UP's 4-8-4 Locos in Victorville, and Laying a Tangle of Turnouts in Staging

This time we'll take a look at UP's 4-8-4 steam locos while they were running through Victorville in 1946-1948.  Then we'll look at my slow layout progress as I encountered a whole tangle of mainline turnouts in Section 8 of the staging deck.

The Union Pacific had three classes of 4-8-4 Northern-type steam locos: the FEF-1 class was built in 1937 (#800-819); the FEF-2 class was built in 1939 (#820-834); and the FEF-3 class was built in 1944 (#835-844).  They were all converted to burn oil before they appeared on Cajon Pass and in Victorville starting in March, 1946. 

They were normally assigned to pull the secondary, heavyweight passenger trains, and they sometimes needed helpers, usually UP 4-8-2s.

Here we see FEF-1 #813 in Nebraska in March, 1950 (after leaving California), thanks to Jack Pfeiffer:

But the FEF-1 locos were rarely seen on Cajon Pass, judging from the lack of photos.  Here is one AAR photo showing #814 during the rail stress tests at Cajon in Nov. 1947:

Note the two-tone gray paint scheme on the above locos.  But when the UP 4-8-4s first arrived in March of 1946, they were all still black.  Starting in May, a few got two-tone gray with silver stripes and lettering, and starting in December, most or all of them gradually got two-tone gray with yellow stripes and lettering.  

They left Cajon Pass in July of 1948, except for rare appearances in 1949 and maybe 1950, and they did not return during the UP's 1950-1951 one-year return to steam.

Let's look at some FEF-2 photos now.   Here we see #820 with the westbound LA Limited at Cajon station in Sep. 1946, thanks to H.L. Kelso:

 

Here's a nice shot of #821 with Train 43 at the San Bernardino depot in late 1946, as seen by James N. Spencer:

 
Here comes #830 with an eastbound train, climbing toward Sullivan's Curve in Sep. 1947, thanks to Robert F. Collins:

The 4-8-4s were sometimes seen with a helper, usually a 4-8-2.  Here #2711, a 2-8-2 helper from Victorville, has cut off from the front of #831 on the westbound LA Limited at Summit in May, 1947, as seen by Walt Thrall:

 

Turning now to the FEF-3 class, these locos looked different, as they had their "wind wings" (smoke lifters) added in 1946, while the earlier classes didn't get any until 1950.  All the classes got a Mars light by May of 1947.

Here is #836 climbing westbound from Victorville through Frost with the short-lived Transcon in June of 1946:

 

Here is #840 with the westbound Transcon at San Bernardino in the summer of 1946:

 

The westbound Transcon behind #835 was in a deadly wreck in the Lower Narrows of Victorville on Sep. 26, 1946, as seen here:

Here's a beautiful action shot of #843 with the 2nd section of the eastbound Utahn at Pine Lodge in Feb. 1949 (a rare appearance after July, 1948), thanks to James Ady:

 

Here's the final loco in the FEF-3 class, #844, during the rail stress tests at Cajon in Nov. 1947:

Let's look at some of the many HO models of UP 4-8-4s now.  I don't have an FEF-1 (they were rarely seen on Cajon), but PFM made a model:

Overland Models also made an FEF-1:

I do have a Westside brass FEF-2, but it isn't painted yet, and I think it should be painted black, as I don't have a black UP 4-8-4 yet, like this one:

I have an Athearn Genesis FEF-2 in two-tone gray with yellow trim, as seen here:

Westside also made a brass FEF-2:

 Key also made a brass FEF-2:

I have two Athearn Genesis FEF-3 models, both in two-tone gray, one with silver trim and one with yellow trim.  For example, here's one with yellow trim:

Broadway Limited also made the FEF-3 locos, such as this one:

And Rivarossi made an FEF-3 long ago:

I'll skip the many brass FEF-3 models, which I don't have.

My layout progress slowed down a lot when I got to the tangle of turnouts on the mainlines as they approached the end of Section 8 and the start of Section 9 in staging.  First I had to finish painting the edges of the cork roadbed for the sidings, as some of the turnouts sit partly on those areas.

I had to cut and fit some short pieces of track to connect some of the turnouts together.  Here's a "before" view with some of the turnouts in place but not yet connected:

Note the three turnouts at the left end, where two of the Atlas switch machines wanted to occupy the same space, so I've moved the upper one to the other side of its throw-bar, where it will be glued to its roadbed pad there.

After I cut and fit the two one-inch track pieces to fill the gaps seen above, the trackage looked like this, as seen from the other side of the benchwork:

I used a felt-tip pen to mark where each rail should be cut, and I used a push-pin to open each rail joiner a bit and to push the joiner onto the rail, which worked very well.

Then I propped this whole assembly partly into the air and spread some caulk onto the roadbed, except where the moving parts of the turnouts would be.  I laid the tracks down into the caulk, pinned them in place with push-pins, slid loose ties under the rail joiners, and added weights (food cans) until the caulk dried.

Now I had to cut and fit three more pieces of flextrack to close the gaps between these turnouts and the next ones along the mainlines in Section 9.  Then these tracks were laid down into new caulk, the alignments were checked, loose ties were added, and weights were added again until dry.

I also cut and fit and painted some inverted cork roadbed pieces to slide under the switch machines to support them.

Here's the current state of these tracks, looking from Section 8 toward the next section (Section 9) in the staging room:

And here's a view from the opposite direction, looking back towards Section 8:

Now that I'm past that tangle of turnouts, it should be clear sailing around the mainline loops in the staging room.  But it may be three weeks before my next blog entry, due to some vacation time coming up.