Union Pacific's Passenger Diesel Locos in Victorville & Layout Progress with Touch Toggles for C Tower

This time we will provide links to past blog entries about Union Pacific's passenger diesel locos, and then we will cover recent layout progress in connecting Touch Toggles for the C Tower panel.

Here's one sample of the UP passenger diesel locos we have covered in our past blog entries:

Here is PA-1 #605 with a mixed PA-PB-Erie set being helped eastbound up Cajon Pass by a 4-10-2, as shot by Chard Walker:

Here's a list of links that should take you to any of the past blog entries for UP's passenger diesel locos:

UP E2s, E3s, E6s – Nov-19-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/11/ups-e2-e3-e6-disels-in-victorville.html

UP Erie-Builts – Aug-28-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/08/ups-erie-built-diesels-in-victorville.html

UP E7s – Feb-20-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/02/ups-e7-diesels-in-victorville-and.html

UP PA-1s – Nov-27-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/11/ups-pa-diesels-in-victorville-and.html

UP F3, F7s – Aug 20-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/08/ups-f3-f7-diesels-in-victorville-more.html

UP E8s, E9s – Jan-15-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/01/ups-e8e9-diesels-in-victorville-and.html

UP Aerotrain – Oct-17-2021

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2021/10/ups-aerotrain-in-victorville-and.html

Here's a sample photo from each of these previous blog entries:

UP E2s, E3s, E6s – Nov-19-2023

Here we see E6 #957A leading two more E units through Summit with the westbound LA Limited in 1947, thanks to Malcolm Gaddis:

UP Erie-Builts – Aug-28-2022

Here we see unit 702 with trailing PB and PA units westbound through the Upper Narrows of Victorville, as shot by Fletcher Swan circa 1950:

UP E7s – Feb-20-2022

Two of UP's E7s, A units 930A and 931A, came with blank red banners when new.  Chard Walker shot 931A and a B unit leaving Victorville through the Upper Narrows in 1947:

UP PA-1s – Nov-27-2022

The UP mixed their PA and PB units together as needed.  Here is a PA-PB-PB set #602 passing the Victorville Lime Rock plant with a westbound passenger train in 1953, as shot by Don Sims from up on the Rainbow Bridge approach:

UP F3, F7s – Aug 20-2023

Here we see passenger F3 set led by #967A with the westbound Pony Express at Mission Tower, LA, in Jan. 1948, thanks to Jack Woods:

UP E8s, E9s – Jan-15-2023

Here's a mid-to-late 1950s UP publicity photo of E9 #949 and trailing units leading the eastbound City of St. Louis around Sullivan's Curve:

 

UP Aerotrain – Oct-17-2021

Here's the train at Summit after the helper has cut off and backed into the engine track (hidden behind the train):

I have a variety of layout projects to report on again this time.  

During the week of May 6, I got all the ties inserted under all the rail joiners of the C Tower tangle of turnouts.  When Bill Messecar was here over a week earlier, he had glued down two flextrack sections to the left of the turnouts, for Tracks C1 and C4.  

Later I pinned down (but didn't glue) the third flextrack section along Track CR (the right lead track into most of the C Yard) and shot a photo looking from the turnouts toward the three new tracks:

Don Hubbard has been making progress on the Standard Oil bulk dealer building, but he hasn't sent a recent photo.  

Craig Wisch in Victorville is now interested in building the Hayward Lumber building that stood between the depot area and the Peterson Feed Store, so that's great news.  Wayne Lawson has sent us his scale drawings to use, and here's our best photo of the building (from an old high school yearbook):

As with the Peterson Feed model, we'll have to compress it to make it fit my space.

I corresponded all week with Wayne Lawson as he refined his drawings of the freight carbody (storage building) that was connected by a raised platform to the adjacent passenger carbody (the bunkhouse for swing brakemen).  We've decided to go back to calling it the "warehouse."  Here are Wayne's final drawings, first showing the side views:

And now the end views:

Wayne added a few vertical boards to each view to indicate the type of siding on the building.  Bill Messecar has expressed some interest in building this carbody for me, when he finds some time.

