Reviewing My Victorville Layout Track Plans, and Building Layout Section 2

Last time we finished our second visit to the signature scenes in Victorville, so this time I've decided to review what the overall layout track plans look like.  Then we'll look at my progress in putting Section 2 up on legs.  (I was gone for a week, so I only completed one section this time.)

One version of the track plan, which I rejected at the last minute, had just a single level and had an 8-track staging yard along the walls of the staging room (instead of having a helix to a lower deck).  Here's a top view of that plan:

You can see the 8-track staging yard in the staging room at the top of this drawing, where you also see a return loop of several tracks.  Moving to the right out of that room, the double-track mainline curves through the Lower Narrows scene as it follows that inside aisle around a wall of cabinets (the dark gray rectangle).

As the mainline continues to follow that aisle beside the cabinets and toward the red arrow marked as "View 1," some spur tracks branch off into the large cement plant scene there.  At the lower left, the mainline curves around and heads into the Victorville scene near the red arrow marked as "View 2."

Finally, the mainline curves to the left through the Upper Narrows scene near the upper right and heads back to the left, into the big return loop in the staging room.

This layout plan was also put into perspective views by my friend Jim Coady.  The view below shows the cement plant scene as seen from the View 1 arrow, with a curving blue backdrop behind it:
 

 

And here is a view of the Victorville side, looking from the View 2 arrow:

You can see the Victorville wye sticking out behind the man standing there.
 
If we could fly up above the basement at this point, here's what we'd see:

Note the steps down to the daylight basement at the top of this view, and the staging room at the upper right.  Victorville and its wye are right in front of us, with the blue backdrop separating us from the cement plant on the far side.

Here's one more view from up above, this time looking at the cement plant side of the layout:

You can see the staging room with its return loop and its yard at the left, and the stairway to the basement at the lower center.  As you enter the basement, you will first encounter the large cement plant scene.  Note the two posts around the railroad's entrance to the cement plant -- they are holding up the house.

This would have been a good-size layout to build, but I was greedy and wanted even more staging tracks, so I added in a lower deck full of staging yards, and a large helix in the staging room to connect the decks and to include even more staging space. 

This is what the current layout plan looks like (showing only the upper deck tracks and the helix):

 

Everything is the same here, except for the helix (at the top) replacing the 8-track staging yard of the previous plan.  I'm still drawing the details of the lower deck staging yards, so I have no view of that to show you yet.

Now let's look at my progress in putting Section 2 up on legs this past week, after being gone the previous week.  I attached seven legs to the frame, as seen here:

It's not obvious, but two of the 2x2 legs are located in the middle of the section, so that they will be out of the way of the staging yards that have to pass through that area.  Note that Section 3 in the distance does not line up exactly with Section 2, so some of the sections will have to be moved by an inch or so to connect them all together properly.

Here now is Section 2 after its plywood top got five edge notches and two center holes cut into it, so it could be placed over the seven legs, as seen from the middle of the layout:

Note the two legs that come through the middle of the section.  Next week Section 1 will fill that empty space in the distance.

Here's one last view of Section 2, looking in the other direction:

The future Section 1 is on the floor in the foreground.  You can now see the entire loop that the layout makes around the main room in the basement.

During my travels I met with Jim Coady, who showed me the Mojave Northern rock car that he had 3D printed himself, and he gave me this poster he made as a souvenir of our rock car project:

I look forward to completing the lower deck benchwork by next time!

 

Revisiting George AFB, and Building Layout Sections 4 and 3

This time we'll revisit George Air Force Base (near Victorville), and then we'll look at recent progress on benchwork for layout Sections 4 and 3.

George AFB began as the Victorville Army Flying School during WW2:

 

Here are some photos of the flight line and control tower, as seen in a yearbook in 1942:

The air base was served by a Santa Fe branch line (the Adelanto Spur) that left the main line at the Lower Narrows and climbed up to the plateau where the air base was located.

In 1947, when the Air Force was formed from the Army Air Force, Chard Walker shot this photo of the Army 45-ton switcher visiting the Victorville depot, where it periodically turned on the wye to equalize the wear on its flanges (because all the curves on the base went in the same direction):

Here's a later USAF GE 80-tonner that may have worked at George AFB:

 

Here's a 1959 aerial photo of the part of the base where most of the railroad spurs were located:

The rail line enters this photo diagonally from near the lower right corner, then curves north to reach the rows of warehouses you see in the center of the photo.  Just north of the warehouses are the two main hangars along the flight line, where you can see various USAF planes parked.

