The Invasion is over

Since late December or early January (I really cant remember) our house has been invaded by the grandparents. first it was the in-laws who left at the end of February only to be replaced the next day by my parents.  So it has been a long time of having house guests.  The upside is that my father is also a model railroader and enjoys research so we spent some time digging through archives while he was here.  The Arizona Historical Societies archives are split between multiple locations and as previously mentioned we visited the Tucson portion of the archives.  On a whim we decided to revisit the Yuma archives and discovered that they had just gotten a bunch of their photos back from being cataloged.  These photos  yielded much information but as is always the case for every question answered at least two new ones were formed.  So now I just have to find time to go look through the non-rail pictures to see what they yield.  As far as projects go I am in the process of reorganizing my garage so that I can use my tools but with the temperatures already climbing into the 90's it will likely be next fall until I can start building phase 1(more on that later).

Another attack of life

Well not much too much has gone on hobby wise in the last few weeks.  Once again my work schedule changed and I have had a couple family members with health issues. So consider it another severe attack of life.  I did however find a short window to visit the Arizona State Historical Society archive in Tucson. While this did yield some information some of the areas I was most hopeful about finding information about turned out to be a dead end.  I am also currently  in the process of trying to better organize my garage so that I not only can find all of my tools but have the space to work on possible layout sections. So heres hoping that the coming weeks offer more progress than the last few weeks.

Some Unlikely Sources of Information

I am constantly trying different web searches in an effort to find information on the prototype be it operations or just photos.  It should be noted that Google and Bing will yield different results as they use different methods to determine search results.  Recently I have come across information in some unlikely places.  First was a picture from 1982 on a New Zealand travel blog that showed an eastbound train about to pass under the 16th Street overpass.  Here is a link to the full size picture on the blog http://transpressnz.blogspot.com/2015/03/southern-pacific-sd45-leads-freight.html

Another unlikely source of information National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) website http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/railroad.aspx which contains most of the accident reports generated over the years many in downloadable PDF format.  In these reports I have located three of interest; an accident involving HAZMAT at Thermal, CA, an Ordinance explosion at Benson, AZ and a head on collision in Yuma.  While the first two incidents do not yield information specifically about Yuma the trains involved had or would have passed through Yuma en-route to their final destinations.  All three accident reports contained what was effectively wheel reports and consist information for the trains. as well as operational information.  The reports also include pictures and diagrams however the pictures look like black and white photo copies of color photos.  The most interesting part of these reports turned out to be the attached railroad documents.  An interesting form contained in the Yuma accident report was the Rule G certification form; this form was to be filled out and signed by the conductors of outbound trains certifying that the members of the train crew were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  This form could actually add an interesting twist to operations if implemented on a layout.

Rule G certification form from NTSB report NTSB/RAR-88/02

The final unlikely source of information was Facebook.  My wife deserves the credit for finding this gem but there is a group on Facebook that shares historical pictures of Yuma, many of them railroad related.  Since she has shown me this I have stumbled upon many similar groups for other cities. Hopefully the next few months will yield some great photos on that group.

Adventures in hand laying track

While I did not have time to post this the other day, on Thursday I completed the filing bending and soldering portion of my first Fast Tracks turnout.  As I completed this project I noticed that my skill was improving as I wen along so I made the decision that I will most likely not use the Quick Sticks that came with the kit at this time because these first few units are practice and rail is a lot cheaper than Quick Sticks, so I will save those for when I feel my skill is sufficient to make a turnout that rivals prefabbed ones. 


But before we continue with that thought lets start off with the fact that prior to the last year I never had any desire to hand lay track, in fact I considered it tedious and unnecessary work; this was especially true with all of the great track offerings now available.  This all changed in the last couple years due to a couple factors, first I realized that I was not going to have a permanent layout space for many more years so any construction I was going to do now would need to be modular and so there was going to be some serious track work at the module junctions and everything I heard was that hand laid track holds up and keeps its gauge better than flex track.  Supply was also an issue as we all remember the track shortage just a short while ago and while I could go with an American made track like Micro Engineering their selection of turnouts is limited. Another factor is that I am considering trying the AP program because after listening to various podcasts a few MMRs have made it seem like it is not as difficult as it appears on paper.  Don't get me wrong the accomplishment of becoming a Master Model Railroader is still huge but people like Clark Kooning and Miles Hale have made me realize that the requirements for each of the categories as listed at NMRA.org over complicate things and make it seem daunting to even attempt.  Being introduced to the Fast Tracks product line also helped spur this development as I knew from experience in  former life working in a machine shop, that a jig is essential to consistently replicating an item during fabrication.  I also knew that jigs were virtually fool proof (knowledge also gained at the same shop) Finally I realized cost was significantly lower to hand lay even with the cost of the jig, especially for specialty track work such as crossovers. for example it is $18 US to build a Fast Tracks number 6 turnout (after the jig and tools have been amortized) versus $39 US for a Walthers/Shinohara turnout.  Although the savings is less with Atlas or ME turnouts I wanted to keep my turnouts consistent and Walthers has the greatest variety of turnouts (and I know they aren't the best either) so I used Walthers for comparison. even with roughly $270 US in tools to purchase the break even point is only 13 turnouts which will most likely be accomplished on the east end of the Yuma Main Yard.  As I mentioned this break even point is smaller with more complex track work and add to all of this that Southern Pacific liked to do weird things like use wye switches at the end of double track (they called them high speed equilateral)hand laying just made sense. Sadly the cost advantage is not there for straight and curved track but that is a decision for another day.


