Possible Diesel Demonstrators in Victoville & Layout Progress in the F Yard

Last time we looked at some diesel demonstrators that crossed Cajon Pass, and this time we'll look at some others that might have but probably didn't.  We'll also look at some layout progress in finishing the F Yard in staging.

Let's begin with EMD's F7 ABA demonstrator set (#1950) that toured the country in 1950:

 I have the Athearn Genesis models of this set, as seen here on an HO layout:

 

Let's continue with a most amazing diesel demonstrator pair, the Baldwin centipedes (DR12-8-1500) that toured as two cab units (#6000) back-to-back in 1946:

Here's a nice side view of the pair:
 

I have the HO set that Broadway Limited made:

EMD had two SD7 demonstrators, #990 and 991, that toured in 1952.  Here we see #990:

Proto 2000 made HO models of both #990 and 991, which I have.  Here is their model of #990:
 

There was an Alco PA-PB set (#8375) that pulled the GE "More Power to America Special" 10-car lightweight demonstration train to 160 cities and towns around the country in 1950-1951.  It stopped in Riverside (coming from Phoenix) on March 7, 1951, and in LA on March 8-15, before heading north.  You can read more about it here:

https://themetrains.com/ge-more-power-to-america-special-main.htm

 Here we see the locos and train on display somewhere:

Here's a close-up of the nose of the PA:

 Proto 2000 made this PA-PB set, as seen here, which I have:

Rapido is now listing this loco set for their next PA-PB production run.

Fairbanks-Morse had an H15-44 demonstrator #1502 that toured in 1948:

 Here's another view of this loco in service:

I have an Atlas Master model of this loco, but it lacks the red stripe:

 

Our final diesel demonstrator this time (I have more for next time) is the Alco RS-11 (DL700) of 1956.  They had #701, 701A, and 701B.  Here we see #701A and 701B:

Here are all three units together in Los Angeles in April, 1956:

I have Atlas models of two of these.  Here is their model of #701A:

 

This concludes this week's coverage of some more HO diesel demonstrators that we might want to run on our layouts.

The week of Jan. 15-21 was not a very productive week, but I did get back into the joys of laying more flextrack sections to complete Track F5 in the staging F Yard.  Track F5 is the innermost track in the multi-track curve of the F Yard.

First I soldered the rail joiners to add another flextrack onto the curve at the far end of Track F5, which was only partly complete.  Then I curved and glued and pinned the track section down and added water-bottle weights, and I attached the next flextrack section (still straight), as seen here:

After I soldered that new section to the previous one, I curved it, glued and pinned it down, and added weights, as before.  Then I cut and fit a shorter straight section of flextrack to bring F5 to its end at the next turnout.  After removing the weights, the completed Track F5 looked like this (it's the one on the inside of the curve, with the push-pins in it):

I still need to add the missing ties under the rail joiners, and I need to add feeder wires to each flextrack section.

As my next control panel project, I had planned to add mark-ups to improve the Reversing Tower panel, but it's a difficult problem to solve, so I plan to get back to it later.  

 

In the meantime, Don Borden was kind enough to add another loco parking spot to each of Tracks C4 and C5 in the Left C Yard Panel drawing, as I had requested, so here is his revised panel drawing:

 

 

I had planned to work on getting the two mainlines wired to two power packs, but I only got a few bus wire labels added and some loose bus wires pinned up to the benchwork.

Craig Wisch in Victorville said he needs a break from my big Lime Rock Plant project, so he has begun a different ambitious project to model all the storefronts along D Street in the glory years, across the street from the depot area.  

His first step has been to mock-up the two large buildings that stood on each corner of 6th and D -- the two-story Smith Hotel on the left and the Halstead Building on the right, which began as a bank and was a movie theater during 1945-1950.

