Santa Fe's 1948-49 Scout Train in Victorville & Progress on Staging Yards

This time we'll cover the Santa Fe's Scout passenger train in Victorville during 1948-1949, and then we'll look at several weeks of initial progress on laying out the main staging yards on my layout.

Let's start with a painting by Jim Jordan of the Scout train about to leave Dearborn Station in Chicago behind the "Blue Goose" 4-6-4 #3460:

To cover the train in 1948-49, I'll be using more of the slides from my 2017 presentation.  Last time I listed some non-Scout-painted cars that were added during the 1940s, and here are more of them:
 

There were also more changes to the train's paint scheme:

 

Here's a photo of the westbound Scout (Train #1) on Curtis Hill, OK, in May 1947, behind 4-8-4 #2926, thanks to Preston George:

 

 

Next is some info on the changes to the train during 1948, including the end of steam power in mid-November:

I haven't found any photos of the Scout behind diesels in this time period, but here's an interesting shot showing Santa Fe's early diesels in front of a steam loco on the Scout, somewhere back east in 1948:

 

But the Scout stopped running all the way to Los Angeles in early 1949, as described in this slide:

Here's a going-away photo of the Scout, showing the tourist sleepers on the rear:

I was curious whether it would be possible for me to model the Scout in 1948 on Cajon Pass with none of the special Scout markings on the cars, and I decided that it could work on certain days:
 

Here's the standard Scout consist for Cajon Pass in the postwar years, with some HO model passenger cars that could be used: 

Luckily for me, both the westbound and the eastbound trains came through Victorville in the middle of the night, so I can omit this train.  During most of 1948, Train #1 came through at 2:58 A.M, and Train #2 came through at 11:41 P.M.  In Dec. 1948 until the final trip on Feb. 18, 1949, the train times in Victorville were 2:39 A.M. and 11:39 P.M.

In conclusion, here's the tail sign for the Scout train:

Now it's time to review my two bi-weekly layout progress reports of the past month.

On Sep. 8 I wrote the following:

 

I ended my Aug. 24 layout progress report by writing:

"There are lots of things that I should be doing next on the layout, but the one I plan to start with is to clear all the models and tools off one half of the lower deck and then draw the center-lines for all the A Yard tracks on that side and all the B yard tracks (the B Yard is stub-ended and does not wrap around the layout like the A Yard does)."

So, I actually did get started on this task.  First I moved all the tools and structures that were stored on one side of the main peninsula to the other side.  Here's a view of many of the Victorville structures, all crammed together on the other side of the layout:

 

With the space on the other side of the layout now clear, I laid out all the #6 Atlas turnouts and some of the flextracks, which will be spaced on 2 1/8" inch centers.  Here's a view from the throat, looking into the yards (10 tracks of the A Yard on the left, and 8 tracks of the B Yard on the right):

 

I was excited to see all these tracks taking shape, temporarily.  Here's a view looking back at the throat from the mid-point of the yards.  The Post-It notes were to help me keep track of the all the track numbers:

 

I shot one more photo from the left end of the yards, with the paper track plan in the foreground.  I had to refer to the track plan often to figure out where all the tracks and turnouts should go:

 

Then I decided to make a 4' long strip of poster board with all the track locations marked on 2 1/8" centers, with the edges of the ties marked for each track.  My track spacing for the rest of the layout has been 2 1/4", but I had to squeeze it down a bit in the yards, because I forgot to allow for the posts along the far side when I drew the trackplan:

 

I will move the flextracks out of the way when I use this template to mark the exact locations of the 18 tracks on the cork roadbed surface, at several locations along the track lengths.

My next step was to make photocopies of my #6 Atlas turnouts and lay them out on the cork in place of the real turnouts, to see how well they will fit with a powered switch machine attached beside each one:

 

Right away I found that the problem will be that some of the powered switch machines will get in the way of some of the adjacent turnouts.  I tried to solve this by changing two of the right-hand turnouts into left-hand ones, but then there are problems with the smooth flow through the turnouts.  I will have to keep working on this problem.  I've heard that Atlas under-table switch machines are a nightmare to install, so I'm trying hard to avoid that.

