Santa Fe's 1948-1950 Super Chief in Victorville, & A Visit to Layouts in Minneapolis

We'll continue this time with the March 1948-January 1951 Super Chief as it passed through Victorville, and then I'll cover the three layouts I toured while visiting my siblings in Minneapolis, MN.

You may recall that when we studied the 1946-47 (and early 1948) Super Chief, the first thing we noted was that it normally passed through Victorville after sunset (eastbound) and before sunrise (westbound), so any photos of it in Victorville would be very rare.  I will be showing photos of the locos that pulled the Super Chief in those years, but they will often be pulling other trains.

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

The scheduled times for the westbound Super Chief (Train 17) to pass through Victorville (it did not stop there) were 5:40 a.m. in mid-1948 and 5:42 a.m. through Jan. 1951.  The eastbound Super Chief (Train 18) came through at 10:50 p.m. in mid- 1948 and 10:55 p.m. through Jan. 1951.

With my layout operating plan of not running any nighttime operations, this means that I don't need to model this train, which is fortunate, as some of the cars can only be modeled in HO with expensive and rare brass models, as seen in this consist I presented as part of my 2019 Super Chief clinic (an update of my 2006 clinic after more HO models were made):

Here's a summary of this consist::

Now let's look at all the types of locos that pulled the Super Chief from March, 1948, through January, 1951, based on the loco assignment records posted by Loren Joplin at santafe.gmbus.com.  The photos below will show the various types of locos, but not when pulling the Super Chief.

As of March, 1948, the power pool for the Super Chief still included FTs #158-168, PA-1s #51-58, Erie-Built #90, and F3s #16-21, as we saw in previous report on the Super Chief up to March, 1948.

In March, 1948, they added new F3s #22-25 to the pool, and then in May-June, 1948, they added F3s #26-29, and in Sep. 1948 they added F3 set #30.

So now in June, 1948, they could drop all the older power from the Super Chief pool.  Gone were the FTs #158-168, PA-1s #51-58, and Erie-Built #90, so that only the F3s remained to pull the train.

Jack Whitmeyer shot F3 set #29 with the eastbound Grand Canyon at the Victorville depot (with pump houses on the left) in July of 1948:

Here is set #24 coming through Victorville with the eastbound Chief in the late 1940s, as shot by Richard Steinheimer.  Chard Walker is waving at the fireman:

The final batch of passenger F3 ABBA sets, #31-36, arrived in Oct-Nov of 1948 and Jan. of 1949.  These were "Phase 4" F3s, with horizontal grilles along the upper carbody sides, instead of chicken wire.

Here is F3 set #33 at Sullivan's Curve, thanks to Jack Whitmeyer:

Santa Fe got their first passenger F7s, #37-41 (ABBA sets), in Sep. 1949, and they joined the F3s in the Super Chief's power pool.

Here we see new F7 ABBA set #38 at the San Bernardino depot, thanks to Jack Whitmeyer:

This completes our coverage of the March 1948-January 1951 Super Chief.  We'll continue with this train another time.

It's been three weeks since I've written a blog entry, because my wife and I were gone to Minneapolis (my home town) to visit my siblings, as we do once a year.  While there, we both came down with bad colds (probably COVID), and we're still recovering.

While I was still healthy, I visited one small layout and two large ones, so I will share some of the photos I shot there.

But first, here's a report on more layout help from my volunteers.  My friend Jim Coady made some minor revisions to his drawings for the Rosso Cafe (adjacent to the Rosso Texaco station) in the Lower Narrows.  In particular, he added the sign board on the front that said "Rosso's Coffee Shop," and he revised the rear side per Jack Dykstra's memory to have one door and three windows, as seen here:

Bill Messecar plans to scratch-build this cafe after he finishes another structure project for the Boeing club.

My friend Craig Wisch in Victorville made a lot of progress on his cardstock model of the Santa Fe Hotel that was across the tracks from the depot in Victorville.  I was blown away when I saw his photos of his virtually-complete model.  Here are the front and right sides:

What a beautiful model this is!  Surprisingly, he then had a renewed interest in building the Rainbow Bridge in cardstock, so I was keeping my fingers crossed for that next project.