My new activity this week was to try out all the Touch Toggles for the C Tower panel, which I had bought from Kevin Hunter at Berrett Hill Shop almost a year ago.  On Friday I had a good phone conversation with Kevin about getting started on using the toggles in a panel, and about several additional parts I will need, as the panel drawing is a little more complex than a year ago.

On Saturday I took the plunge, unpacked all the devices, and began attaching them with double-sided tape to the face of a sheet of paper with the C Tower drawing.  In real life, the toggles will be attached to the back side of the drawing, not the front, of course, with the toggle lights shining through the paper.

My first steps were to attach the toggles for the rows of buttons that select among three cabs to be assigned to each DC block.  The other end of each toggle wire plugged into a device that does the radio-button logic, and that plugged into a base unit, and the base units all connected together in a row and then to a 12 V power supply, as seen below:

I realized then that I will need some sort of board to hold all the devices you see to the right of the panel.  Besides all the wires already there, there will need to wires from three power packs (one for each of the three cabs) and then bus wires running out to each of the four track blocks controlled by this panel.

The second part of my project was to attach all the toggles for controlling all the powered turnouts on the panel.  To keep them separated from the cab control wires, I ran these wires to the left of the panel and plugged them into the two bases, which plugged into each other and then to a 24 V power supply, which is in the upper left of this photo:

The one black toggle you see in the center-left of the panel is the "third-light indicator" for the crossover turnouts, which could show (for example) that both through tracks are green and the crossover track is red.  There's another crossover in the upper left of the panel that still needs a toggle and an indicator, and there are four loco parking spots in the upper center that need on-off toggles, which I don't have yet.

These base devices on the left of the panel will also need three wires to each powered Atlas turnout controlled from this panel.  And they'll need some board of board to hold them all in place.

Tim Fisher and Don Borden have been offering advice on this panel project, which is very helpful to me.

I got just a few things accomplished this week.  On Tuesday I phoned Kevin Hunter at Berrett Hill Shop with more questions about Touch Toggles.  We put together an order for the new components I will need to complete the C Tower Panel (which Don Borden is updating for me).  

He also advised me to buy some E6000 glue for attaching 3D-printed parts (like the short legs under the circuit boards) and some sheets of polyester batting to fill in the back side of each panel, so I found those in local stores.

When the new Touch Toggles arrived in the mail, I set them out (along with the batting and the glue) for a photo beside the panel:

I will open these and figure out how to attach and connect them in the coming days.  Also, I will try turning on the toggle lights to see how they show through the panel diagram.

My friend Don Hubbard continues to work on the Grandt Line warehouse model that we are using for Standard Oil.  In the meantime, I drew a plan for where various structures will go on the 10" wide by 11" deep lot that we'e allocating for the bulk oil dealer:

I figured out that I can use the pumphouse and the truck loading station from the Walthers Interstate Fuel & Oil kit that I have.  If I model the truck garage, it will be on the lot to the right, by the carbody operators' houses that were along the tracks there.

In the real Victorville, Craig Wisch is already making good progress on building the Hayward Lumber building for me, using cardstock.  We had to eliminate the wings on the right side and on he rear, but the essential look of that large structure is being preserved.  Here's an early photo of Craig's progress:

Back on my layout, I was preparing for a visit by Bill Messecar on Thursday by pinning down some turnouts and flextracks for the left half of the C Yard.  

In this part of the layout, there is no more cork roadbed for locating the tracks, as it's just a vast expanse of sheet cork from now on.  So I had to measure some x-y coordinates from the nearest edges of the benchwork to locate the turnouts per the track plan.  

Here is what that yard (the tracks with all the pins) looked like at that point:

The next step was going to be to trace the edges of the six tracks in pencil before cutting them to length, connecting them, and gluing them down with caulk.  But Bill had to cancel due to a long night at a Rolling Stones concert (as an usher, not a rocker).  

So we'll continue with the left half of the C Yard another time.  This yard will be nothing but 30" parking spaces for sets of diesels.

Today I spent the afternoon at a fun operating session at Bill's layout.  I was paired with a new visitor, Joe Schram from Vancouver, WA, who is also a Santa Fe modeler.  Together we made lots of switching moves with the Riverside Turn.  

Here's a photo of us by Riverside:

Most of next week will be spent with Bill Messecar on a road trip to and from the NMRA Pacific Northwest Region convention in Surrey, BC, Canada.  It should be fun.