Here's a more distant view of the south end of the base, just below the previous view, where the oil spur and the bomb spur were located:

The rail line enters this view from the lower right corner, then branches back south to the bomb spur, where the bomb storage buildings can be seen in that same corner of the photo.  Proceeding diagonally to the NW, the rail line passes four jet fuel storage tanks, where there was a spur for unloading tank cars.  At the upper left corner, the line curves north into the warehouse part of the base that we saw in the previous photo.

If I live long enough, I would like to model these parts of George AFB, since I was in the Air Force long ago.  The model would sit on top of the large, rectangular helix that will be located in the layout's staging room, as seen in this drawing by Byron Henderson for my article in Layout Design Journal #68:

The rail line enters the base at the lower left, passes the bomb spur and later the oil spur, and then passes the one-stall engine house and arrives at spurs that serve Base Supply, the rows of warehouses, and the lumber shed and shop.  Note the hangar and control tower beside the runway apron.

Here's a view of some barracks on the base in the 1950s, with two jet fuel tanks in the distance:

 

Here's a later (2001) stitched-together view of the rows of warehouses served by the railroad, thanks to Gary Gray:

 And here's a view of the back side of the engine house, also by Gary Gray:

 Here's a postcard view of activity on the flight line long ago:

 

The last time we visited the base in this blog, some people enjoyed seeing actress Barbara Lang posing by a 1957 billboard for a GAFB air show.  So, here she is again, posing by another sign for GAFB:

She was supposed to star in "Jailhouse Rock" with Elvis Presley, but didn't.

This completes our second tour of various scenes from my future layout.

In the last two weeks I've been able to put Section 4 of my layout up on legs, and then Section 3.

I had to build an extension to Section 4 to support the tracks on the inside of the curve coming around the far end of the layout, which I somehow missed doing earlier.  The new triangular addition is called Section 4A.

Here is the frame for Section 4-4A after it was up on legs, standing in front of the previous Section 5.  The notched plywood tops are leaning against Section 5:
 

Here's a view of Section 4 (on the right) from an opposite angle after the plywood tops were in place:

Then I worked on Section 3.  I decided to add a rectangular outrigger to the frame where I could attach extra legs that could support the point on the upper deck that the fold-down wye tail will be hinged to someday.  Here's the frame for Section 3 after it was up on nine legs:

The new outrigger can be seen in the left distance.  Behind Section 3 is Section 4, and to the right of there is Section 5.

And here is Section 3 from the opposite angle, after the plywood was notched and placed on top:

The extended part of the frame is in the left foreground.  If this were the upper deck, the tail of the Victorville wye would be hinged to this area.

That's all for now.

 

Revisiting Victorville's Lower Narrows, and Building Layout Sections 6 and 5

This time we will revisit the scenic Lower Narrows region, which is railroad east of the cement plant, and then we'll look at progress in putting layout Sections 6 and 5 up on legs.

Let's start off with a recent photo of UP's Big Boy steam loco going eastbound through the rocky scenery of the Lower Narrows of the Mojave River:

In contrast, here's a steam era photo of a UP 2-10-2 with a freight heading westbound through the double bridges over the Mojave River:
 

Here's a recent color photo of the double bridges (built in different years, as the railroad was later double-tracked):

Note the power lines coming over the area.  They lead to the nearby electrical switching station, as seen here beside Route 66:

 Here's the 1956 USGS map of this area:

Note the Substation building near the lower center of the map, and the double tracks of the Santa Fe Railroad crossing the river (on two bridges) near the BM 2692 mark, and the cliffs beside the tracks as they curve past the Lower Narrows label.  Note that the solid red highway going past the Substation is Route 66.

The curvy track separating from the mainlines behind the Substation and running to the left is the branch line to George Air Force Base, which we will revisit next time.  

In the notch between the George AFB track and Route 66 are two squares, which mark the location of Rosso's Texaco gas station and cafe, as seen here:

I plan to include all these things in my Lower Narrows scene, as shown in this track plan:

The double bridges over the Mojave River are in the center of this scene, with rocky cliffs behind the tracks hiding the Mojave Northern track as it sneaks through this area unseen.  The Electrical Switching Station is to the lower right of the bridges, and the Texaco gas and cafe buildings are near the left edge of the scene.

One famous building just railroad west of here that I'm not including is Emma Jean's Holland Burger Cafe, as it's on the wrong side of the highway (in the aisle), and sadly there's no room for it:

It's still there as a Route 66 landmark, and I enjoyed eating lunch there once and buying a souvenir shirt.  My substitute is Rosso's Texaco and cafe, which does fit nicely, and which my friend Jack Dykstra used to visit as a child.