Then on Thursday, Sep. 4, it was time for my wife and me to leave town on our 49th honeymoon.  As usual, we sailed off to beautiful Victoria, BC, Canada.  There is no longer any rail line in town, but we saw some model trains when we visited Miniature World for the 2nd year in a row.  Here are a few token photos.

First, a beautiful logging scene:

 

Here is one of their small town scenes along the Canadian rail lines:

One of my favorite scenes shows a circus train unloading (on the left) and a circus parade into town (along the bottom):

While we were gone, my friend Craig Wisch in Victorville completed the first version of his cardstock model of the Standard Oil truck garage that will sit beside the rest of the Standard Oil dealer scene that Don Hubbard has been working to complete.  Craig added a sign on the side of the garage that will face the street (the edge of the layout):

And here is the other side of this very nice model:

 

Now that I'm back home, I'll get back to work on those tracks and turnouts for the A and B yards.

My next bi-weekly report was on Sep. 21, and I had this to say:

When we left off two weeks ago, you saw how I was laying out some flextracks and Atlas #6 turnouts to form the 10 staging tracks of the A Yard and the 8 staging tracks of the B Yard, and all the turnouts needed in the yard throat to reach them.

I decided that my next step should be to move all those tracks aside for a while, so I could draw the outlines of the tracks in pencil on the cork surface.  I marked the edges of each track at several points, using my poster-board template, and then I used a 48" ruler to draw the parallel edges of each track (the edges of the ties), as seen here:

 

Then I placed the flextracks at the ends of the straight, parallel parts of the tracks and curved and angled them to connect to the turnouts in the yard throat, as seen here:

 

As I said last time, I learned that the switch motor beside each turnout will require some changes to the yard throat design, as they tend to get in the way of the adjacent tracks.  For example, the turnout leading into tracks B7 and B8 had to moved around the curve leading into those tracks, making those tracks shorter than planned.

In the view below, you can see an example of this, where the turnouts into the B Yard did not line up with where I initially had them placed (in the middle of the photo):

 

So, I had to re-work the turnout locations until there was a smooth flow through each track and turnout, and so that none of the switch machines were in the way of the adjacent tracks, as seen here from a different angle:

The final step, not shown here. was to use a pencil to trace the outline of each track and turnout, and then to remove all the tracks and turnouts to see that all the outlines were in place.

My next step will be to start cutting and fitting the tracks and turnouts to connect together, remembering that some rail joiners will be insulated to create all the blocks needed in the yards.  But now football season is in full swing, so that takes some hours from my progress each week.

And since the yard throats have been modified, I will need to go back to the control panel drawings for these yard throats and change them to match the new reality.

In other news, my loco-painting expert up in Mukilteo, Gary Jordan, sent me a photo of my old PFM ATSF 3800-class brass 2-10-2 that he had completed testing and painting for me (as #3895):

 

Also, my friend in Victorville, Craig Wisch, has been corresponding with me daily about the final touches on his cardstock model of the Standard Oil dealer's truck garage.  He wanted to make a new,  improved rooftop, so he did, and I requested a sign board to be added to the front of the garage, where the garage doors are, and he has done that.

 

Here's a photo he sent me of the revised front (with sign board) and the left side:

 

 Here's a new photo of the front and right sides:

 

 And here we see the right and rear sides:

 

 

Many thanks to Craig for all of his work on this fine model.  He will be mailing it to me before long.
 

I'm enjoying working on the trackwork into the A and B yards, so I will continue with that.

If you can visit me or help with any of my projects, please let me know.

 

 

 

Santa Fe's 1946-47 Scout Train in Victorville & Some Layout Progress

This time we'll cover the Santa Fe's Scout passenger train in Victorville during 1946-1947, and then we'll look at several more weeks of slow layout progress.