Here's an initial photo of his early mockup, with a photo backdrop of 6th St. receding into the distance:

 

Here's a classic view of these buildings along D St., with the 6th St. intersection and the movie theater halfway in the distance:

 

The highlight this past week was another visit by Bill Messecar on Wednesday.  He brought along his completed diorama of the section houses, pump houses, and water tanks that stood in Victorville, after having added ground scenery, fences, and HO people (but no trees until it goes onto the upper deck of the layout).  Bill posed with his diorama, as seen here:

 

Then we got to work on adding more feeder wires to the newest tracks in the F Yard, Tracks F4 and F5.  I was drilling the holes and inserting the feeder wires a short distance ahead of where he was soldering the feeders to the outsides of the rails.  I posed for a photo while I was working there:

 

Bill posed with the Tidy Track rail-cleaning tool in his hand, while he was doing the soldering:

 

After I took Bill to lunch, I shot a close-up of his diorama, along with an old Santa Fe switch lock and key that Don Sheets had mailed to me the day before (many thanks, Don!):

 

The next two days I struggled with a metal shelf unit kit to get it assembled and moved into my garage, where I loaded it with boxes of old model railroad magazines (lower shelves) and boxes of various locomotives I've collected over the years:

 

These things had been on a shorter shelf unit that I donated to my wife to use in a closet under the stairs.  I have a few other shelf units like this, loaded with more magazines and more locomotives.  But I now realize that I'll never have time to look at those decades of magazines again, so I need to work on donating them to someplace, if anyone even wants them.

In other news, I still exchange several emails with Craig Wisch in Victorville every day.  He has a new plan for a flat diorama of the classic buildings along D St., instead of the 3D mockup he showed last time.  

And he found a cardstock kit that could be used for what we call the Shipping Office wing of the Lime Rock Plant.  It's kit S17 from CleverModels, as seen in these photos:

 

 

Here's a later aerial photo of the plant, and you can see this building with its rounded rooftop in the lower center of the photo, to the right of the Quonset hut:
 

I've mentioned that my next layout goals should be to get the two mainlines wired up, so that trains can start running around on both tracks, and so that my many locomotives can be tested.  Here are some first steps for me to work on now:

Continue adding labels to all the bus wires (I don't have many done yet);

Finish connecting the mainline feeder wires to the bus wires with suitcase connectors (most are done);

Draw a map of how the bus wires will all initially reach two power packs and how they later will reach the four mainline control panels; 

Route the bus wires to two terminal strips and from there to two power packs; and

Test many locos and trains on the mainlines.

In parallel with this, I have some short-term goals to get the F Yard wired, as that is where the test trains will park between test runs:

Cut and glue down stub-ended Track F6; 

Finish inserting feeder wires beside all the F Yard rails (F4, F5, and F6); 

Finish soldering the feeder wires to the rails; 

Insert and glue the missing ties under the rail joiners; 

Connect the feeder wires to new F Yard bus wires with suitcase connectors; 

Label all the F Yard wires;

Build an F Yard control panel; and

Build a Reversing Tower control panel.

I have other related tasks, such as moving the rest of my trains and things off the old train tables in the garage, so that the tables can be given away and our car can finally get into the garage.  Related to this, all the things from the garage are now stashed all over the floor in my layout room, so they all need to be stored away neatly under the layout.

There is no rest in sight!  If you can help with anything, please let me know.

Some Diesel Demonstrators in Victorville & Minimal Layout Progress

We've run out of postwar Victorville locos to cover, but this time we'll start to look at some diesel demonstrators that either did or could have crossed Cajon Pass.  Layout progress has been minimal over the holidays, but Craig Wisch's model of the Lime Rock Plant is coming along beautifully, as we shall see.

I have a special interest in collecting all the HO diesel demonstrators from my time period that I can find, because they have a variety of colorful paint schemes (other than Santa Fe and Union Pacific), and they can be an excuse to run exotic diesel models that neither Santa Fe nor UP used.  We have proof that some of them did cross Cajon Pass, and we have to use our imaginations for the others, which may or may not have come west.

