Santa Fe's Passenger Diesels in Victorville & Wiring Some Tracks & Revising Some Control Panels

I will continue creating links into past blog entries about the locomotives seen in Victorville during the postwar decade.  This time the locos will be Santa Fe's passenger diesels, such as this one:

Here's a Chard Walker photo of a set of eastbound PAs (#54) on the curve at Pine Lodge, heading toward Summit and then Victorville:

 

After we review the Santa Fe passenger diesels, I'll cover a little more progress on the layout, involving wiring some tracks and revising some control panels.

Here's a list of links that should take you to any of the past blog entries for Santa Fe's passenger diesels:

SF E-Units, DL-109 – Jun-5-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/06/santa-fes-e-units-and-dl-109-in.html

SF Passenger FTs – Jan-9-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/01/santa-fes-passenger-ft-diesels-in.html

SF PA-1s – May-29-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/05/santa-fes-pa-diesels-in-victorville-and.html

SF Passenger F3s – Sep-11-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/09/santa-fes-passenger-f3s-in-victorville.html

SF Erie-Builts – Sep-6-2021

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2021/09/santa-fes-fm-erie-built-locos-in.html

SF Passenger F7s – Mar-12-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/03/santa-fes-passenger-f7-diesels-in.html

Let's look at a sample of each of these blog entries now.

SF E-Units, DL-109 – Jun-5-2023 

Some Victorville E-units were the E6s (#12-15, some with B units), which pulled 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:

 

In April of 1952 R.P. Middlebrook photographed Alco DL-109 #50 at the San Bernardino depot:

SF Passenger FTs – Jan-9-2022

Here is FT set #159 rounding the curve at Cajon with the eastbound Grand Canyon Limited, as shot by Chard Walker in Sep. 1948:

SF PA-1s – May-29-2022

Jack Whitmeyer shot westbound PA set #52 at the San Bernardino depot with the Fast Mail:

SF Passenger F3s – Sep-11-2022

Here we see F3 set #26 with the eastbound Grand Canyon at Sullivan's Curve in July, 1950, thanks to Jack Whitmeyer:

SF Erie-Builts – Sep-6-2021

The only photo I've seen of Erie-Built set #90 at Victorville is this one by Chard Walker in the late 1940s, as the 3-unit loco comes eastbound toward the Upper Narrows and into Victorville with a passenger train:

SF Passenger F7s – Mar-12-2023

Chard Walker shot F7 ABB set #301 with the eastbound Grand Canyon approaching Summit:

Turning now to my layout progress during the last two weeks...

Before the arrival of Bill Messecar on Thursday, March 14, I got busy marking with masking tape where the loco parking spot boundaries will be (usually 30" apart) in the tracks of the E Yard and in the right half of the C Yard. 

I also drilled holes for where the new feeder wires will go, both for the new tracks in the C Yard and for the loco parking spots.  Then I cut and stripped and inserted the new feeder wires, as seen here by the right half of the C Yard:

When Bill arrived on that Thursday morning, he got to work soldering the new feeder wires to the rails, as seen here by the E Yard:

Note the portable tray table of soldering supplies that we move from place to place around the layout.  Later I took him out to lunch, and we discussed what will become of his large Santa Fe layout and his trains when he and his wife move into a condo about a year from now (sad!).

Meanwhile, Don Borden made the first CAD drawings of two new panels, based on the pencil drawings I posted here last time.  Here is his first drawing of the tracks in the right half of the A Yard:

And here is his first drawing of the tracks in the B Yard (which is a stub-ended yard):

Both of these panels are likely to see a few minor changes, as we study them.

Don also did a revision of A-B Tower, but I'll omit that version, because the panels are still under review.  Tim Fisher wrote and pointed out a number of inconsistencies between the adjacent panels, so I went back to the drawing board and proposed some fairly major changes to the main panels, including merging the C Yard - Right panel into the main C Tower panel.

I sent out a new pencil drawing of C Tower and red-ink markups of the related panels, thinking I had solved the problems, but Tim Fisher came back again to point out some new problems that I still needed to solve.  So the saga of the panel revisions will continue into the coming weeks!

This was my first pencil drawing of my proposed revision to the C Tower panel:

Back in Victorville, my friend and cardstock wizard, Craig Wisch, has completed an S-scale model of the famous Barrel House Liquor Store that still stands at the corner of 5th and D Streets, across D Street from the BNSF mainline.  Here's one of the views that he sent me, showing his completed model:

Congratulations to Craig as he continues to model various Victorville buildings for his own pleasure.

This week I was occupied by three short model railroad car trips, so my only layout progress was to keep on revising my control panels, trying to get them right.

My first trip was on Monday, when my wife and I drove north to Mukilteo to visit my brass loco painter, Gary Jordan.  He posed for me beside part of his On3 model railroad:

I left him with four more Santa Fe brass steam locos to paint and/or letter, and I picked up my Westside Fleetwood set of "Santa Fe's Big Three," which he had painted and tested for me during the winter months. 

I had him paint the 3460-class 4-6-4 as #3464 (the loco that came west over Cajon Pass), and the 5001-class 2-10-4 as #5005 (a loco that records show went west one day, maybe as far as Barstow or beyond), and the 2900-class 4-8-4 as #2929, which was Chard Walker's favorite loco, seen frequently on Cajon Pass.  Here's the painted model of #2929:

My wife and I love our trips to Mukilteo, where we stop to have fish & chips and walk along the beach.

On Wednesday I drove to the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club in Burien to meet Tim Repp and to work together on the club library again.  We got though about four more shelves of books this time, as Tim read each title and organized it on the shelf, while I wrote down each title and author.  My job at home will be to type all these books into the club library spreadsheet.

During the week I was in constant email contact with Don Borden and Tim Fisher, as we made more revisions to several control panels, critiqued them for improvements, and then submitted the changes to Don, who seems to have infinite patience with the process.

Here is one of the pencil diagrams I drew to help us understand the complex tangle of trackwork at the entrances to the A Yard, B Yard, and C Yard:

These proposed blocks and gaps are still being revised.  Tim Fisher has a great eye for how to improve the flow of locos and trains through all of these tracks.

Recently I cut and taped a panel revision together, to show where I thought the tracks and labels should go on the revised A-B Tower, because my markups with red ink were getting too messy.  Here's my first attempt to use the cut-and-tape method to revise a panel:

Bill Messecar has completed his model of the passenger carbody that stood in Victorville, just across 6th Street from the depot.  We have heard that this was a resting place for Santa Fe brakemen.  Bill was able to modify the La Belle wood combine kit to get the windows and doors to match the photos you have seen here previously.

Here is the south side of the building model, which will face the aisle:

And here is the north side, facing away from the aisle:

I am totally thrilled with the wonderful work that Bill has done on this model.  I plan to visit him and pick it up tomorrow.

Today my third car trip was back to the Boeing Club to help us host a session of Sound Rails, which is an annual event, when model railroaders come from all around to operate trains on various layouts.  I got a photo of club president Byron Osborn (pointing) as he was showing some the operators around the towns on our large club layout:

I was happy to see that the large roundhouse built by our late, great Warren Castelluccio has now been installed by the turntable, as seen here:

 

Sadly, I still made no progress on the bus wires nor the upgrades to the Lime Rock Plant, so those are still on my to-do list.  But I have been busy starting to create a clinic presentation for the local NW Santa Fe Mini-Meet on April 13, featuring Santa Fe's Postwar Chicago-LA passenger trains.

John