Santa Fe's 1954-1956 Super Chief in Victorville, & Some Slow Layout Progress

In a previous entry I covered the Santa Fe's Super Chief of 1951-1953, and this time we'll cover the next version of the train, during 1954-1956.  Then we'll look at some slow layout progress and continue a photo tour of Bill Messecar's excellent HO Santa Fe layout.

To get us started, here's a beautiful painting of the Super Chief by Rod Aszman:

The big change for the Super Chief in Jan. 1954 was the addition of the four transcontinental sleeping cars that previously ran on the Chief, but now they had to be all Santa Fe cars (no foreign paint schemes allowed).  Two were for the NYC, one for the PRR, and one for the B&O.

Between Jan. and Sep. 1956 the Vista-series observation cars were (sadly) rebuilt to have blunt ends, for possible mid-train use as needed.  When a car was in the shop for the rebuild, it was replaced by a recently blunt-ended pre-war observation.

Here is the consist of the 1954-1956 Super Chief, which I presented as part of my 2019 Super Chief clinic (as an update of my 2006 clinic, after more HO models were made):

Here's a summary of this consist:

And here's a slide with some additional notes about the cars:

The scheduled times for the westbound Super Chief (Train 17) to pass through Victorville (it did not stop there) were 5:31 a.m. during 1954-1956. The eastbound Super Chief (Train 18) came through at 10:55 p.m. in 1954-1955, except during the summer months, when it came through at 9:55 p,m.  But on Oct. 30, 1955, it changed to 9:55 p.m. through the end of 1956.

With my layout operating plan of not running any nighttime operations, this means that I don't really need to model this train, but since Walthers has made models of most of the train's cars, which I have collected, I'll have to run the westbound Super Chief a little later in the morning though Victorville (running behind schedule).

Now let's look at all the types of locos that pulled the Super Chief during 1954-1956, based on the loco assignment records posted by Loren Joplin at santafe.gmbus.com.  

At the beginning of this time period, the train was being pulled by F3 ABBA sets #16-36, F7 ABBA sets #37-41, F7 ABBA sets #42-47, and F7 ABB sets #304 and #311-314.

In Oct. 1954 the following 300 Class units were made into 4-unit sets to add to the Super Chief power pool: 306LAB-48A; 307LAB-310L; 308LAB-310A; 309LAB-310B; 312LAB-311L; 313LAB-311A; 314LAB-311B.

As of May 1956, the 300 Class units were in these 4-unit sets: 306LAB-310L: 307LAB-310A; 312LAB-311L; 313LAB-311A; 314LAB-311B

Let's look at some photos of these locos in action on the Super Chief.  Here we see the westbound train #17 in Apache Canyon in a Santa Fe photo:

Here is Train #17 descending Cajon Pass below Keenbrook behind F3 set #35 in another Santa Fe photo:

Here we see the observation car of the westbound Super Chief on Raton Pass:

Finally, here is the eastbound Super Chief #18 on the Canyon Diablo bridge in a Santa Fe photo, with F7 #310 leading a 4-unit set:

Here now are some layout progress reports for the weeks ending Nov. 3, Nov. 10, and Nov. 17, 2024.

All I did on the layout during the week ending Nov. 3 was to put a BLI Santa Fe 2-8-2 on one mainline and a Walthers Santa Fe PA set on the other mainline to watch them run and to test the tracks and wiring.  Here's a photo of the two locos meeting on a curve:

Then I got out some IHC WW2 Army Hospital cars for the PAs to pull, and some random freight cars and a caboose for the 2-8-2 to pull around the mainlines.  Here's a shot of a meet on that same curve, but from the other side:

I found that the PAs ran smoothly with no problems, but the 2-8-2 (which is DCC-DC with sound) picked one of the turnouts each time (so the turnout needs repairs), and it hesitated on a few other #8 turnouts, indicating that the #8 frogs should be powered, as expected.

I planned to test the 2-8-2 in both directions on each mainline, and I wanted to try some other kinds of steam locos too.  I'll make a list of where the track problems are that need fixing.

Meanwhile, I received the cardstock model of the La Paloma Cafe that Craig Wisch had completed.  I placed it next to the Santa Fe Hotel that he'd also built, to see what that end of the Barrio scene will look like:

I shot the same scene from the other side, to show roughly where his Old Jail model will be located relative to the hotel and cafe, on E Street:

Craig and I had been exchanging lots of emails about the Barrio and the buildings that were there, and about Felix Diaz, who wrote the book "Footprints from the Barrio" and who I corresponded with before his passing.

