Victorville Layout: 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, somewhere back east in 1948:

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

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. 19, 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: