ATSF Los Angeles Division, circa 1949

[GaryHinshaw]

Beautiful job on the shed, Otto!!  [Nice trains too. ]

[Cajonpassfan]

Lol Gary, thank you.
I do enjoy working in 1:1 Scale as welll. A nice break..now if I could find a reasonable decent roofer😬
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

I’ve been mostly working on other people’s stuff, in HO and 1:1, and so I decided it’s high time to run some of my TRAINS!
Of course, after months of neglect, that required some track cleaning, including getting all 14 tracks and 26 turnouts at the now-you-see-it/now-you-don’t Barstow staging yard cleaned and tuned.
The staging yard is in an unconditioned, uninsulated garage, and with temps up until last week exceeding triple digits, I was a bit nervous about what I’d find when I raised the lids. Pleased to report no damage, just a few cobwebs and evidence of a visiting mouse, nothing a vacuum and a bit of elbow grease couldn’t fix in a hurry. The track is some very old Shinohara, and it seems bulletproof.
The trainroom floor is about a foot above the garage slab, so the yard is about 6’5” off the ground, above a workbench, see pics. Yes, honey, I will clean the workbench next, I promise...
Time to run some trains...
Otto

[wazzou]

Otto, I really, really like that readerboard for lack of anything better to call it, that numbers the tracks in the yard for operators and/or dispatchers.

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks, Bryan, I think it works well, too. Thanks for your interest.
I should note the  “reader board” is actually just half the interface; typically, it’s only seen on a monitor in the adjacent trainroom, and train crews beginning their 1st District run to San Bernardino can see their assigned train at Barstow, see the track it’s on, and (given a proper clearance card) select an outbound route by punching in a “macro” corresponding to the track number. So as an example, the UP LA Limited sitting at track 14 can be acquired by “macro 14, enter” on the NCE cab and brought out of the unscenicked staging and onto the layout with all turnouts properly aligned, without the crew ever entering the hot garage. The other board, on the layout side, is shown below, and accommodates inbound trains as well. No need for track diagrams, just punch in an available track number/macro.
Fun stuff,
Otto

[OldEastRR]

Hopefully someday we get to see an overall track plan. Your layout is magnificent and I'm eager to see how it all works route-wise.

[Santa Fe Guy]

Ditto.
Rod.

[Cajonpassfan]

Hopefully someday we get to see an overall track plan. Your layout is magnificent and I'm eager to see how it all works route-wise.

Thank you @OldEastRR, that’s quite a compliment; appreciated! Your and Gary’s comments almost make me want to start drawing the current plan instead working on the railroad. Almost
Eventually, I will, but for now, the original plan on p.2 is generally valid, except for two major additions:

One, I got rid of the helix and extended both the upper and lower decks along an L shaped wall on the left side of the room. The upper deck is only about 9” wide and quite thin, the lower is about 20” wide with tracks toward the front edge for visibility and access. Both have 2.2% grades, per prototype. The upper deck has a short siding at Verdemont, the lower deck passing sidings at Ono, again per prototype. As the two decks come together, they punch through the wall into a small adjacent workshop/paintshop and the mainlines connect via a 180 degree loop. A swing gate allows access to the shop when trains are not running. The pics below should explain the scenario, starting near the abandoned helix and moving along the wall to the shop. This added over 70’ of open running and the two “towns”  missing on the original plan.

Two, the redesigned San Bernardino yards now continue past the Mt. Vernon Viaduct to the west, tracks split at West Yard Tower, and loop around and under to reach LA staging. I’ve posted numerous pics of the staging yards in this thread. LA is semi scenicked, Barstow on the east end will remain unscenicked and only seen via a B&W monitor under normal conditions.
The San Bernardino Yard is only partially complete, enough to allow running through the passenger tracks, but the adjacent A (freight) Yard is yet to get real attention and will be one of the final phases as I contemplate doing it in Code 40😬
Hope this helps, thanks for your interest.
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

Enjoying my latest toys, an ABA set of Intermountain UP F3’s. Lokpilots in the A’s, Loksound 5 mated to a 13x18mm speaker/custom enclosure combo courtesy of our own Rick Brodzinsky. They look and SOUND great, shown here on the westbound LA Manifest entering Summit, Cal. The last photo was taken just below Verdemont, following an emergency brake application account of debris on the tracks...the red warning light is on in the nose. Landlord ATSF probably not too happy about the delay...
I need to finish the wiring so I can close the holes in the scenery....😬
Otto

[MDW]

Otto-
You can update a layout plan anytime..... I’d much rather follow the pace of your great modeling!

Michel

[RBrodzinsky]

Here is the video of these locos on my test layout after install.  Nothing special in the install from the other IM F units I've done, so no new install thread or pics in video

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks for posting, Rick. As you know, they actually sound even better “in person” Thanks for doing the milling and install.
First thing I did was to replace the factory MT’s with their awful spacing with close coupling Unimates. These guys will almost always run as a set, so I don’t need automatic couplers. I’m still trying to research the warning light in the nose...was it a rotating Mars in my pre-‘51 era, or a simple fixed red light? Getting conflicting opinions...
TBC, Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

Otto-
You can update a layout plan anytime..... I’d much rather follow the pace of your great modeling!

Michel

Ah, thanks for your kind comment, Michel! I’m afraid the “pace“ is a bit slow, as I’m spending most of my train time on that other, huge HO layout. But it’s all fun!
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

I thought I’d do a quick update. With the upcoming holidays, I’ve taken a bit of a break from work on my layout, and decided to play with some trains and work on consists and locomotives. Amazing how many issues and hiccups one finds just running trains around, and they all need fixing. Current projects include the Fast Mail Express, which includes several misbehaving brass cars, shown below with a set of BLI PA’s at Pine Lodge, and a set of LifeLike Erie-builts, Eng. 90, the only set ATSF ever owned. These units can pull just about everything I own, so to economize, I’ve decided to turn the trailing A into a dummy, placing the LL shell onto a modified and stretched LL PA dummy chassis, pics below. (The Erie’s truck spacing was over two feet longer than the PA, hence the surgery). The B unit is slated to get ESU  Loksound 5 and the lead A a Lokpilot 5. Fun little project...
And, I’m still putting at least three days a week into working on my friend’s monster HO layout here in town, so that and Covid keep me out of bars...
Merry Christmas, happy holidays everyone, stay safe and stay healthy,
Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

If I don’t post enough layout engineering progress, it’s because there’s quite a bit of time involved in maintaining this monster. Today I’ve spent several hours cleaning the Barstow staging yard, and fixing some annoying problems. It seems the old and otherwise reliable Shinohara turnouts don’t like some of the fine FVM wheelsets on my passenger cars. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I may need to replace the wheelsets, or narrow the flangeways...