Craig sent me this photo, showing his second model of a typical Barrio house:

Many thanks to Craig Wisch for all his help and all his interest.

Now it's time to visit the final town on Bill Messecar's Santa Fe layout, which is Placentia.  As we enter the east end of the town, after leaving Corona and Atwood, we see the Bradford Brothers Sunkist packing house on the right, Southwest Drilling in the foreground, and the Placentia Depot in the distance:

Here we see the Placentia Depot from the other side, with a busy service station scene in the foreground:

Next along the way is the Placentia Orange Growers Assn. (Sunkist) packing house:

To the left of there, we find another big packing house, run by the Placentia Mutual Orange Growers Assn.:

At the west end of Placentia we see the big plant of Inland Cement:

Here is the diagram of the Placentia tracks and industries:

From the left end of Placentia, the mainline curves to the right and sneaks back to the Colton Tower area,  where westbound trains can then pretend that the San Bernardino yard is Los Angeles, and the depot scene beyond there is now LA Union Station.  Here is the track diagram of the yard, which I failed to include when we were looking at the yard photos:

This concludes our photo tour of Bill Messecar's wonderful layout.

In the week ending Nov. 10, I fell off the wagon and didn't test the steam loco on all the mainline tracks as I had intended.

The big event that I and the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club had to prepare for this week was our annual Swap Meet on Saturday, Nov. 9.  It's one of the largest events in the area, and has been for decades.  My jobs, as usual, were to check in the vendors at 7:30 a.m. at one of the entrances, and later to sell tickets to the public starting at 1:30 p.m..

This year I decided to shoot an overall view of the activity in the larger of the two rooms, which is a gymnasium:

At lunch time I was joined by my Union Pacific consultant, Jeff Koeller, and we discussed the consist and locos of the City of LA train during 1950-54.  Jeff is currently writing some text on this that I can use in my next (delayed) blog entry.  I asked Jeff to pose for a photo, and he agreed:

I was very tired by the end of the day!

My friend in Victorville, Craig Wisch, decided to build me a model the church that was in the E Street Barrio, halfway between 3rd and 4th.  Here's a circa 1945 aerial photo showing that part of the Barrio, with the church (with a scalloped facade) on the far left, and the Santa Fe's two water tanks on the far right:

In the center of the photo is the "second hand store," which we hope to model later.

Here's a close-up of the front of the church, which I got years ago from a member of the congregation, who have since moved to a newer building:

Note that "Emmanuel" should have two M's, but we'll model it the way they spelled it.

Here's a color photo of the UP's first gas turbine, with the church in the distance, behind the propane tanks:

Here's a final bit of evidence for building a model, which is the 1943 Sanborn Map of that block, with the church in the lower center:

Based on these sources, Craig has been busy making some HO drawings of the church.  Here is the front:

And here is his side view:

Many thanks to Craig Wisch for undertaking this model for my Barrio scene!

I had good intentions to test my mainline tracks during the week ending Nov. 17, but my long to-do list of other commitments got in the way again.  One of those was to finish my blog entry of Oct. 27, which I finally did, thanks to lots of input from UP researcher Jeff Koeller.

On Wednesday of that week I attended a mini op session at Bill Messecar's layout, along with my friends Don Hubbard and Colin Kikawa.  Bill showed me his progress on building a model of the Rosso Cafe that stood in the Lower Narrows (but no photo yet).

Here's a group photo I shot after the op session, with Don, Colin, and Bill:

My job was to switch the industries in Riverside, under Bill's able direction.  While there, I shot a couple of photos of the foreground industries that didn't make it into my previous photo coverage of the town.  Here is the A. Lewis Warehouse:

And off to the left of there is the McDermott Packing House:

We had a good time, and then we went out to lunch together.

On Friday I was off on another adventure, to visit Gary Jordan and his On2 / 3 model railroad, the Gilpin Tram, up in Mukilteo, WA.  I found this online video of his layout tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9GeEWjCoHA

I shot this photo of part of the lower deck of his layout:

And this photo of part of the upper deck, where there are gold mines off to the left:

But my real purpose in the visit was to pick up some brass steam locos he had painted for me, and to leave a couple of GE 70-ton diesels to be painted (for the cement plant).  My wife came along, as usual, so we could get fish & chips for lunch at the waterfront there.

As usual, I spent a lot of time trading emails with Craig Wisch in Victorville, as we discussed the details of the Emmanuel church in the Barrio.  I did find a distant aerial photo that shows the number of windows along the side of the building.  Here is Craig's photo of his progress on the model, as of today:

As you can see, it was coming along very nicely!