Looking for ATSF ideas

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Hi everybody,

I have built a few small layouts in the past that weren’t really finished and I was not happy with them. Basically I just started building without any real thought about operation. This time I want to take time to come up with a good track plan that has some tie in to reality. I have some ATSF diesel engines and would like to build a railroad based on the ATSF. Preferably something were a second road could be mixed in also like UP.

The problem is that I pretty much don’t know anything about railroad history at all. I have googled for info but I just don’t know where to start and what to look for. The time period I’d like to be somewhere between 1960 - 1980 but it’s not critical. Not earlier than 1960 tho. It would be nice to include BNSF but then it ends up being too modern and I feel I don’t have the space to accommodate the modern equipment. I’m looking at a layout size of 12’x22’.

So I’m looking for ideas where to start in all this. What part of the former ATSF trackage would be a good part to focus on? Somewhere with a nice selection of industries, sidings and so on. And preferably where there could be an interchange with another railroad. Provision for nice scenery would be a plus of course. In other words, not just flat ground :slight_smile: And of course something that would provide interesting operating possibilities.

Good ideas, pointers, advice or anything else that can point me in the right direction would be much appreciated.

Ken

2

Well for the UP-ATSF connection Daggett, California comes to mind. It’s just east of Barstow. But it’s sparse desert, so might not be what you’re looking for. Plus there’s a huge solar power plant that would over dominate any layout.

Other interesting ATSF/BNSF connections that come to mind are in Cadiz, California where the Arizona & California Railroad meets the ATSF/BNSF mainline. But this is even sparser land in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Then there’s Holbrook, Arizona where the Apache Railroad meets the ATSF/BNSF mainline. It’s still high desert, but Holbrook is a nice sized city with a bit more vegetation then Daggett and Cadiz.

Here’s info on the places I mention:

Daggett

Cadiz

Holbrook

3

quote “somewhere between 1960 - 1980”

Some important break points in that span of years, ESPECIALLY if you want to run passenger trains. From 1960 (and long before) to 1968, Santa Fe ran fleets of streamlined passenger trains on its transcontinental mainline. I hear people say they want to model the Super Chief, certainly a famous train. But one can hardly model accurately the line over which the Super Chief ran unless you model the multiple trains.

Break point 1968. Post office cancelled the mail contracts, most passenger service discontinued. 2 or 3 trains over most important routes, one train a day over others.

Break point 1971. Amtrak takes over passenger operations. Warbonnet F7s put back on trains, mostly ATSF equipment, some from other railroads, some rebuilt by Amtrak.

Break point late June 1973- Amtrak’s own new SDP40Fs placed on passenger trains so they don’t look much like Santa Fe any more.

4

A good place to start might be to join the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society. http://www.atsfrr.com/ They can at least point you to good historical material as well as info on locos, rolling stock, signalling, building standards, etc.

Personally, I’d try mot to go overboard modelling any portion of Sant Fe’s transcontine

5

Thanks for the comments so far. I’m not interested in passenger traffic. Freight traffic, coal, grain, lumber, etc and industrial areas is what I want to model. Maybe the ATSF is not the best choice for this? I’m learning that ATSF was quite self contained in that it did not really connect to other railroads so it looks like either I forget about the idea of mixing in another railroad or I need to choose another railroad to begin with. I want to have some mainline running so not switching only.

Modeling the whole Santa Fe line is of course not possible so an interesting part of it with some branch lines is probably what I’m looking for.

Somehow I get the feeling that the ATSF is a more difficult road to model than many others. I can’t really say why, just that somehow it’s not as practical or maybe not as interesting. Plus I have not seen very many Santa Fe layouts in the magazines or on the web. I am not opposed to choosing another railroad if it’s more beneficial but it would be nice if I can use the few engines I have so far.

Ken

6

Here are some more break points.

The Santa Fe introduced the new blue and yellow freight diesel scheme in 1960 on GP20s, RSD-15s and SD24s. This scheme has been called the bookends or pinstripe scheme.

Postal contracts were cancelled in the Fall of 1967.

Large Santa Fe renumbering of units started in the second half of 1969 and was completed in 1970.

Santa Fe begins locomotive remanufacturing at its Cleburne Shops with the CF7 in 1970.

New Yellow Bonnet paint scheme starts to show up in April 1972 and on some of the new power ordered for that year.

7

The most Santa Fe links are here http://www.qstation.org/ I don’t think the Santa Fe would be that difficult to model, the difficult part is choosing a part of it to model that suits your needs.

8

What PART of the Santa Fe to model?