Let's begin by looking at a color poster for the Scout train during its glory years of the early 1940s, when it was given its own paint scheme and special plaques on the car sides: 

I gave a talk about the Scout train in 2017, and this was the introductory slide, mostly about the 1940s version of the train:

 Here we see the Scout in action in the 1940s behind a 4-8-2:

 Here's the typical postwar consist of the Scout:

Here's a slide on how to spot the Scout train in post-1940 photos:

 Compare this advice to an action shot from 1941, with a steam helper:

Here we see a close-up of a 1940s Scout car with the two-tone gray paint and the Scout plaque on the side: 

And here's a color close-up image of the famous Scout plaque:

 

After the initial glory of the train in the spring of 1940, other cars were gradually added that did not match the 1940 paint scheme:

  

The train was still pulled by steam locos during the 1946-47 time period.  They used 4-6-4s for the eastern half of the trip and 4-8-4s for the western half.

Here we see 4-8-4 #2912 with the westbound Scout (Train #1) at Mountainair, NM, in June of 1947:

We will return to study the 1948-49 train in a later entry.  Those were the final years that the train ran all the way to Los Angeles.

It would be difficult (and expensive) to model this train in HO, with the variety of paint schemes and the plaques needed on some of the car sides.

Luckily for me, both the westbound and the eastbound trains came through Victorville in the middle of the night, so I can omit this train.  During 1946-47, Train #1 came through at 2:58 A.M, and Train #2 came through at about 11:45 P.M. in 1946 and at 11:41 P.M. in 1947.  Victorville was a flag stop for this train until the fall of 1946.

Now it's time to review my bi-weekly layout progress reports during the past month.

I didn't make much layout progress after my July 20 report, as I was gone to visit my siblings in the Minneapolis area for over a week, as we will see.

When we left off, I had cut gaps in various loco storage tracks to create insulated parking spots -- 18" long for steam locos and 30" long for diesel sets (or sometimes 18" for shorter diesel sets).  In the C Yard (both left and right halves), I cut 13 new gaps for storing 18 diesel sets (almost all 30" long).  In the E Yard I cut 7 gaps for storing 10 30" diesel sets.  In the G Yard I cut 8 gaps for storing 9 steam locos along a single track, but there will also be steam storage tracks radiating out of the turntable someday.

My next step was to fill the gaps with short pieces of cardboard and glue them in with a drop of super glue.  I sanded them smooth and tested them with a freight car.  I bought a new multi-meter to check that the gaps were really insulated, as seen here in a posed photo:

 

The masking tape saying "Add Gap" shows where the gap was cut, and just above the tape is a small strip of cardboard from which I cut the gap fillers.  The flatcar on the left was for testing that the rails are smooth, and the probes of the multi-meter are testing that no current can flow across the gap.

I bought some more terminal strips so that I can attach the loose feeder wires from each block and sub-block (parking spot) to the edges of the layout, and later to the bus wires.  I planned to work on that next.

I was gone from July 30 through Aug. 7 for my annual visit to my siblings and other relatives in the Minneapolis area, where I grew up.  My wife and I had a lot of fun seeing everyone, going to plays and movies, visiting Duluth, and shopping at the Mall of America.  I also had an annual "hobby shop day" with my brother-in-law Scott.  

One of the stops during Hobby Shop Day is always the Twin City Model Railroad Museum, which is filled with layouts of various scales and sizes.  Here are some photos I shot there.  

Here's their busy Lionel layout for the kids:

 

 And here's a small HO layout with a scene depicting the bridges over the Mississippi:

But the main attraction is the very large HO layout depicting this bridges scene as well as  many others from around the Twin Cities.  Here we see an NP passenger train curving past the roundhouse:

In this scene a GN freight is crossing one of the bridges over the Mississippi:

 

Here we see the NP passenger train running beside the river:

In this scene the same NP train is passing the engine terminal tracks and coaling dock:

And now the train is crossing the Mississippi on one of the bridges:

 Now we see it receding into the distance along the river bank:

In a nearby display, they have an HO model of a DM&IR ore dock in Duluth:

I always enjoy visiting this museum with Scott.

In other news back in the Seattle area, my friend Bill Messecar was about to dismantle his large layout depicting the Santa Fe's 3rd District in the LA area and move with his ailing wife to a smaller place.  You may recall that I shot and sent lots of photos of the scenes on his layout.  Instead, Bill sadly lost his wife when she passed away a few months ago, so he is keeping his layout after all, and one of his daughters has happily moved in to share the house with him.

