Revisiting Victorville's Oldest Area, and Cutting New Plywood Sections

It's time to revisit the oldest part of Victorville, which will be included on my layout, and then I'll show some progress on extending the plywood at Section 10A and in cutting out plywood for all remaining sections (Sections 1 through 8).

The Old West town of Victorville began on the far side of the Santa Fe tracks, across from where the depot was relocated to in the 1920s.  The silent movie "Sand" was shot there in 1920, and in this scene we can see the two-story Lark Hotel (later named the Santa Fe Hotel) in the center, and at the right edge is the depot when it was still on the far side of the tracks:

 Here again is the part of my track plan where this scene is located:

 

Here's a 1914 view of the Lark Hotel and another pioneer building:

In my time period (1946-1956) there was a La Paloma Cafe just to the right of the Hotel, as seen in this shot from the 1971 motorcycle movie "The Hard Ride":

The Hotel is on the left, and La Paloma Cafe is the white building on the right.

The track plan shows an Old Jail to the left and behind the Hotel, and that former jail is still standing there:

My track plan also shows an Office in front of the jail, and this will be the Sheriff's Office, but I've moved it here from its true location on 7th Street, because it goes so well with the jail.  Here is the Sheriff's Office in its true location:

 

Campbell makes a kit for this building, and my friend Bill Messecar has kindly built the kit for me:

 

This concludes our 2nd visit to the oldest part of Victorville.  If you would like to help build any of my Victorville buildings, just let me know!

Now for a layout progress report.  I spent one week first cutting out plywood shapes and support boards to extend the benchwork at Section 10A, where the inside and outside curves were going off the edges.  Here are the new extensions:

 

Then I was able to complete the cork roadbed for the curves (and later I painted the new roadbed gray):

 

This past week the weather was good for working outside, so I set up my sawhorses on the back patio and carried out the plywood sheets for the remaining lower deck Sections 1 though 8.  I posed for a photo as I was about to use my circular saw on one of the sheets, which I had marked with pencil lines last year:

I was able to cut out the shapes for all eight sections, and today I laid them all out on the basement floor.  As expected, they did not all fit together perfectly.  

This view shows Sections 8 and 7 on the left (Section 8 will connect with the existing Section 9 at the entrance to the staging room), and Sections 1 and 2 are on the right:

This view looks in the opposite direction, where Sections 2, 3, 4, and 5 curve around the far end of the room:

Here's one more view, showing Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6, as seen from the laundry room door:

In this view we can see that Section 4, on the right, does not fit where it meets Section 5 in the foreground.  And beyond the post, there is a Section 6A that also doesn't fit with its adjacent sections.  Next week I will have to trim or re-cut these two sections, and other sections may also need to be trimmed for a better fit.

Revisiting Victorville's Depot Area, and Finishing the Cork Roadbed

This time we'll take a second look at the depot area and the two adjacent businesses, which were a lumber yard and a feed store.  Then we'll look at progress on the cork roadbed and on the Mojave Northern rock cars.

Let's begin with a Chard Walker action photo of the local Santa Fe 2-8-2 switcher helping a westbound passenger train past the depot in the late 1940s:

 Here's a close-up of the depot, also from a Chard Walker photo:

 Here's the full depot as shot by Nick Muff in 1960:

You've previously seen Bill Messecar's HO scratch-built model of this depot (compressed at the freight end) for my layout, so let's look now at Wayne Lawson's N-scale scratch-built model of the depot (not compressed):

 

Here's the street side of Wayne's depot model, with the 6th Street grade crossing in the lower left:

 

Here's a wider view of the depot area as modeled by Wayne Lawson, including the park in front of the depot (Forrest Park) and the adjacent Hayward Lumber Company and Peterson Feed Store:

 

In Forrest Park (named after a Mr. Forrest) there was a stone monument, and also a small tombstone for "Brownie, A Railroad Dog," as displayed by the Route 66 Museum in Victorville:

 

Here's a street-side view of the adjacent Hayward Lumber building, which was served in back by a short spur ending in a ramp:

 And to the right of Hayward Lumber on D Street was the Peterson Feed Store:

 

We can see the depot, the park, and the two stores from the air in this circa-1945 view:

The peaked building at the left edge is Peterson Feed (from the rear), and to the right of it is the larger Hayward Lumber building.  The long depot building is near the lower right center of the photo, with Forrest Park behind it.  At the left edge of the park, the white rectangle was a tennis court.

Here is the track plan for this area on my layout:

As for progress on my layout, I completed laying the cork roadbed on Section 11, including cutting all the wedges needed at the many turnouts:

 

I also added a pair of AHM B&O E8s to pull my growing set of just-for-fun B&O passenger cars, as seen here (with Bill Messecar's depot model on display):

 

The next week was spent painting all this cork, which took some time.  I decided to buy some lighter gray paint to use on the double-track mainlines, so that they will stand out among the sea of darker gray staging tracks.  Here is the result:

Over at the right rear of this photo, the inside and outside curves still fall off the edges of the benchwork, so I made a pattern for the plywood needed to fill those areas and cut out the plywood sections with my circular saw.  Next week I'll cut and attach some 1x4s to support these plywood extensions, so I can then complete the cork roadbed curves there.

Meanwhile , Jim Coady got back a trial 3D print of a Mojave Northern rock car bin (or "skip"), and it looks great:

 Here's a front view:

 And a bottom and rear view:

 

So, we will proceed to buy lots of these for a fleet of 14 rock cars (three bins per car), plus the car that Jim is building himself.  And Bill Messecar is continuing to scratch-build more rock car bodies to go over the old MDC 30' flat car frames.  I'm so thankful to have these expert helpers!