We'll focus this time on the diesel demonstrators that we know visited the Victorville and Cajon Pass areas.  Here's a first look at Alco FPA-2 demonstrator ABBA set #1602 on the SP in Soledad Canyon in c.1950:

Here we see the same 4-unit FPA-2 set leaving LAUPT with a UP passenger train bound for Cajon Pass, thanks to Robert Hale (an FPA was an FA equipped for passenger service):

Robert Hale also got a shot of Chard Walker hooping up orders to these same FPA-2 demonstrators at Summit in c.1950:

As for HO models, Proto 2000 made FA and FB units, so I have an ABBA set.  It's hard to find photos of these online, but here is one A unit:

Our next diesel demonstrators will the the H24-66 Train Masters.  Units TM-1 and TM-2 demonstrated in the East in 1953, while units TM-3 and TM-4 demonstrated in the West.  Here's a nice shot of the two units in the East:

Here's another colorful shot of these units in the East:

I've seen photos of the Western units, TM-3 and TM-4, together at Summit on Cajon Pass, but I don't know where to locate those photos now.

Atlas Master made beautiful models of these Train Master units in HO, and I have the TM-3 and TM-4 pair.  Here's a photo of their model of TM-1:

Another diesel model that demonstrated on Cajon Pass was the GP7 in 1949.  Here we see GP7 unit X100 helping some Santa Fe F7s with a freight on Cajon Pass:

Atlas Classic made HO models of three units, #100, #200, and #300, and I have the first two of those.  Here's a photo of the third unit, #300:

Another demonstrator diesel model that crossed Cajon Pass was the Baldwin DR-4-4-1500 sharknose, units #6001A, A1, B, B1, in 1950.  They had an eye-catching red and white paint scheme, as seen here in New York in 1949:

Here's another view of these early sharknose units in 1949:

Chard Walker reported that he saw these units come through Summit, but he didn't get a photo, as far as I know.  It could have been at night.

I have an ABBA set of these demo sharks, made in HO by Bachmann:

Let's look at one more demo-like diesel that stopped in San Bernardino for a few days of display and shop work, and this was the 1947-49 American Freedom Train Alco PA-1 diesel #1776 (and its display train).

Here's a classic shot of this diesel and two of its heavyweight display cars, full of historic documents:

Here's another view of the Alco PA-1 diesel #1776 and its train of precious documents:

There is at least one photo of this train parked at the San Bernardino Depot on Feb. 29, 1948, but I can't locate it at the moment.  

Although it spent the first week of March, 1948, in San Bernardino, it came in on the SP from Arizona and later left on the SP line to Tehachapi, bypassing Cajon Pass (but it came close enough for my purposes).

Rapido made an HO model of this loco, as seen below, but I somehow missed it, so I'll have to wait for one to come back onto the market:

Of course, then I'd need to paint and decal an entire heavyweight train for it to pull.  I do have all the decals.

Next time I plan to cover some diesel demonstrator models I own but that probably did not cross Cajon Pass, as far as I know.

Now let's catch up on some layout progress, or lack of progress.

Three weeks ago I was busy with Christmas preparations and gatherings, and taking some time off from the layout.

Then on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Dec. 26-27-28, I worked with the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club at the annual Tacoma Model Train Festival, where the club sets up its portable modules and runs trains for the public in one of the rooms there.

Here's a shot of me on Tuesday, working with Jay Biederman (left background) and Sandy Webster (right background), when Ray Rydberg arrived to relieve us and shoot our photo:

The nice thing about our room there is that it has large windows that look down on the BNSF tracks, so we get to watch all the freight trains roll by.  We were excited on Tuesday to see a military train of about 100 cars roll by, all loaded with military vehicles of all types, some in Army olive drab and some in United Nations white.  The sunlight was not from a good direction, but I did get this one shot while the train was stopped for a while:

There is now a freeway in the foreground, where the Tacoma Union Station tracks used to be.

