Santa Fe's 4-8-2 Locos in Victorville, and Continuing the Mainline Tracks through the Staging Room

Our featured locomotives this time are the Santa Fe's 4-8-2 steam locos that operated through or into Victorville in the postwar years.  Then we'll take a look at more progress in laying mainline tracks through my staging room and back out.

Between 1918 and 1924 the Santa Fe acquired 51 Mountain-type 4-8-2 steam locos from Baldwin, numbered 3700-3750 in the 3700 class.  

They were the main passenger locos until demoted by the 4-8-4s, and by the postwar years the Cajon Pass photos show them sometimes pulling extra sections of heavyweight passenger trains, but usually in general helper service on both passenger and freight trains.  The last photos of them in service there were shot in 1949.

Here's a rare color view of #3749 with a secondary passenger train by the Victorville depot in the postwar years, as shot by Chard Walker:

 

Here we see #3746 helping 4-8-4 #3758 with an eastbound troop train approaching Summit, thanks to Thomas Hotchkiss:

Here is #3740 helping passenger FT set #167 with an eastbound passenger train at Pine Lodge, as shot by Allan Youell in 1946:

2-10-2 #3013 and 4-8-2 #3723 were pushing behind an eastbound freight at Devore in Aug. 1947, when photographed by James Ady:

Here we see #3735 with the 2nd section of the westbound Chief, handling excess mail and express cars, at Lugo in March of 1946, thanks to William Barham:

Here is #3708 helping a westbound freight towards Summit, as shot by Jack Whitmeyer:

Finally, here is #3740 with the 2nd section of the westbound Fast Mail approaching Summit in June of 1949, as shot by Stan Kistler:

As for HO models of these locos, I have two of the Sunset brass models like this one, but painted #3742 and #3748:

Balboa also made a brass model, but I don't seem to have one of these:

 

As for layout progress on the staging deck, I continued laying the mainline tracks around the big curve in Section 10 and then into the straightaway in Section 11.

I got a bit better at soldering the rail joiners before curving the tracks, but the joints are not perfect yet. 

After four of the flextracks had been soldered and glued down on the curve leaving Section 10, I shot this photo showing the new tracks:

 

 

Then I added two more flextracks, and these were mostly on the straightaway in Section 11.  One of them had to be cut to meet the location of a crossover turnout for the return loop operation.  Here's a view of the new tracks in Sections 10 and 11:

 

 

The next step was to lay down two flextracks for the outer main as it crosses from Section 11 through part of Section 9 and into Section 8, leaving the staging room now, up to the turnout to where the future cassette-loading track will be located:

 

 

The final step so far was to cut and lay down two flextracks for the inner main in the same location, but between two turnouts.  In this view the pushpins are still in place while the caulk dries:

Insulated rail joiners were used where blocks end and where reversing tracks begin (insulated joiners on both rails for the reverse loop boundaries).

I'll keep working on adding more mainline tracks as I move around the layout.