Also, the national NMRA Convention will be in nearby Tacoma in 2027, so I have a new goal to make my own layout presentable for tours by then.  I'm hoping to get all the lower deck tracks laid and partly wired by the end of this year, so that I can add the upper deck and some scenery as soon as possible.  The helix connecting the two decks will have to wait.

Speaking of the upper deck, I was interested to read the article on using rolls of sheet aluminum for curving backdrops (page 72 of the Aug. 2025 RMC), which is what I've been planning to do, and now I have more advice on how to do it.

My final bit of news for this time is that I finally got my four old train tables and legs moved out of my garage and down to Jay Biederman's garage yesterday.  He's a fellow member of the Boeing Employees Model Railroad Club.  It's been a year and a half since Jay was here to see the tables in my garage, as seen in this old photo from Feb. 2024:

 

On Aug. 9 my handyman, Patrick from Ireland, showed up with his newly-repaired truck and trailer and loaded the tables and leg units into his trailer:

 

Then he followed me south along the freeway into Renton, where we eventually located Jay's house and unloaded the tables and legs into Jay's garage, as seen here:

 

It's great to have the extra space in my garage now, and I'm glad that my old tables have found a good home!

Then on Aug. 24 it was time for another layout report.  I wrote:

The only thing I got done recently was to finish soldering a few final feeder wires to the C Yard diesel parking spots, and then to attach the other ends of all the wires to some terminal blocks along the nearest edges of the layout.  

I found that the 10-position terminal blocks that I had in stock were longer than usually needed, so I went to Zoro and ordered some blocks of 4, 6, and 8 positions.  Locally, I also bought a box of assorted wood screws for attaching the blocks to the edges of the layout.

The area I was working in was the center pop-up area nearest the ends of the C Yard diesel storage tracks.  Here's a photo of me kneeling with a screwdriver, attaching one of three terminal blocks to the layout edge:

 

I'm smiling for the photo, but it was extremely frustrating to try to turn the wood screws in this tight area!

Here's a photo of the end result, showing three terminal blocks of various sizes on the edges of the benchwork, with the feeder wires coming out the bottom, and with masking tape labels on each one:

 

The top screw at each position will later be attached to bus wires leading to the relevant control panel, which will be in a main aisle, not in this pop-up area.

In that week I received the expensive new A-B-A set of Rapido Santa Alco PA's that were re-engined with EMD engines as an experiment in 1954, with the trailing A unit getting a new number (51C) in early 1955.  I unpacked them carefully and set them up for a photo on a curve -- the locos are back-lit, but the EMD engine fans show clearly here:

 

On Thursday morning, Aug. 21, I attended another fun op session at Bill Messecar's layout in the Covington area (about 45 minutes away).  There were just four of us this time, so it was not crowded.  Here we see Bill Messecar and David Peck switching the town of Placentia while running the Placentia Turn out of San Bernardino:

 

In the next aisle over, Bill James and I were switching the town of Corona and its branch line (behind us) as part of the Corona Turn:

 

We went out for a fun lunch together after the session, as usual.

Some of my time recently has been spent corresponding with Craig Wisch, the expert cardstock modeler living in Victorville,  We discussed several projects but decided to start with the easiest one -- the truck garage that was part of the Standard Oil dealer beside a spur track in Victorville, as seen at the bottom-left of this Sanborn map:

 

We have no close-up photos of the garage, but here's a view from a distant aerial photo (circa 1945) -- the garage is the large building at the upper left:

 

We considered using this nice N-scale cardstock model (below) and enlarging it, but Craig worried that the result would be fuzzy details:

 

 

Instead, Craig drew his own HO scale plans for the garage and then proceeded to build it fairly quickly.  Here's one view of the unfinished model that he sent me recently:

 

Here's another view, showing the other side of the garage:

 

 

This will be a nice addition to the Standard Oil scene that Don Hubbard has been working on for me.

There are lots of things that I should be doing next on the layout, but the one I plan to start with is to clear all the models and tools off one half of the lower deck and then draw the center-lines for all the A Yard tracks on that side and all the B yard tracks (the B Yard is stub-ended and does not wrap around the layout like the A Yard does).

Then I can invite friends like Bill Messecar to help me lay lots of tracks and attach lots of feeder wires.

Please come and visit me when you can.