And now, back to the Minneapolis area, where I visited the small HO layout of my brother-in-law Scott Wardrope, who was the Chief Mechanical Officer in the St. Paul roundhouse of the Minnesota Commercial Railway.  He models a free-lanced electric interurban railroad, the Tidewater Terminal, that includes railroad car floats, and all the power comes from the overhead wires..  Here he poses beside his car float docks:

Here's a side view of his car float docks:

Here is his town of Tidewater, with the depot in the left distance:

Around the corner to the left of Tidewater is his engine terminal and car barn:

You can see where his mainline goes through the wall and into a staging yard in a closet on the left.

Now here's the first of the two large layouts I visited -- the HO Santa Fe layout of my old friend John Hotvet, who  is a Master Model Railroader and has been building his large attic-size layout in Minneapolis for decades.  He's a close friend of Scott Wardrope, and it was Scott who drove me to visit John.

I discovered that there's an online video tour of John's layout, showing his California Zephyr detouring though his many Colorado-based scenes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csUrrvQLkzk

I asked John to pose beside his large staging yard, as seen here:

Here's the unfinished engine terminal you can see at the far left of his staging yard:

John's most famous scene contains his very long steel trestle.  This scene of his California Zephyr on the trestle comes from the video I mentioned above:

Here we see his early Super Chief by his Climax depot:

Here's a busy switching area on his layout:

Here's one of the small towns along his mainline:

Here's one more small-town scene, the town of Rivera:

It's always a joy to visit John Hotvet, which I get to do every few years.  Be sure to watch the video to enjoy more of his scenes.

Here's the third and final layout that Scott and I visited, the O scale layout of the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum, which is in St. Paul.  When I was a kid, I saw it at least once in the basement of the St. Paul Union Depot, before it was moved.  Now I like to go see it every time I'm in the Twin Cities.

I found this trackplan online:

https://www.tcmrm.org/exhibits/o-scale-exhibit/

Here's one of my favorite scenes, showing all the bridges across the Mississippi river in Minneapolis, including the famous Stone Arch Bridge in the background:

Here's their model of the former Great Northern Depot in Minneapolis:

Here's their town of Mattlin, below where trains leave the GN depot:

Here's a view of their Mississippi Street engine terminal, with the coaling tower in the center:

Here's a view of the same engine terminal from the opposite side, showing part of the roundhouse on the right:

They have a long, panoramic scene of the mainlines along the Mississippi River:

Here's a final view, showing that river panorama from the opposite direction:

I never get tired of watching their O-scale trains running through all these scenes!

Here's a TV news report about the layout and the club:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cca6eHatCR0

This past week I still had no energy while I continued to recover from my bout with probable COVID.  But I had a lot of good correspondence with my helper in Victorville, Craig Wisch.

He reported that he has now finished his cardstock model of the old Santa Fe Hotel that was across the tracks from the depot.  Here's a view of the rear and left sides.  Note that the rear windows and the door don't have the 3-D details that the other walls have, as they will be out of sight:

Here's a new view showing the front and left sides, after he added a drain pipe to hide a joint between the walls:

He is now preparing to mail this beautiful model to me.  He took another look at maybe modeling the very large Rainbow Bridge in cardstock, but then he put this idea back on the shelf when he encountered some problems.

Instead, he is now interested in modeling the La Paloma Cafe, which was just to the right of the Santa Fe Hotel, as seen in this shot from the 1971 biker movie "The Hard Ride":

The cafe was not yet there during WW2, but it must have appeared soon after, as it shows up in the postwar photos.  Here's probably the best photo we have of the cafe:

It had a unique diagonal wall and door at the left front corner, as you may be able to see in these two photos.  An aerial photo from 1953 shows that it was a little narrower but a little deeper than the hotel next door.

Finally, this is not related to my layout, but Craig also completed his S-scale model of the newspaper office in Victorville by adding awnings to the front windows:

Many thanks to Craig Wisch for all his help during recent years!  

I hope to have the energy to get back to my layout wiring next week.  If you can help me, please let me know.