Santa Fe's E-Units and DL-109 in Victorville & Getting Help with Structure Models

It's been almost two months since I've been able to write a blog entry here, as my wife and I were busy with a three-week tour of Europe (our first time) -- we visited London, Paris, Rome, Florence, and Venice.  Near the end, we both came down with COVID, so we've been slowly recovering from that since we got home.

I'm getting down to the bottom of the barrel as far as which postwar Victorville locomotives I can cover here, but I'll cover some early Santa Fe passenger diesels that only made rare appearances in Victorville during the postwar decade -- the EMD E-Units and the Alco DL-109.  Then I'll cover some HO structures that some friends have been working on for my Victorville scenes.

Let's start with Santa Fe's E1 streamlined passenger diesels (#2-9, and some had B units).  These were not pulling trains over Cajon Pass during the postwar years, but they were pulling the Golden Gate trains on the Valley Division and the San Diegan trains out of Los Angeles.  

Reportedly, they were sent to San Bernardino for their annual inspections, so once a year the E1s from the Valley must have run through Victorville on their way to their inspections and back.

Here's a shot of E1 A-B set #4 in Fresno in about 1948, from the Joe Taul collection:

In recent years Broadway Limited made some very nice models of the Santa Fe E1s, including the postwar version, which I have:

Our next Victorville E-units were the E6s (#12-15, some with B units), which actually did pull passenger trains through Victorville into 1946, as seen here in Victorville with #13 pulling the eastbound El Capitan in Jan. 1946, thanks to Fletcher Swan:

Walthers Proto 2000 made good HO models of these locos:

Later Broadway Limited also made very nice models of the E6s:

Our next Santa Fe E-units were the E8m's (#80-87, some with B units), which were rebuilt from the E1s in 1953.  As with the E1s, the E8m's were pulling the Golden Gate trains on the Valley Division and the San Diegan trains out of Los Angeles.   

They were sent to San Bernardino for their annual inspections, so once a year the E8m's from the Valley must have run through Victorville on their way to their inspections and back.

Here is one of those E8m sets, #82-81A, with the Golden Gate in Fresno in the mid-1950s, as shot by Paul Taul:

Jack Whitmeyer shot one of the recently-built E8m's, #4 (right before it was renumbered into the 80 class) in San Bernardino:

Also, here is an undated shot of #80 in the San Bernardino shops area from page 441 of Worley's "Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail":

Proto 2000 made an E8m cab unit, but I don't think they made a B unit:

Broadway Limited later did make both an A and a B unit for the E8m:

Our final passenger diesel that made rare appearances in Victorville is the Alco DL-109/110 (#50).  By the end of WW2 they were assigned back east, but DL-109 #50 was sent west for shopping in San Bernardino in Sep. 1951.  

It was released from the shops and was photographed briefly while testing in San Bernardino in April 1952.  So, it would have run through Victorville once in each direction then (Sep. 1951 and April 1952).

Here's a photo of #50 in the San Bernardino shops area at that time:

In April of 1952 R.P. Middlebrook photographed #50 at the San Bernardino depot:

Jack Whitmeyer got a similar shot at about the same time:

Walthers Proto 1000 made a model of the A unit, but it has an extra window behind the warbonnet that should not be there (but as the photos show, the windows had become louver sets by this time anyway):

The Hallmark brass set included both the DL-109 and the DL-110, and it had the correct side windows as originally built:

I recently got a painted set like this, so my unpainted set is now for sale to anyone who wants one.

I haven't made any progress on my layout while I was gone and while I've been recovering, but some friends have been busy building structures for my Victorville scenes.

Bill Messecar is interested in helping with more structures for my Victorville scenes, beginning with a third pumphouse to match the other two he built.  Then he'd like to work on some drawings of what the two section houses might have looked like, based on partial photos and his knowledge of Santa Fe section houses.  Then he would work on scratch-building them for me!

And on April 12 I heard from a gentleman who's about my age named Craig Wisch, who lives in Victorville and has been reading my blog.  He has previously been building S scale models of some local buildings using cardstock and paper.

 

He offered to start building some HO models for my layout, so we looked first at two buildings that are still standing there in town: the old jail and the office of the Victorville switching station at the Lower Narrows.  He began visiting those buildings and getting measurements and detailed photos.  His plan was to assemble them and then ship them to me in boxes.

 

By May 12, Craig had completed a nice HO cardstock model of the old jail.  Here's the actual jail:

 

 And here is Craig's beautiful new cardstock model:

My long-time friend Don Hubbard has been working on a model of the Texaco gas station that was on Route 66 in the Lower Narrows during my time period.  Here's a good photo of the gas station just before the gas pumps were installed:

Don began with a Piko kit for a similar gas station, but he has done a lot of mods to make it closer to the prototype.  Here's a photo of his early progress, as of May 14:

Here's Don's further progress as of May 28, after Bill Messecar had added tarpaper roofing to the garage section:

Here's one more update as of June 4, after some lettering and decals had been added:

 

Don will continue to add details (such as gas pumps) in the days to come.

 

After completing his model of the old jail, Craig Wisch turned his attention to the electrical switching station that still stands in the Lower Narrows:

 

He drove out there and shot photos of all sides of the building and got some dimensions.  He also began discussing ideas for how he might be able to build a cardstock model of the large Rainbow Bridge someday!  

 

But then on May 25 he suddenly dropped out of sight in the middle of our good email conversations, so I'm worried about what might have happened to him.

 

I still need to get to work and study the drawings of the four mainline control panels that Don Borden drew for me, so that we can finalize them and get to work on building them.  I also need to get back in touch with Kevin Hunter for ordering a lot of the Touch Toggles we plan to use.

And I'll try to get back to work on the actual layout in the next two weeks!