I was inspired to go visit the N-scale layout one floor down that always has some modules showing an Army base and various Army scenes.  Here's a module depicting a scene circa 1970:

And a view of one of the circa 1944 modules:

 And another one of the circa 1944 modules:

On Thursday I worked with Jay Biederman again and with Tim Repp.  When we were relieved by club president Byron Osborn, I shot a photo of Tim (on the left) and Byron (on the right):

For the last two weeks my time was spent relaxing, watching football (bad news there), and buying a condo unit for our son to move into.  He's been staying with us since the end of August, when he lost his long-time apartment.  

He works from home four days a week, and he's been spending all his free time at his computer workstation too, which has been located right next to my layout, as seen here:

 

But on Friday and Saturday of this past week, we helped him move out to his condo (just eight minutes away), so now I'm free again to work downstairs on the layout, while I play my fifties rock & roll music.

Over my holiday break I've been thinking that I really should focus strongly on getting my 2 staging mainlines wired up to two power packs, so I can finally run two trains in large circles to my heart's content.

And that leads me to think that I should get my E and F yards completed and wired up too, so that I can park a few trains in the F Yard and a few different locos in the E Yard.  Then I could run a small variety of trains out of the F Yard and around the staging mainlines.

And that leads me to think that I should focus on the Reversing Tower Panel design, along with the F Yard and E Yard panels, to control these tracks and turnouts.  I had picked the C Tower to do first, but there are no C Yard tracks on the layout yet.  Maybe I should set aside the C Tower and yards and focus first on the Reversing Tower and yards.

But before I leave the C Yard panels, here's a look at a revised version of the Left C Yard Panel, thanks to Don Borden's drawings:

I remeasured these track lengths, and I decided to ask Don for a few more changes, to fit in a few more diesel sets into the parking spaces:

C4 is 130" long and can be divided into 4 sections of 32" each, instead of 3 sections, so let's add a 4th parking section to C4.

C5 is 84" long and can be divided into 3 sections of 28" each, instead of 2 sections, so let's add a 3rd parking section to C5.  (28" is long enough for 4 F-units or 3 PAs.)

Just for the record, here are the lengths I measured for all of the C Yard tracks:

C1 = 80" - no parking here, it's only for through loco movements.

C2 = 68" - good for two parking spots of 34" each.

C3 = 66" - good for two parking spots of 33" each.

C4 = 130" - good for four parking spots of 32" each.

C5 = 84" - good for three parking spots of 28" each.

C6 = 56" - good for two parking spots of 28" each.

C7 = 56" - good for two parking spots of 28" each.

C8 = 36" - good for one parking spot of 36".

C9 = 28" - good for one parking spot of 28".

I've also been measuring the lengths of various diesels and steam locos, but I won't get into that.

Back in the real Victorville, Craig Wisch has made more progress on his big cardstock Lime Rock Plant model, including modeling the two storage tanks that stood along the east wall of the main building, and adding many of the roof details and piping.

Here's a current view of the street side of the building, complete with the sign board near the top:

 

Here's a good view of the track side of the plant:

Finally, here's another view of the street side of the plant, from a different angle: 

We're still negotiating the dimensions and appearance of the curved-roof shipping office that stood in front of the Quonset hut building.  Also, he doesn't like to work with styrene, so he will return to me the Walthers kit I had sent him for the conveyor tower that fed the lime rock powder down into the two tanks, and I will build that later.  We are in the final stages of this enormous project!

Craig is also eyeing a much bigger project he wants to do for a Victorville museum, which is to build HO models of all the stores and hotels that ran along D Street in the glory years, across the street from the depot area.  Wow!

Meanwhile, Bill Messecar has been working on a diorama for all of his section houses, pump houses, and water tanks, and he plans to bring it along on Jan. 24.

I have revised my previous blog entry slightly, to include a Bachmann Spectrum model of an Army GE 44-tonner to use as a stand-in for the Army 45-tonner seen in the photo at the Victorville depot.

That's all the news I have this time.  I hope to get back to working on the layout this coming week.