Revisiting Victorville's Downtown, and Adding Joists to the Frames

Although I don't have the space or time to model the downtown part of Victorville, we'll revisit what the area looked like.  Then we'll take a look at my layout's benchwork section frames after I added more joists to some of them.

Victorville was a major tourist stop along the famous Route 66 highway.  The highway came down from Cajon Pass and into town along 7th Street, then made a left turn onto D Street by the railroad depot and ran eastward out of town to Barstow.  Here's the 1956 USGS map of the town, showing a solid red line for Route 66 and how it turned left when it met the railroad tracks:

In the map, the freeway to Barstow (at the upper left) had not yet completely bypassed the town.

The town provided gas stations, restaurants, and motels for the Route 66 travelers.  Here's an aerial view of the downtown area, as seen from above the river:

In this view, 7th Street comes down from near the upper left, and D Street runs along parallel to the tracks, above the red-roofed depot in the lower center.

Perhaps the most famous place in town was the Green Spot Cafe at the corner of 7th and C Streets:

Here's another view, showing that it was also the Greyhound Bus stop in town:

 

The other side of 7th Street, across from the Green Spot Cafe, looked like this:

The Green Spot Cafe is at the right edge of this photo, and the Santa Fe tracks are straight ahead, where the highway will turn left onto D Street.

Here's a view looking uphill along 7th Street from near the Safeway store you can see in the photo above:

If we go down to 7th and D streets and look back uphill, we will see this view:

Victorville Drugs is on the corner at the left, and the Green Spot Cafe is a block up the hill on the left (look for the Motel sign -- there was a nearby Green Spot Motel too).

If we stand in the same spot at 7th and D and turn to the right to look down D Street, we will see two blocks of hotels and retail businesses:

If we now walk a block along D Street to 6th and D, we will see a block of mostly cafes and bars:

Most of the buildings along D Street are gone now, but the Red Rooster Cafe (in the middle of the block above) is now the California Route 66 Museum:

And at the end of the block, at 5th and D, the Barrel House Liquor Store is also still standing:

As I said, I don't have the space or time to model the downtown part of Victorville, but I enjoy learning all about it anyway.

As for my layout progress, I went back and added one more joist into each of Sections 5 and 6, so there won't be more than 24" between joists, as seen here:

This usually involved unscrewing one of the joists and moving it to over to make room for the 2nd joist.  I also did that for Sections 7 and 8 (Section 8 stayed up on temporary legs during the operation):

I was excited to see all the frames together on the floor, so I shot an overall view:

But I later realized that I'll need to add a triangular Section 4A in the notch at the right, to support the tracks coming around the corner there.  I don't know how I missed seeing that before.

I spent a lot of time taking measurements of the staging room benchwork and the tracks where they leave the staging room, and I began making 1/16 scale drawings of that critical area, but I'm not ready to scan and show any results yet.  It's a difficult area to solve.

Meanwhile, my friends Bill Messecar and Don Hubbard have continued to assemble, paint, and letter the 14 rock cars for my Mojave Northern branch line from the cement plant to the quarry scene.  I think they are almost done now.  

Here is one of the new photos sent to me by Don, showing the beams on the undersides of two of the rock bins ("skips"):

And here are two of the nearly complete rock cars:

I will continue with my drawings of the staging tracks, with the goal of seeing where the legs can safely go through the lower deck, so that I can then add legs to all of the section frames I have.