Santa Fe's 1954-56 Chief Train & Connecting Tracks in the Main Staging Yard

This time we'll cover the Santa Fe's Chief passenger train in Victorville during 1954-1956 (the final years of my time period), and then we'll look at several weeks of work on connecting turnouts and flextracks to form the throat of the 10-track A Yard in staging.

For this 3rd report on the Chief passenger train, I'll be using slides and photos again from my 2010 clinic about the Postwar Chief.  Here's an opening image, showing a famous ad for the Chief train:

Here are the important changes that happened to the Chief in early 1954:

Here is the train's general consist from early 1954 through 1956:

 Here are the changes to the Chief later in 1954:

Here are the details of the consist from early 1954 into April of 1955, along with some HO models as of 2010:

 

In 1955 there were more changes to the Chief:

Here we see the detailed Chief consist from April of 1955 until July of 1956, along with some HO models:

Here are the additional changes to the Chief in July of 1956:

Now let's look at the detailed consist of the Chief in the six months after July of 1956, and some HO models:

Here's a photo of one of the Big Dome Lounges that joined the train in 1956:

Finally, here are some changes to the Chief that happened after 1956:

 Here we see the eastbound Chief behind F-units on Sullivan's Curve in 1965:

 

Here's another view of the 1960s Chief on Sullivan's Curve, this time from above:

 

To be continued...
 

My next topic today will be two more bi-weekly layout progress reports, as usual.  On Jan. 11, 2026, I wrote this report:

OK, it's a new year, and I resolve to make better progress on my layout than last year.  My goal is still to complete the lower deck trackage by the end of this year, so that I can then jump ahead to my main goal of adding the upper deck, with all of its Victorville buildings, scenery, and tracks.  The lower deck control panels and the helix to the upper deck can wait until later.

Looking back a year, I see that I was just starting to lay the six stub tracks of the C Yard, where diesel loco sets would be stored.  When I finished the C Yard, including all the feeder wires to all the blocks, I got bogged down with the A and B yards.

I tried laying out the 10 through tracks of the A Yard and the 8 adjacent stub tracks of the B Yard, but I found that I couldn't place all the turnouts in the throats of those yards the way my pencil track plan had indicated, because the Atlas table-top switch motors got in the way of many adjacent tracks.  I tried a parallel track spacing of 2 1/8", but I went back to my normal 2 1/4" spacing and had to drop Track B8 from the plan.

The new plan for the A and B Yard throats led to the idea of moving the crossover between the main lines farther to the right, so the old crossover could be removed, along with the double-slip switch that was on the inner main.  I recently completed that new mainline crossover, partly on a curve, and I added the ties under the rail joiners and shot a photo (it's at the lower right in this photo):

 

 

 

The next step was to remove the old crossover between the two mainlines.  Here we see it before it was removed, along the left edge of this photo:

 

I used my Dremel tool to cut both turnouts loose from the adjacent mainline tracks, and then I pried them up from the dried caulk.  Here's a photo showing the blank roadbed spots on the left, where the crossover turnouts were, including the double-slip switch that was on the inner main as part of the crossover:

 

I filled in the outer main with a section of flextrack cut to size, glued down, and connected with rail joiners at each end.  Then I cut out sections of the inner main to allow me to fit in two #8 turnouts that would lead into the A and B staging yard throats.  (I could have used #6 turnouts, but I had some extra #8s to use up.)  Here we see the blank areas of the inner main roadbed where the two #8 turnouts will go:

 

I used some cork pieces to fill in the holes and painted them to match the surrounding roadbed.  Then I worked to get the rail joiners in place before gluing down the non-moving parts of the two #8 turnouts.  Here's the result of all my work, as photographed today (Jan. 11):

I still need to add the ties under the rail joiners, and probably straighten those wiggles in the inner main.  Then I can dive into the complex work of adding all the turnouts needed for the yard throats.  Yikes!

Meanwhile, Craig Wisch is still doing some final work on his cardstock model of the Union Oil bulk dealer.  And Bill Messecar has been working on some craftsman structure kits for his own enjoyment while he waited for some final drawings of the Victorville sand house that was inside the Victorville wye.  My architect friend Jim Coady has now completed those drawings after one round of revisions, so I'll share them here.

First, here's the main photo we used to help us with the drawings:

 

 To be continued...