Revisiting the Upper Narrows, and Wiring the Stub Yard

Last time we completed our tour of all the scenes planned for my Victorville layout, so I've decided to start on a new tour, using some new photos.  As for layout progress, I've wired and tested the three-track stub yard on Section 9, so I'll report on that too.

Earlier today I sent out a request to my friends to see whether any of them would like to help me build any of the structures I'll need for my layout.  I mentioned that Bill Messecar has already built me a couple of structures.  Recently he completed scratch-building the long and complex Victorville depot, compressed to fit my space but still very long.  Here's the track side:

And here's the street side:

Note that both sides have an operator's bay, because they moved the depot across the tracks in the 1920s, leaving the old bay now facing the street and building a new bay facing the tracks.

Previously Bill had built for me the Campbell Sheriff's Office kit for my Barrio scene:

 

If you'd like to contribute to this worthy cause of filling my future layout with structures, please contact me.  I will supply photos and plans, and I'll pay all costs for kits and supplies.

As we go through our 2nd tour of Victorville scenes, I will point out various structures that will need to be built.

We'll start our new tour at the Upper Narrows again, where the Santa Fe mainline tracks and the Mojave River pass between two spectacular granite cliffs.  Here's a westbound Santa Fe freight after passing through the Upper Narrows:

Here's a westbound UP freight led by a gas turbine passing an eastbound Santa Fe freight that's heading through the Narrows and into Victorville:

Here's a view of the westbound Super Chief passing through the Upper Narrows on its way to Cajon Pass and Los Angeles:

 

On the Victorville side of the Upper Narrows we find the landmark Rainbow Bridge, as seen here behind an eastbound Santa Fe freight entering Victorville:

 Here's a later postcard view showing the bridge and the cliffs of the Narrows:

Here's one final postcard view of the bridge, looking downstream, with Victorville just off the left edge of the photo:
 

Here's one idea for modeling the bridge, by kit-bashing a couple of Atlas Curved Chord Truss Bridge kits, as the size and shape is not too far off, although the diagonal braces would have to go.  Here are some kit parts laid on top of the HO scale drawings for the bridge:

 Let me know if you think this would work, or how would you build it?

 Here's an old photo showing the future scene using mockups:

The cushions in back represented the cliffs of the Upper Narrows, and the blue towel represented the Mojave River.  The kit in the foreground represented the Victorville Lime Rock plant, which we'll visit again next time.

As for layout progress since last time, I soldered most of the rail joiners, and I soldered 22-gauge feeder wires to the outsides of the rails near both ends of each of the three tracks in the stub yard.  I connected the feeders to 14-gauge bus wires using suitcase connectors just under the front edge of the benchwork, for easy reach.

I got out an old Athearn F7 that had been in its box for over 50 years, and it started right up and was able to run back and forth on each of the three tracks, controlled by my new MRC Tech 7 power pack.  Here's a photo of me in the background running the loco in the foreground (a milestone moment!):

The next step was to lay down more cork roadbed for the other five tracks on Section 9.  I thought the IBL cork turnout pads I'd bought would save time in cutting all the wedge shapes needed under turnouts, but they are not nearly long enough to help, so the wedges of cork will still be needed just past the pads.  Here's a recent photo of the turnout pads and the cork roadbed, but they are not yet glued down with caulk, and the wedges still need be cut, as you can see:

 

So, I'll keep working toward the goal of having all the cork and all the tracks laid and wired for Section 9 and then for Sections 10 and 11.

 

George Air Force Base, and Laying the First Staging Tracks

This time we'll tour George Air Force Base (Victorville Army Air Field) and then look at some progress in laying my first tracks in staging.

George AFB is the final scenic area of my future layout that we can tour, as the rest of the layout will all be in staging.  In fact, George AFB will probably be just a couple of storage tracks in staging, adjacent to the Mojave Northern quarry staging tracks, unless I live long enough to build a model of the air base itself.  I was in the Air Force long ago, so I'd love to have an air base on my layout.

Last time we were touring the Lower Narrows and saw that a branch line to the air base departed from the main line there and curved through the Lower Narrows scene and off into staging.  In real life, that branch line wound its way up a steep grade to the air base, which was on a plateau northwest of Victorville.

Here's the sign board that was at the gate into the base in later years:

 

The base was built as an Army base during World War II and was named Victorville Army Air Field.  Here is one of its aircraft hangars, with a C-47 inside:

During the war the base published a periodical called "Bombs Away," as seen here:

The Army switcher, which was a GE 45-tonner after the war, would come into Victorvile to turn on the wye periodically to equalize its wheel wear, as all the tracks on the base curved in the same direction.  Here it is at the Victorville depot in 1947, as photographed by Chard Walker:

The base became part of the newly-formed US Air Force in Sep. 1947, and eventually the base switcher got USAF blue paint.  This is a GE 80-tonner that may have worked there, built in 1953: 

The usual operation was that the Santa Fe's Victorville switcher would leave a cut of loaded cars at the entrance to the branch line in the Lower Narrows (behind the electrical switching station), and the base switcher would come down the hill and take two cars at a time up to the base and spot them on various spurs there.  If the loads were explosive, the Santa Fe switcher would take the cars up to the base and leave them there to be spotted by the base switcher.

Here's an Air Force map of the railroad part of George AFB:

Not shown here, off to the left, was the bomb spur, with several buildings where bombs were unloaded and stored.  If I live long enough, here is a track plan for how I would model the base on top of the helix, as drawn for my Layout Design Journal article by editor Byron Henderson:

At the top of the drawing and map are the aircraft fuel storage tanks, which we can see in this distant shot from the 1950s:

The rail line to the base washed out in about 1978 and was not rebuilt.  The one-stall engine house was still standing in 2001, when I toured the base with Gary Gray, a former officer there, and here is his photo of it:

Three former railroad-served warehouses were also still there in 2001, as seen here:

We will say farewell to the base with this billboard and actress (Barbara Lang) from the 1950s (I should include this on my layout):

As for layout progress since last time, I hadn't soldered in decades, so I read about it and watched a lot of online videos about how to do it, and then I practiced soldering rail joiners and feeder wires onto a couple of scrap pieces of flex track.  Then I soldered rail joiners between pairs of full-length flex tracks before curving them for the ends of the three-track stub yard on Section 9.

I spread some clear DAP Alex Plus over the cork roadbed and laid down one stub track at a time.  Here's the first track with weights on it while the glue dries:

When all three tracks had been glued down, the scene looked like this:

Note that each track has a re-railer track for loading rolling stock onto the layout.

I marked all the spots with paper scraps where I want to solder more rail joiners and then add feeder wires, and I posed for a shot as I'm about to start soldering a rail joiner:

Note that some Atlas manual switch machines have been attached to the two #6 turnouts, and cork pads have been added under the machines.  Next week I hope to get the soldering done and the feeder wires all attached to bus wires.

Victorville's Lower Narrows, and Starting Some Roadbed and Track

This time we'll visit the scenic Lower Narrows outside Victorville, and then I'll report on my progress with laying the first cork roadbed and preparing to lay some tracks.

Last time we completed our visit to the Southwestern Portland Cement plant, so the next area to visit is the scenic Lower Narrows.  At this location the Santa Fe railroad passes over the Mojave River on a pair of through truss bridges built at different times (so one is taller than the other).  

Here's a photo of a fan trip behind a pair of Alco PAs at the bridges:

And here's a side view of the bridges, with rocky scenery all around:

Note the electrical transmission lines coming into the area.  They run to the adjacent Victorville Switching Station, as seen here:

 

This is a large complex of electrical towers, as can be seen near the bottom center of this 1953 aerial photo of the Lower Narrows:

Just above the switching station, the railroad tracks can be seen crossing the Mojave River on the two bridges.  Even closer to the switching station, a branch line departs from the mainlines and winds to the upper left on its way to George Air Force Base.

Here's the 1956 USGS map of this same area: 

 And here's the part of my track plan where I model this area:

The two bridges over the river are in the center of this scene, with the Switching Station just below there on the right (compressed to fit).  Note the branch to George AFB just above the Switching Station.  The Mojave Northern track is hidden behind (or inside) the removable cliffs behind the mainlines as it climbs up to the left to the quarry scene we saw last time.

Note the gas station and cafe in the lower left part of the scene.  These are special to me, as they are where my friend Jack Dykstra as a boy used to visit his aunt and uncle (their last name was Rosso) and watch the trains go by in the Lower Narrows.  Jack sent me this photo of the place for modeling it:
 

The gas pumps were not yet installed when this photo was taken.  Note the electrical towers again.  If you look back at the map and aerial photo, you can find these two buildings in the notch where the winding branch line to the air base crosses Route 66.

Here's a nice view of a Santa Fe passenger train running beside the rocky cliffs of the Lower Narrows in the 1960s:

And here's a modern view of the bridges and the scenery behind them, thanks to Paul W. Brown:

 

This completes our tour of the Lower Narrows, which is the final scene on the main part of the layout.

Meanwhile, I've been making some progress on the layout.  I decided to use the new three-track stub yard in Section 9 as my practice area for laying roadbed and tracks.  With the track centerlines carefully drawn in and the turnout locations marked, I began laying cork roadbed for the three tracks, using DAP Alex Plus caulk as the glue.

First I glued down the cork halves along the far side of each stub track, and then I came back and added cork halves to the near sides.  At the two #6 turnouts, I cut and fitted the cork into the wedge part of each turnout shape, but that was difficult to do well, so I sent for some cork turnout pads from IBL to try next time.

Here's what Section 9 looked like after all the cork for the three-track stub yard had been glued down:

 

My friend Jim Coady advised me to paint the cork a light gray color to give it a ballasted look, since I won't be using actual ballast in staging.  So I bought a can of light gray latex paint and brush-painted all the cork.  To cover up some sloppy areas along the edges, I added a strip of tan paint along the outside edges, as seen here:

 

I decided that each of the three stub tracks should have a rerailer track for adding rolling stock to the layout, so I marked the locations for the three rerailer tracks as well as the two turnouts and pinned them down temporarily.  Then I carefully cut and fit all the Atlas code 100 flextracks needed to make up these three staging tracks.  This was my first time using rail nippers and cutting off the ties at the ends where the rail joiners go, but I gradually learned how to do it.