I have been modeling a Santa Fe secondary line in the piney woods of East Texas, a single track line. In the 1960-1980 period, it had one through freight a day in each direction and a local that operated one direction every other day and the other direction on alternating days. I am most familiar with the line from the junction with the north-south mainline at Sommerville east to Silsbee and Beaumont near the Louisiana border. The Santa Fe crossed the MoPac and SP at Navasota, the Burlington/Rock Island Joint line at Dobbins (no sign of much interfhange), the MoPac at Conroe, SP “Rabbit” line at Cleveland and SP again at Kountze. Good sized Santa-Fe-only yard at Silsbee, junction with line north and east about parallel to Texas-Louisiana border, and line to port city of Beaumont. Beaumont had a mix of SP, MoPac, KCS and possibly a port switching railroad.

Near Silsbee, the Kirby Lumber Co. had a short branch/long spur off Santa Fe and operated logging “trams” (ie company service runs) by trackage rights over a length of the Santa Fe to various log loading spurs in the woods.

My layout had the creosote treat plant very similar in appearance and operation to the one that was located at Conroe, a courthouse-square town scene with elements of Conroe, Navasota and Cleveland, NO trunkline junction/crossing/interchange… but an interchange with a logging shortline. The logging line combined elements of the Kirby Lumber Co. operation (running a short distance on ATSF tracks to a lo

9

What PART of Santa Fe to model?

Oklahoma City might be interesting. OKC has a north-south Santa Fe main line elevated along the edge of downtown, and an industrial/warehouse district below the elevated line. Through freight traffic on the elevated, and one passenger train a day in each direction until about 1978. An interesting station built at ground level, with platforms up on the elevated. Switching in the lower district, around old brick warehouse buildings.

I once designed a small N scale layout for this scene.

Look for a big coverage of ATSF OKC in the 1st quarter 2007 Warbonnet, journal of the Santa Fe Rwy Historical and Modelers Assn. About a dozen pages with photos, track plats, scale drawings

See also

50s scene, depot bg, Route of the Warbonnets p.50

E-6 #12 1940 Warbonnet 2Q 2006 p.24

crossing scene in warehouse district, Reefers, Ice Bunker p.75

diesel taking water, Santa Fe 1940-1971 in color vol.4 p.18

Tx Chf scene in 1969, Trains magazine Apr96 p.48

Texas Chief 1968 and 1972 SF Trackside w/ Bill Gibson,p.100, 126

Amtrak Lone Star 1976 Trains Nov 1976 p.40

proto computer switch list of ATSF from TOFC cut at

Oklahoma City, OK. NMRA Bulletin July83 p.24

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What PART of ATSF to model?

There was an interesting stretch of track southwest of Houston Texas, actually part of the SP Sunset Route, between T&NO Jct. (south end of Houston Belt & Terminal New South Yard, Houston) and Rosenberg TX. Santa Fe ran passenger trains and one or two through freights by trackage rights, T&NO Jct to Rosenberg, and MoPac ran a local from T&NO Jct to the Imperial Sugar plant at Sugarland.

Russell Straw has done some fantastic modeling of this line. He has a gallery of pictures in the “Railimages” section of http://www.trainboard.com/

I believe this link will take you directly there—

http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/ppuser/149/cat/500

11

I am currently building a layout based on Santa Fe at the Island Seaport of Galveston. Here is a long long discussion of the prototype and layout design. Maybe you can pick a few ideas.

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=88991&highlight=island+seaport

12

If you want to model a chunk of the ATSF with lots of switching opportunities and which will be manageable (and realistic) for a small or mid-sized layout, you can’t go wrong with the Pekin “branch”. The line ran from Chilicothie, IL to Peoria, IL, and was actually the original mainline of the Santa Fe. In the 20th Century the mainline was never really high-use, but did see several trains a day. The last ATSF doodlebug operations were beween Pekin and Chicago in the mid-1960s, so passenger ops are both possible and VERY manageable. Freight engines in the 1960s varied between F3s and Alligators, so there’s lots of variety. The line’s main purpose was to pick up bridge traffic from the Pekin/Peoria industrial area, but supported lots of agricultural products, some aggregate shipments, and even coal trains from Central and Southern Illinois (which has more coal under it than WV and PA combined)

Completely untrue! NO class one common carrier survived by being “independent”. Look at almost any train photo and you’ll see that the majority of cars in it are NOT from the parent road, but from interchanges. Unless you’re modeling the N&W’s coal fields, the majority of your freight car fleet should NOT be from the home road! In general, railroads moved more cars from one interchange to another than they generated from online industries.