Santa Fe's Steam Freight Locos in Victorville & More Layout Progress at C Tower

This time we will provide links to past blog entries about Santa Fe's steam freight locos, and then we will cover recent layout progress in completing the tangle of turnouts at the C Tower area.

Here's one sample of the Santa Fe steam freight locos we have covered in our past blog entries:

This is a nice shot by Chard Walker, showing #3911 with an eastbound train of reefers, coming into Victorville after descending Cajon Pass:

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

SF 1900 & 1950 2-8-0s – Sep-24-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/09/santa-fes-heavy-2-8-0s-in-victorville.html

SF 3100 & 3129 2-8-2s – Oct-3-2021

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2021/10/santa-fes-light-2-8-2-locos-in.html

SF 3160 2-8-2s – Jun-25-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/06/santa-fes-3160-class-2-8-2-locos-in.html

SF 4000 2-8-2s – Dec-12-2021

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2021/12/santa-fes-4000-class-2-8-2s-in.html

SF 900 & 1600 2-10-2s – Dec-11-2022

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2022/12/santa-fes-early-2-10-2s-in-victorville.html

SF 3800 2-10-2s – Jan-29-2023

https://victorvillelayout.blogspot.com/2023/01/santa-fes-heavy-2-10-2s-in-victorville.html

Here's a sample photo from each of these previous blog entries:

SF 1900 & 1950 2-8-0s – Sep-24-2023

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:

SF 3100 & 3129 2-8-2s – Oct-3-2021

Here's one of the 3100-class locos, #3119, switching a string of freight cars in Victorville in 1949, as shot by Chard Walker:

SF 3160 2-8-2s – Jun-25-2023

Here we see #3243 with a westbound local freight approaching Summit in June, 1952, thanks to Robert Hale:

SF 4000 2-8-2s – Dec-12-2021

Here's another Chard Walker photo, this time showing #4025 working in Victorville, with the stock pen in the background:

SF 900 & 1600 2-10-2s – Dec-11-2022

Here we see #1626 and #979 pushing on the rear of an eastbound freight at Pine Lodge in June, 1949, in a nice shot by Stan Kistler:

SF 3800 2-10-2s – Jan-29-2023

Chard Walker shot #3895 passing the water tanks in Victorville, where the helpers took on water, turned on the wye, and waited for the next westbound freight to help:

Now let's look at some layout progress over the past two weeks.

I was busy during the week of April 22, making small steps of layout progress, such as adding ties under all the rail joiners for the newest tracks.

And my friend Don Hubbard continued working on the Grandt Line kit for the Standard Oil bulk dealer in Victorville.  He added some paint and some windows and doors and a chimney  -- here's a recent side view:

Meanwhile, Bill Messecar repainted the roof of my Victorville concrete bunkhouse model with standard Santa Fe red roof paint, as seen in a color aerial photo.

Don Borden was kind enough to revise his drawing of the B Yard panel again, to conform to our latest plans and conventions:

My electrical and trackage advisor, Tim Fisher, sent me a lot of notes in reply to my recent questions, so I will be studying those.  They included reminders of what my short-term goals had been last fall, compared to my actual slow progress!

I was busy that week corresponding with my two Victorville experts, Wayne Lawson and Robert Rogers, regarding how to make an accurate model of the "warehouse" building that was adjacent to the "bunkhouse" passenger carbody that Bill Messecar recently built for me.  

The 1925 station plat shows its dimensions as 30' long by 16' wide, which we thought could be two old reefer cabodies side-by-side, with the ice bunkers at both ends removed.  But the Santa Fe failed to include it in their Building Records.

As is often the case, the only photos we've found, other than very distant aerial photos, are very partial views, as railfans were shooting the trains, not the buildings in the background.  

Here's one such view from up on a signal in Victorville, with the swing brakemen's bunkhouse (passenger carbody) and the warehouse in the shadows along the right edge:

The other very partial photo we have shows another corner of the warehouse behind the pilot of Santa Fe steam loco #3896:

From this meager information, Wayne and I set out to come up with some best-guess scale drawings of the warehouse this week.

Bill Messecar had planned to visit and help me with the layout on that Thursday morning, but once again the traffic was backed up by construction, so he had to turn back.  