Let's close our visit with one more look at those wonderful, rocky cliffs, as a Santa Fe freight heads westbound beside the river, toward the double bridges:

Turning now to progress on my layout, I'm in a routine in which I can get another lower deck layout section up onto legs each week.  

This involves planning where the legs should go, building the needed number of legs from 2x4s and 2x2s, marking where the notches for the legs should go along the edges of the plywood tabletop, cutting out the notches with a saber saw outdoors, clamping a few of the legs to the frame, standing the frame up on these legs, clamping on more legs, attaching the legs to the frame with screws, adjusting the footpads until the frame is level, placing the plywood tabletop onto the frame, with the legs fitting through the notches, and screwing down the plywood to the frame (using about two dozen screws, spaced about 12" apart).

Here's a photo of new Sections 6 and 6A after the plywood was added on top:

Here's a photo of me on my knees, screwing the legs into the frame of adjacent Section 5:

And here's a different view of Section 5, now with its plywood on top, as seen from the entrance to the daylight basement:

Meanwhile, my friends Bill Messecar and Don Hubbard have completed building my fleet of 14 Mojave Northern rock cars (thanks to rock bins created by Jim Coady), with six of the cars having limestone loads.  I posed them with a stand-in 0-6-0T steam loco on my first staging tracks on Section 9:

That's all the news for now.  Sections 4 and 3 are next.

Revisiting the Mojave Northern Railroad, and Building Layout Sections 8 and 7

Last time we revisited Victorville's cement plant, and this time we'll revisit its private railroad, the Mojave Northern.   Then we'll look at some benchwork progress on building Sections 8 and 7.

The purpose of the Mojave Northern was to carry limestone rocks from distant quarries to the Southwestern Portland Cement plant for processing.  At the cement plant, side-dump rock cars were pushed up a trestle, and the rock cars were unloaded there.  Here's an aerial view of that part of the cement plant:

At the bottom of this photo is the three-stall engine house, and along the left edge you can see the trestle where the rock cars were pushed for unloading.  A string of rock cars is waiting at the far end of the trestle to be unloaded.

Here we see a pair of Mojave Northern 0-6-0T saddletank steam locos pushing some rock cars up the trestle:

 

Here's a rare close-up of a rock car that I found on my old computer, after my friends Bill Messecar and Don Hubbard had already built 14 HO scale models of these for me:

My friend Jim Coady had previously designed and ordered the 3D-printed rock bins for these cars, and here's the rock car model that he has built himself, as seen on his layout:

Here's an action photo of an 0-6-0T pulling a string of loaded rock cars:
 

Later in my postwar time period, they supplemented the old rock cars with regular hopper cars, which did not unload from the trestle.  Here's an action photo with some hoppers in tow:

 

Here we see one of the steam locos being serviced at the plant, with some rock cars on the left and some kilns on the right:

 Here's a view of all three steam locos at the engine house:

In 1948 they added two GE 70-Tonners to help with the work, as seen in this 1950s Richard Steinheimer photo at the cement plant:

In this view, the engine house is in the center background, along with a rock car and some steam locos.

As the Mojave Northern main line leaves the cement plant, there is a short passing siding where a loco can run around a string of rock cars, and then the line crosses a long, low trestle over the Mojave River, as seen in this fan trip photo:

 

This scene will be included on my layout, but after this my M.N. track will have to sneak through the Lower Narrows scene (where it doesn't belong), hidden behind the cliffs of the Lower Narrows, until it emerges in the staging room, where there will be another siding for loading the rock cars at a quarry scene, as seen here:

At the quarry they used a large electric shovel to load the limestone into the cars, as seen above.

This concludes our second tour of the Mojave Northern Railroad.

In the past two weeks I've been working on my benchwork again.  I attached the legs to Section 8's frame (the first section outside the staging room), cut notches for the legs to pass through its plywood tabletop, and attached the plywood on top of its frame, as seen here:

The three closest legs were temporarily clamped in place, while the three distant legs are permanently attached.  Section 8 is bolted to distant Section 9 and so supports the near end of Section 9.

Then I had to make more legs to support Section 7, and I cut notches in Section 7's plywood for the six legs to pass through.  I attached the legs to Section 7, bolted it to Section 8, and laid the plywood on top, as seen here:

Section 8's plywood has now been screwed down, and I'll repeat that for Section 7 next.

I was going to work on Section 1 next (the one on the floor to the right of Section 7), but then I'd have just a narrow aisle into the far side of the staging room, so I'll do that Section last.  I'll work on Sections 6 and 6A instead.

Meanwhile, I received my new BLI ATSF 2-8-2 #4025, so I tested it on one of my three short staging tracks, as seen here (I love it):

That's all I have until next time.