On the Pekin branch, the ATSF interchanged with 14 roads in Peoria/Pekin. By the time the line got to Chilicothie it had crossed and interchanged with

13

I agree with Ray the Peoria has some great switching potential, but Santa Fe never owned a single track in Peoria until it merged TP&W on January 1, 1984. The Pekin Branch stemmed from the mainline at Ancona, not Chillicothe. It went through the towns of Long Point, Dana, Minonk, Benson, Roanoke, Eureka, Washington, Morton and then Pekin.

The rail line from Chillicothe to Peoria was Rock Island, and that was a mighty fine line too!

Ed Cooper

former Peoria area resident

14

Great information leighant and orsonroy! Both the Texas and Pekin lines sound interesting and I will definitely take a closer look at them and see what I can find. This is the kind of info I was looking for. Some specific places that could make a good layout.

So ATSF did connect to many roads after all. See, I said I don’t know much history :slight_smile:

I really like the yellow bonnet paint scheme but that moves the time period into the 70’s. I’m ok with a little bit of modeler license tho if it can make a great and interesting layout.

Ken

15

ATSF connections in 1954 Official Railway Equipment Register:

Alameda Belt Line, San Francisco Bay area via barge connection

Apache RR, Arizona

Baltimore & Ohio

Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal

Beaver, Meade & Englewood, Oklahoma

Belt Rwy of Chicago

Central California Traction

Chesapeake & Ohio

Chicago & Eastern Illinois

Chicago & Illinois Midland

Chicago & Illinois Western

Chicago & North Western

Chicago & Western Indiana

Chicago, Aurora & Elgin

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy

Chicago Great Western

Chicago Heights Terminal Transfer

Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville

Chicago Junction RR

Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific

Chicago Produce Terminal Co.

Chicago River & Indiana

Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific

Chicago Short Line

Chicago, South Shore & South Bend

Chicago, West Pullman & Southern

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis (NYC Lines)

Colorado RR

Colorado & Southern

Colorado & Wyoming

and that’s just through the C’s, and about 20% through 1 1/2 pages of connections.

16

After residing in Kansas for a little over a year now, I could offer some areas that would be interesting. Emporia, you can model the yard and the junction which many other modelers have done. Kansas City, lots of possibilities, freight, switching, interchange. As posted earlier, Oklahoma has some great places to model. Like others have said, join the ATSF Historical Society, get some route maps and start researching where you really want to model.

Even though you don’t plan on passenger, if you’re modeling the 60’s I’d definately think it over as the Santa Fe was all about great passenger service.

Rick

17

Galveston TX

You have the MP/UP. MKT, SP, Galveston Wharves, Texas City Terminal all circa 1985. There is lots of industrial switching, parallel lines, interchange, the island is served by one lift span for all railroads so you can have one combined staging.

Beaumont, TX

MP/UP, SP, KCS another port city, lots of switching and interchange.

Wichita, KS.

MP/UP, MKT, CRIP (I think), plus shortlines depending on the era.

Ft Worth, TX

Tower 55, the busiest spot in Texas. MP/UP, MKT, SP, BN, CRIP all cross. Plus has a pair of Amtrak trains. Lots of industry, lots of interchange, lots of trackage rights.

Oklahoma City

CRIP, MKT, MP/UP

Dave H.

18

I think you have to decide what type of scenery you want first. ATSF did a lot of flatland and desert running but it did run through areas with hills and did cross the rockies in New Mexico. From there you can either go to Microsoft terraserver or Google Earth and look at some towns in that area for some inspiration. In some areas you can zoom enough to identify the type locomotive pulling a train. Then you can do a further search for information on the town or city and its industries. You might also want to look at railroads of Chuck Hitchcock and another modeler whos layouts replicate transfer runs in the KC area. Both are excellent and have been in MR and Great Model railroads.

19

I’ve been modeling (V-Scale) the BNSF Seligman Subdivision which runs from Winslow to Seligman, Az. This line was, of course, ATSF until the merge with BN.

I think it’s an interesting section of the road because it is desert on both ends with the highest elevation of any US rail in the middle (Flagstaff), high in the mountains of the largest ponderosa pine forest in the world.

Information on this area that I am modeling is available at GAURC.us. More detailed information is also available at TrainWeb.org.

20

Some desert would be ok but forests and varied terrain is more my taste tho. Varying elevations too and not just flat scenery.

I’m finding it very difficult to dig up any real good information. Especially if it’s not current stuff. I have googled through tons of pages but haven’t really found anything useful or even info to base some decision on. Part of the problem might be that I’m not really sure what to look for but this is certainly more complicated than I envisioned.

Ken