Our locomotive type this time will be the Santa Fe's heavy 2-8-0 steam locos. Then we'll look at a bit of layout progress, including receiving some very nice Victorville building models.
The Santa Fe had many early classes of 2-8-0 locos, but the ones seen near Cajon Pass in the postwar years were the 1900 Class (#1900-1919) built in 1912-1913 and the 1950 Class (#1950-1991) built in 1907. Worley says that they were practically identical, except that the bell was in front of the sand dome on the 1950 Class.
The latest photos I've seen of these locos near Cajon Pass were shot in 1949-1950.
#1901 was photographed in San Bernardino, where it may have been working as a switcher, by Jack Whitmeyer in Dec. 1950:
Jack Whitmeyer also shot #1901 working near the 5th Street Tower at the east end of the San Bernardino yard:
There are photos of 1950-Class locos working as helpers on Cajon Pass. In this photo we see #1983 helping 4-8-4 #2925 with an eastbound passenger train at Devore in Feb. 1949, thanks to James Ady:
Here we see #1987 resting while serving as the Victorville local switcher at the end of WW2, before the buildings inside the wye were repainted yellow:
In this photo from the Todd Peterson collection, #1987 is helping 2-10-2 #3886 with an eastbound freight at Keenbrook:
Finally, here's a great photo by Chard Walker, showing #1991 near the depot in Victorville, either working as the local switcher or between jobs as a helper engine:
I've identified two different brass models of the 1950-Class locos (and I have one of each). Here is the early PFM United model:
Here's a painted version of the PFM United model:
A later brass model was imported by Sunset, as seen here:
Now we'll look at some minimal layout progress over the last two weeks, highlighted by receiving the first two cardstock models of Victorville buildings that Craig Wisch has built and mailed to me.
in the first week I was in some sort of slump and didn't get much done, plus it's football season now, so I spend part of every weekend watching my teams on TV.
Early in the week I received a package from Craig Wisch in Victorville. He had packed and sent me his cardstock model of the old Victorville jail (which still stands there). It arrived in perfect condition, and I set it on the layout beside some other models that friends have recently built for me (it's the square, gray building in front):
Craig also began working on a model of the Peterson Feed Store, after we agreed on how much to compress the depth. Here's his photo of some early progress on the store:
Last week there was some question about
whether there would be room for the hay storage structure beside the
right rear of the store. I did some calculations, based on how much
space is taken by Wayne Lawson's four models along "industry row"
(Hayward Lumber, Peterson Feed, Shell Oil, and Standard Oil), and I
decided that I need to compress the widths of my lots quite a bit, so
there's no room for the hay storage structure.
Here's
an overhead photo that Wayne sent, showing his longer models of the
lumber store and the feed store, but his lots are wedge-shaped because
his tracks happen to curve there:
We also referenced my copy of the 1943 updates to the 1923 Sanborn map of this area, as seen here:
The only thing I got done on my layout
that week was to get all the loose feeder wires off the floor and
re-attach them to the benchwork leading into the staging room. I'm
finding that the Gorilla tape is not really needed if I can just press a
push-pin firmly into the top part of each Velcro strap (from the back
side).
Here's a rather pathetic photo showing the bus wires now off the floor:
But there was so much still to do with routing the bus wires, and attaching more of the feeder wires to them, and connecting the bus wires to four (future) control panels (or at least to two power packs, as a start). And wiring is my least favorite job on the layout.
Craig Wisch's beautiful model of the
control house for the electrical switching station in the Lower Narrows
arrived early this week. It's quite large, and it survived the journey
well, thanks to lots of good packing around the delicate poles (vigas)
that stick out along the top part of the building.
The
three roof vents were not yet attached to the rooftop, so I finished
painting them with some gray paint and then glued them to the rooftop
with Aleene's Tacky Glue, to match the locations in some aerial photos
of the rooftop.
