Santa Fe's GP9 Diesels in Victorville & Minimal Layout Progress

Our Victorville motive power this time will be Santa Fe's EMD GP9 diesels.  Then we'll look at my minimal layout progress since last time, due to two vacation trips in the last three weeks.

The Santa Fe didn't acquire any GP9 roadswitchers until the last year of my time period, 1956, when EMD was already producing "Phase 2" GP9 carbodies.  They got 32 units in May of 1956, #700-731.  In Feb. of 1957 they got four more, #732-735, and then in April of 1957 they got their final batch of 16 more, #736-751.

They apparently assigned some of them as helpers on Cajon Pass, as we shall see, but photos of them while still in Zebra Stripes are hard to find.  Here's a photo of #714 in San Bernardino, with no photographer nor date listed:

Here we see #710 and others by the San Bernardino sand tower in 1956, as shot by Seeth Corky Thompson:

Here we see #702 and #705 in Oceanside in May of 1961, thanks to the Don Ross collection:

Here's a Santa Fe publicity photo of #715, #710, and possibly others with an eastbound freight on Sullivan's Curve, probably when new in 1956:

 Gordon Glattenberg shot this excellent photo of #716, #723, and #708 working as rear helpers on an eastbound freight at Pine Lodge in August, 1959:

Finally, here's a great photo by Robert Hale, showing GP9 #701 helping PAs with the eastbound Grand Canyon on Sullivan's curve in 1956:

I'm not sure what HO models of these locos I have (they are packed away), but here are some I found on the Web.  Here's a Proto 2000 model:

And the later Walthers Mainline model:

And finally the Athearn Genesis model:

Now let's turn to my minimal layout progress, due to two vacation trips in three weeks.

In early September my friend Craig Wisch in Victorville finished adding the poles along the tops of the walls of the control house for the switching station at the Lower Narrows.  We learned that these poles are called "vigas".  Here's his latest photo of the front side:

And here's the back side:

Those poles look great!  His final step was going to be to add three different vents to the rooftop, but he later decided to have me do that step after he sends me the model and the plastic vents.

I had hoped to finish taping up all the Velcro straps that hold the bus wires along the layout edges, using the new single-sided Gorilla Tape that I bought, but I found that some of the straps that I and George Chambers had taped up are starting to come loose.  The tape sticks to the wood very well, but not so well to the Velcro straps:

So I got to work repairing the ones that came loose, using my new Gorilla Tape, and sometimes adding push-pins as needed for the heavier wire bundles:

Here's a final view showing some completed Velcro straps and wire bundles:

This week, after my latest vacation trip, I exchanged quite a few emails with Craig Wisch in Victorville about his next project, which is to build a cardstock model of the Peterson Feed Store that stood to the right of the Hayward Lumber Store, which stood to the right of the depot.  

He pointed out that my trackplan had not allowed enough depth for the feed store and the lumber store, so I'm working on a plan to extend the plywood to overhang by about 4" along the front of the layout there.  Here's a red-ink markup to show the idea (there is lots of extra aisle space there):

Wayne Lawson has modeled the feed store in N scale, and he sent us a photo of his model:

On the right rear is a covered hay storage area.  I haven't heard whether Craig will include that (and whether I have room for it).

Wayne also sent us his scale drawings of the building, including this front view:

So, Craig is anxious to get started on this model, as soon as we agree on the space available.

Let me know if you can come here and help work on the layout, or whether you can help from a distance by building models needed for the layout.  Thanks!