpers and as road engines on local freights.

Here is #5091 waiting as a helper in Victorville, as photographed by Chard Walker:

And here is #5099 near the Texas Quarries granite mill in Victorville, apparently switching the Leon Turn, which was the UP's local freight from San Bernardino to Victorville and Oro Grande:

Here's a good shot of #5095 pulling the local Leon Turn east toward Summit, as shot by Stan Kistler in 1951:

Chard Walker shot #5090 waiting at Summit for its next helper assignment:

Chard also shot #5091 waiting at Summit while a westbound UP passenger train came through:

 

Here is #5092 helping an eastbound UP passenger train towards Summit in 1951, as seen by James Ady:

Here we see #5090 pushing behind a UP freight from Victorville to Summit in 1950-51, as shot by Robert Hale:

Finally, here is #5092 helping an eastbound UP Passenger train into Summit in late 1950, as seen by Donald Duke:

During my postwar time period, these locos were operating into Victorville until replaced by UP's FM H20-44 diesels in July 1948.  But then six of them returned to Cajon Pass for sixteen more glorious months, from July 1950 into October 1951.

I currently have two HO painted brass models of these locos, #5090 and #5093, as made by Overland Models:

Next time I'll choose some type of Santa Fe loco to study.  I'm enjoying learning more about these locos as I cover each type, one by one.

In my last report, I had completed the benchwork on the new Section 3A, so the next step was to go back to the drawing board to work on detailed drawings for the staging yards on the lower deck.  Last time you saw an initial, small sketch, but then I had to draw it more detail in 1/16 scale.

My process was to kneel on cushions beside the bed and draw all the lines in pencil, with lots of erasing, trying to make the tracks fit:

 

Here is the initial result I arrived at -- first the main peninsula yards:

And to the left of there, the staging turntable and yard throats:

I shared these drawings with some local friends, and someone suggested building a full-size mock-up of a section of upper deck above this lower deck, to see whether I will be able to reach in to pick up a derailed car that's in the middle, 24" from the aisle.  So I did build a mock-up like that and set some parallel flextracks on sheet cork on the lower deck and filled them with cars.  I was able to kneel down and reach in by 24", as seen here:

I also got lots of very helpful advice from Tim Fisher, who has been advising me by emails ever since my layout article appeared in the Layout Design Journal #68 a year ago.  He studied my initial staging track plans and sent me lots of recommendations for improvements.

He even sent me drawings for a better arrangement of the yard ladders, to keep as many turnouts near the aisles as possible, so they won't have to be powered.  Here is his most recent page of drawings:

To interpret this, imagine that the tracks at the right end of the upper drawing curve around the end of the peninsula and connect with the same tracks at the right end of the lower drawing and then head toward the turntable area at the left end.

He also tells me that I can get away with #6 turnouts in the yard ladders, so that will save some space.  I will be working to implement many of his ideas in the coming week by erasing and redrawing many parts of my initial drawing.

I belong to the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club, and they offered to sell me lots of brand new Atlas code 100 flextracks for my staging tracks, very cheap.  I did some estimates and found that I'll need about 202 flextracks to cover the staging tracks in the main room, so I bought all 175 pieces that they had to sell at their annual swap meet yesterday, Nov.13.

I'll be back two weeks from now with another report.