So back to my adventures in hand laying track as promised by Tim when I purchased the Jig from him in Portland I found the process fairly easy, slightly addictive and calming.  Plus the huge satisfaction I got from building something from scratch.  I did get ahead of myself and skip a couple steps and rushed through some others but over all the end result wasn't bad.  next time I will do a couple things differently such as not touch my knuckle to a hot soldering iron when trying to solder in a confined space but overall it was an enjoyable experience and I have included a photo of the first attempt for posterity purposes. This experience has created more questions however; I had considered using smaller rail for the Somerton Branch and I even by chance located the point where the prototype transitions to lighter rail (I included that picture as well).  The problem is that having only ever worked  with code 100 track the code 83 rail looked tiny and at first it was difficult to handle for my giant hands so I am not sure I want to attempt code 70 and definitely not code 55 rail on the branchline.  I could up my mainline rail to code 100 but the general consensus is that that is over sized unless you are modeling the Pennsy and their 155lb rail.  Guess I need to pull out my track chart and see what rail was used on this line but that's for another day.

First attempt at a turnout

Change in rail size on Somerton Branch

Lots of irons in the fire

So the last week or has been kind of hectic and not much real progress has been made on the layout.  On a positive note I did receive several reference items in the mail that I had acquired through various sources.  EBay yielded a track chart of the Tucson Division from 1982 and train orders issued at Yuma from the 70's and 80's.  Although Yuma was CTC territory special instructions were issued in the form o train orders and some off these orders were very informative.  For instance I now know approximately when the visual defect detectors were replace with over the radio detectors.  I also acquired Wesley Fox' Southern Pacific Across the Southwest which had some interesting photos of the Sunset Route from my modeling time frame.  As far as track planning goes I have decided to divide the layout into phases following the One Module at a time philosophy discussed recently by Joe Fugate and the staff at Model Railroad Hobbyist http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/.  After talking with Joe and visiting his Siskiyou Line layout during the NMRA National Convention Last August I realized that this approach was probably much better than trying to imagine the exact dimensions of my future layout area.  Also during that convention I was able to visit author Tom Dill's layout and noted how well a layout worked that was centered on one rail yard.  So I have started taking the information I have and am trying to design a reasonable facsimile of the Yuma AZ Main Yard and Old Yard as they would appear in the late 70's/ early 80's.  This will be phase one of my design and construction with the adjacent Dieselville Yard and Yuma East Yards being phase 2 and 3 respectfully.  Following that I plan to design and build a representation of the Somerton Branch Also known as the Yuma Valley Railroad as phase 4.  Phase 5 will be to work east and west of Yuma as time and inspiration allow with the idea of reaching Indio in the west and Wellton in the east.  After that we will see what happens but I do have some ideas.  At the same time as this is going on I decided to actually try my hand at hand laying and building turnouts using the Fast Tracks Jig I acquired in Portland.  So far I am only on step 3 of 11 and have invested at least an hour but I see many places I could shave time off.  Lastly my work schedule changed so we will see how much hobby time I can squeeze in in the next year.

The Black Hole

So why do I refer to this section of railroad as “The Black Hole”?  The answer is simple there is a dearth of information on this railroad from Indio to Tucson.  While there have been terrific books written on the Sunset Route as a whole little attention has been paid to Yuma and the surrounding area.   A great example of this black hole of information is the railroad section of the local chapter of the Arizona Historical Society archives.  While the archives list folders for all decades of the 1900’s the folder for the 1980’s, which is the middle of the time frame I am interested in, is just an empty folder.  Google searches yield some examples of items that should be in this folder such as newspaper clippings or NTSB accident reports (there was a fatality accident on the railroad within Yuma city limits in that decade) but even this information is limited.  This lack of historical information and more importantly photos is understandable as the environment on this line is as inhospitable as it gets and even today parts of this line are super remote.   Also Yuma itself did not really become the fast growing metropolitan area until recently.   Unfortunately time is my enemy on this endeavor the Union Pacific cannot seem to tear any reminders of the Southern Pacific down fast enough.  The diesel shop was torn down with no fanfare and the old searchlight signals are being replaced one by one, with the classic SP signal bridges being left on the side of the right of way to rust.  Recently UP vacated the yard offices in old town and moved into a new facility at east yard so I do not know how long those facilities will remain the only bright side is that new LED flood lights were installed on the Amtrak platform where the old depot used to be but the depot burned down in 1993 and was replaced by a war memorial park.  So I will close this post with a request for help; if any readers have any information on this section of rail line or know where to find it specifically photos from the 70’s to the 90’s please contact me.