But I did some layout work before and after his expected visit.  I drilled some holes and inserted some feeder wires by the new sections of Track AL, and I measured and marked with masking tape where all the gaps for the nine steam loco 18"-long parking spots should go along Track S1.

Later I filed the plastic spikes off lots of loose ties and squeezed them under all the rail joiners along the new tracks and the tracks in the right half of the C Yard.  Here's an April 28 view of the left half of the scene with the newest side tracks that curve around the future turntable area:

And turning to the right from the same spot, this was a view of the right half of the same scene:

At that time I hadn't yet glued down the tangle of turnouts at C Tower, which you can see along the right edge of this photo.  

Last time I said I'd have to move one of those turnouts so its switch machine will clear the adjacent track, but I found that it has to stay where it is to preserve the geometry of the crossover.  Instead, I need to learn how to mount the switch machine in a different location or reverse the throw bar, or both.

I got a few more things done this week, thanks to a Friday visit by Bill Messecar and some remote work by Don Hubbard and by Wayne Lawson.

When Bill arrived on Friday morning, he returned to me a pre-built model of a standard Santa Fe concrete bunkhouse, but with the roof now repainted a red color to match a color postcard view of Victorville.  

I later arranged the model on my lower deck, with various tool houses and Bill's model scene of the section houses and water tanks in the background:

Later I compared this to a rare view by Bill Henry from a diesel cab in 1947, as found on page 153 of Chard Walker's "Cajon - Rail Passage to the Pacific":

The concrete bunkhouse is on the far left in this photo, farther back from the tracks than I had placed it in my model photo.  

On the far right edge of the above photo, we can also see the end of the freight carbody that Wayne Lawson and I have been studying.  Last week I called it the "warehouse," but since then I learned that the 16x30' warehouse shown on the 1925 station plat was no longer there in the postwar years.  

Instead, a 9x34' freight carbody was there, and it was attached to the adjacent passenger carbody with a raised platform.  For now, we're calling the freight carbody the "storehouse."

I talked with Don Sheets again yesterday, but he still doesn't recall this storehouse, which was apparently removed in 1954.  He did mention again the local switcher crew's caboose, which was permanently parked near there, and I think we can see the end of it just to the left of the water column in the above photo.  

Don said the caboose was later moved across the tracks from the depot, and I found that I had shot that caboose (#1544) when I was there in March, 1971:

But going back to Bill Messecar's visit on Friday, I prepared for his visit by drilling holes and inserting a dozen or more feeder wires for the tangle of turnouts at C Tower, which I had glued down in the meantime.  I had also inserted ties under nearby rail joiners in the C yard and into more tracks of the F Yard.  

I posed for a photo while inserting the feeder wires:

After Bill arrived, I shot another action photo of him as he soldered the feeder wires to the rails:

After Bill finished all that soldering, he also glued down the next two sections of flextracks that run left of the turnouts, for Tracks C1 and C2.

My local friend Don Hubbard reports that he is now working on making the sign board that ran along the roof peak of the Standard Oil bulk dealer.  We have plans for that sign, thanks to a modeling article that Wayne Lawson found in a 1996 issue of Railmodel Journal:

I've been corresponding daily with Wayne as he works on scale drawings for the freight carbody (the storehouse) that stood in Victorville adjacent to the passenger carbody (the bunkhouse for swing brakemen).  He hoped to have some detailed drawings ready today, but he just now reported that his computer has lost all the work he has done, so he will have to start all over next week!

In place of that, here is his first rough drawing of the storehouse carbody from earlier this week:

In other news, I need to get busy and learn to attach and wire Touch Toggles to my C Tower panel, as I'm scheduled to give a talk about my layout and my use of Touch Toggles for the East Coast Santa Fe Modelers meeting on June 15.  

I'm now contacting Kevin Hunter, who sells the toggles at Berrett Hill Shops, about buying a few more of them, as the panel grew more complex since last summer when I bought a set of them.

Also, I want to thank Tim Fisher for the lengthy and detailed advice he has been sending me this week about cutting gaps in my curved tracks and about the future wiring of my Walthers 130' turntable.

If you can also help me in any way, either in person or by building a model remotely, please let me know.