Here's my photo of the front of the building, after I set it next to my other recent models:
Note how much larger it is than the
old jail that Craig had sent me the previous week, and the old Sheriff's
Office on the far right, which Bill Messecar built for me a couple of
years ago.
I turned the model around and then shot the back side (note the three roof vents):
Many thanks to Craig Wisch for his beautiful cardstock models! He is now busy working on his model of the Peterson Feed Store.
There
were more emails back and forth between Jim Coady, Craig Wisch, and
myself, discussing the feasibility of building an HO model of the 36"
long Rainbow Bridge someday. We're now leaning against trying to
3D-print the parts from Jim's CAD model, in favor of Craig someday
building a cardstock model of the bridge, using actual photos of the
bridge parts, showing the rivets and all. But that's just a dream at
this point in time.
On
Thursday morning Bill Messecar kindly visited me again, and we worked
on removing all the kinks in the mainline track curves, where the rail
joiners are located and the rails are not attached to the ties. He
showed me how to use tiny HO rail spikes to hold the rail joiners in
place, by pushing a number of spikes into the cork roadbed and against
the rail joiners and rails. All the curves appear to be very smooth
now! I took him out to lunch when we finished.
In
the next days I worked in the staging room, along the edges of the
layout and sometimes under it, reattaching all the Velcro straps to the
edges of the benchwork, to support the bus wires. I gave up on the
Gorilla Tape and replaced it all with just push-pins, twisting them back
and forth to push them hard into the benchwork wood.
Here's
a photo from inside the return loop in the staging room, showing the
push-pins holding the Velcro straps where the bus wires cut across the
end of the layout. Note that there are loose feeder wires from the
inner mainline track that have not been attached to the bus wires yet:
In the October issue
of Railroad Model Craftsman I read Jason Shron's excellent column (page
90) about "Building a Large Layout." He concludes, "take some time to
think about what you most enjoy about the hobby. Prioritize what is
most important to you, and don't worry about impressing your
friends. If your construction plan reflects what you really enjoy the
most, you won't run out of steam. Model railroading can be all about
the journey rather than the destination."
So,
with that in mind, I made a new short-term task list to focus on
achieving what I like the most, which is to watch two trains running
around in opposite directions on double tracks. I already had the outer
mainline wired and running (although some bus wires have come loose
from terminal strips since then), so now I want to focus on getting the
inner mainline wired and running too.
Here are the steps I listed for myself (and any helpers who can visit me):
1. Make a wiring diagram for the mainline blocks (instead of trying to keep it in my head).
2. Label all the wires by wrapping masking tape labels around them.
3. Connect all the inner mainline feeder wires to their bus wires, using suitcase connectors.
4.
Connect all the bus wires to temporary terminal strips that connect the
outer mainline blocks to one group of terminal strips and the inner
mainline blocks to a second group of terminal strips
5. Buy a second power pack to power the inner mainline. (Ignore the goal of walk-around control with radio throttles for now.)
6. Connect the outer mainline's terminal strips to one power pack, and the inner mainline's terminal strips to the second power pack.
7. Spike shut all the mainline turnouts for now, so trains won't derail on partly open turnouts.
8. Test the operation of trains on both mainlines with both power packs.
9. Get back to finalizing the four mainline control panel drawings.
10.
Build all four control panels and wire them into the mainline circuits,
one by one, with separate cab controls for each mainline block.
(Recall that I'll be using Touch Toggles.)
11. Add power to the mainline turnouts, and wire them into the control panels and test them.
12. Test the mainlines by running lots of different trains around and through the mainline turnouts.
I have no set schedule for this work, but I think it has all the steps that I want to start taking. Your suggestions are welcome. If I want to take a break from wiring, there are always the F Yard tracks that need to be completed in the staging room.
Layout helpers are always welcome, either in person or by building models remotely.
I've added another photo to the previous blog entry about Santa Fe's GP9s, showing GP9 #701 helping PAs with the eastbound Grand Canyon on Sullivan's curve in 1956.
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