I temporarily pinned down all the tracks to be sure they all fit together as planned, and I added three insulated rail joiners near the turnouts to create a separate DC block for each track (the other rails will be the common rails).  Here is the current state of the stub yard, with all the pins in place:

Note that there's a rerailer track near the entrance to each of the three tracks.  I filed down some of the removed ties to fit back under the rail joiners, but that was time-consuming, so I may buy a bunch of the smooth ties for future use.

The next steps are to glue down the tracks and then add the wiring.

The Cement Plant's Mojave Northern Railroad, and Drawing More Track Lines

This time we'll visit the Mojave Northern Railroad, operated by the Southwestern Portland Cement Plant of Victorville, and then we'll look at some progress and revisions in drawing more track lines on the plywood tabletops.

The far side of the cement plant was where the Mojave Northern Railroad operations were centered.  The job of the railroad was to carry cars loaded with limestone rocks from various quarry locations into the plant, where the rocks were crushed and then used to make cement.  

Here's a great photo from the Orange Empire Railway Museum showing one of the Mojave Northern 0-6-0T steam locos with a string of loaded side-dump rock cars:

Note that each rock car has three bins full of rocks.  Each bin was rotated separately to dump out the rocks.

When the train of rock cars got to the plant, the loco pushed the cars up a wooden trestle to where the rock-dumping tower was located, as seen here:
 

Here's an early view of the end of the trestle, with the rock-dumping tower over the trestle, the rock crusher tower on the left, and the large pile of crushed rocks:

As we saw last time, in later years this open pile was enclosed in a very large building.

Let's go back to the part of the circa 1940 aerial view that shows the trestle and the Mojave Northern shops to the right of it:

We can see a string of loaded rock cars at the far end of the trestle, waiting to enter the rock-dumping tower, and to the right of there is the rock crusher and the open pile of crushed rocks.  At the bottom of the photo is the three-stall engine house, and other shops are behind it.

In 1947 the roster of three 0-6-0T steam locos was joined by two new GE 70-Tonners, numbered 5 and 6.  Here is one of them, numbered 5 and named Leonardt:
 

Here's a later view of both 70-Tonners, as photographed by Richard Steinheimer:

By this time the diesels had been repainted from light gray to dark green.  A bit of the trestle is visible at the far left, the engine house and the distant rock crusher tower are in the center, and the end of rock car number 38 and part of a steam loco are visible in front of the engine house.

Besides the change to diesels for doing most of the work, the cement plant also began using regular hopper cars instead of the old side-dump rock cars.  Here's a photo of a steam loco with a string of hoppers (from the Orange Empire Railway Museum collection):
 

The hoppers were not pushed up the trestle.  Instead, they were spotted at an unloading track built for them beyond the trestle, with a car shaker to help unload the rocks into a underground bin, as seen here:

 Here's the part of my track plan that covers this part of the cement plant:

Near the top, note the ramp to the trestle, and above that is the hopper unloading track.  The two circles at the end of that track are open slurry tanks.  Below them is the rock crusher and the limestone storage building, and to the left are the shops and the engine house (compressed to two stalls). 

The main track of the Mojave Northern leaves the plant at the upper left of this drawing, passes a short siding for storing rock cars, and then crosses a long, low trestle over the Mojave River.  

Beyond there the track is hidden behind a cliff as it sneaks through the Lower Narrows scene to emerge in staging, where it comes to a quarry scene called Dock 5.  In this drawing, the two quarry tracks are in the center, and the curving hidden track is near the right edge.  The track has to climb a grade to get to the quarry, just as the real railroad did:

 

Here's a distant view of a Mojave Northern quarry, with a loco and three rock cars on the left and a large electric shovel on the right:

This concludes our tour of the Mojave Northern Railroad and the cement plant.

In the past two weeks I drew in all the tracks on Section 11, using various poster board templates for curves and angles, as seen here:

I need to widen the benchwork a bit near Section 10A at the bottom of this photo, both for the outside curve and the inside curve.

I laid out all the Atlas turnouts and marked their locations, but some of the throwbars and switch machines interfered with adjacent tracks, so I had to move them a little to resolve the conflicts.

Before I could start to lay any cork roadbed, I discovered some serious problems with the design of the yard throat on Section 9, so I went back to the drawing board to make a lot of changes.  I also found that I have room for an extra three-track stub-ended storage yard near the front edge of Section 9.  Here is the revised plan for this area (somewhat hard to read):

Here's a current photo showing all the turnouts laid out in their proposed locations:

At the bottom of the photo I've added some scrap plywood to work out the track locations leading into future Section 8 there.  Section 9 is on the left, where I plan to use ground throws on the turnouts, as they are close to the aisle.  Section 11 is on the right, where the turnouts are shown with table-top switch machines, as this area will be inside the helix someday and not easily reachable.

I'm hoping that I'm finally ready to lay some roadbed and track in the coming weeks!