Santa Fe's Freight FT Diesels in Postwar Paint in Victorville & Help with Layout Wiring and Control Panel Design

This time we'll take a look at Santa Fe's freight FT diesels in two of the their postwar paint schemes, and then I'll report on some layout progress in wiring the mainline tracks in staging (thanks to three helpers) and drawing one of the control panels in CAD (thanks to Don Borden).

During World War II the Santa Fe's very large fleet of freight FTs were all painted in a scheme that had red stripes separating the blue from the yellow, all the way along the bodies of the A and B units (we covered those here in Nov. 2021).  But from 1945 to 1948, as the units were gradually repainted, the red stripes were restricted to just the cabs of the A units.  And from 1948 to 1951, during the next repainting, the red stripes were completely eliminated.

Here's a close-up shot by Chard Walker of three-unit FT set #112 by the Victorville depot in the postwar years, showing the paint scheme with the partial red stripes (only on the cab):

In July of 1947 Chard Walker shot FT set #118 (possibly with partial red stripes) coming eastbound through the Upper Narrows of Victorville, while a passenger train heads west on the other track:

Here we see FT set #145 (in partial red stripes) heading west out of Victorville, past the Rainbow Bridge and through the Upper Narrows, thanks again to Chard Walker:

Here's an interesting view of the Victorville wye area that includes two FT sets.  The FT set on the left is #112, which is waiting beside the boiler house for its next helper job.  The FT set on the right is #126 with a westbound freight, which has taken the siding so that the UP passenger train with PAs can pass it.  On the far left is the local switcher, Santa Fe 2-8-2 #3129.  This was shot by Chard Walker in Sep. 1948:

Here we see FT set #120 rounding the curve at Summit with a westbound freight in the late 1940s:

Jack Whitmeyer photographed FT set #143 (in partial red stripes) with an eastbound train of pipe loads at the Cajon depot in Sep. 1949:

Frank Peterson shot FT set #135 with an eastbound freight approaching Summit, with steam helpers on the rear, in the late 1940s:

Here we see FT set #147 (in partial red stripes) with an eastbound GFX train of reefers at Cajon in Nov. 1947, thanks to Stan Kistler (there were also steam helpers on the rear):

We have previously seen this next photo when we were looking at the all-blue experimental FT paint scheme of 1951-52, as seen on FT set #151 on the right at Summit.  But note that FTs were also used as helpers, including rear helpers, as seen here on the left, ahead of the caboose, facing backwards for an easy return to San Bernardino.  This set has no red stripes.  This was shot by Stan Kistler in June of 1952:

 

Our final shot shows FT set #172 (with no red stripes) as it rounds the curve at Summit with a westbound freight, as shot by Jack Whitmeyer in the early 1950s:

The final shots of FTs on Cajon Pass were taken in 1953, and they were all moved east in 1954, before they got their next paint scheme, with the later "cigar band" on the nose.

I think that all of my HO-scale FTs were made by Stewart, who did all the FT paint schemes.  I can't find any online photos of the Stewart models in the partial red stripes, but here's a brass Hallmark set painted that way:

Here's a Stewart set with no red stripes:

And here's a brass Division Point set with no red stripes, detailed as "Cajon Pass helpers":

Now it's time to report on my layout progress for the last two weeks. 

I had no layout visitors during the first week, but I was busy corresponding with Don Borden (back East) as he used his CAD drawing system to lay out the first sample control panel drawing, starting with the simplest one, Turntable Tower.  This design assumes the use of Touch Toggles for controlling the mainline turnouts and the cab selections for each electrical block (for DC cab control).

We went back and forth every day with new suggestions and changes, and we ended that week at Version 6.  Then I visited a local friend, Larry Sloan, who is using Touch Toggles on his smaller control panels for DCC, as seen here:
 

We then removed some of the excess lettering from our panel design and ended up with Version 7 this week, which will be the example we use for the other mainline panels:

The rows of four lights are for selecting Cab 1, 2, or 3 for each block, or using Cab 0 as an Off button for the block.  The note above the cab lights on the right half of the panel indicate that the A Yard block can also be controlled from the A-B Tower panel on the opposite side of the layout.  I talked with Kevin Hunter of Berrett Hill Shop to verify that his Touch Toggle system can do that.

This week I had two helpers here on Thursday morning and another on Friday morning, all working on aspects of wiring the inner mainline track.

Bill Messecar arrived on Thursday morning and finished soldering all the remaining feeders to the inner mainline track.  Ray Rydberg arrived at the same time and was able to finish adding all the Velcro straps to hold the bus wires all the way around the edges of the layout.  I was clamping down some suitcase connectors along the outer mainline bus wires at the same time.

Here's a photo of Bill doing some soldering while Ray adds Velcro straps:

Then on Friday morning George Chambers arrived to help again.  He brought along a partly-completed model of one of the buildings that makes up the Victorville Lime Rock plant, with some metal corrugated panels attached to the walls. 

He decided he'd like to work on the task of adding the blue and yellow bus wires for the inner mainline, so we worked together on that, unspooling the wires and threading them through the loops in the Velcro straps.  We got most of the way around the layout edges that morning.  Here's a photo of George at work with the two spools of bus wires.

This week I began consulting with Tim Fisher and Don Borden on the design of the next control panel, the Reversing Tower panel, and I phoned Kevin Hunter at Berrett Hill Shop for some advice on how to control the reversing tracks with Touch Toggles, and he will get back to us on that.  In the meantime, we'll work on the other two mainline panels.

Please contact me if you'd like to help in any way.