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.