Questions about Winslow AZ Yard, etc... Hi Another request from across the pond...a member of our Group is interested in modelling the Santa Fe (I think) yard at Winslow, Arizona ; he suggests that it was (or still is) a crew changeover point ? Any information, photos, suggestions for modelling, links, etc...would be greatly appreciated. I think he wants to put together a modest layout setup in N Scale to utilise and display his rolling stock. Many thanks... (P.S. Really appreciate this forum...a great help...the chap I'm enquiring for is a retired Britsh Railways fireman and driver who started off in the steam era...if anyone has any enquiries for him he'd be only too happy to help. )
Keep an eye on my website - I'm continuing to add photos of a 4 day stint in Winslow back in April. Some mates had a Free-mo set up in the old Santa Fe depot, so I've got plenty of photos of it, the La Posada and plenty of trains.
Don't have any pics myself, but you can zoom in on this satellite image to get some detail if that helps?? http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...,-110.713134&spn=0.008504,0.026822&iwloc=addr Regards - Mike
James & Mike..many thanks. Spot on...exactly the sort of information that my colleague needs. (I'll keep on eye on your site, James.) Cheers...
I model it in N, as it was in July '72. I have photos, aerial shots, valuation maps, schedules, video from the last few years, pretty much everything I could lay my hands on. I have a big collection. I've got the depot 'mirror imaged' to fit, and the La Posada complex similarly reversed and squeezed in a corner on a curve. But its there, all scratchbuilt. La Posada: Depot and yard throat - the microwave tower is still there, the water tank is now gone, along with the water treatment building, and apparently the yard office/yard crew building as well. Full-length shot down yard looking west: I really like '72 because it was still very much of a division point then; all the Peavine traffic was classified there, the yard tower was still up, freight house etc. La Posada hadn't been restored, of course, but it still looked the part and it was before the trees died in front of the depot. '72 was BEFORE the run-through fueling facility was built, too. This is a BIG yard, and I can only approximate about the western half of it in eight feet. Where the track would swing around the turntable/roundhouse area is about where I stop, missing the entire eastern half. But I've got the western half about as close as I can get in in eight feet of lineal space. The yard is really kind of 'stripped' today, compared to the steam era. Another modeler that was building a big concept of Winslow yard was Verne Niner; he was most interested in the eastern half with the roundhouse and turntable (that I have no room for). I was helping him do some reasearch, and we got hold of a copy of the Sanborne Insurance maps, too. He then 'defected' to On30 for a mining railroad, so nothing happened there! That big 'white roof' in the center of the yard is the car repair/shops shed, as near as I've been able to tell was put up about 1968, and I've scratchbuilt that. The roundhouse was still there, but empty, by '72 - it is gone now. You can see the outline of the turntable, it is still there. Remember that Winslow was the 'first' east-end diesel servicing facility for the FT's, beginning in 1941, where it was diesel west and steam east during WWII. The Winslow roundhouse was converted to an FT shop very early. Photos of that era are FASCINATING because of the mix of steam and diesel there. Today the yard is really quiet; a lot of traffic destined for Phoenix just gets 'dropped' along the main as blocks and picked up on the fly by other trains. Winslow is a flat yard, not that efficient, and while the train, fueling, crew changes, and general traffic is exceedingly heavy, the yard itself is a shadow of what it was. Another great thing at Winslow was the HUGE icing facility on the south side at the center; this had just been shut down in 72 but it was one of the biggest reefer icing platforms on the entire railroad. There are historic photo postcards on Ebay of the icing plant.
Nice overall pics of your Winslow, Randy. I remember watching in awe as you constructed La Posada, but I don't think I've see your whole yard yet. Very nice.
Winslow came onto my layout not because I fell in love with it, but because I fell in love with Flagstaff and the mountains around it. But I really wanted a yard for switching, and operations where lots of trains and equipment were moving, setting out and picking up blocks, etc. As Santa Fe mainline yards go, Winslow is about as small as they get, so 'just down the road' Winslow has always been my yard. I love the contrast between Winslow in the desert on 90mph flat running and Flagstaff in the pines laced with S curves, only 50 track miles apart. For years, La Posada was the problem; getting that accurately done was impossible. But Alan Afeldt - the new owner - got me copies of his DVD on the restoration, and a FULL SET OF BLUEPRINTS of the building, man, how great was that! That turned the corner, ultimately. During that time, I've also become a huge fan of Mary Colter and her architecture and life story - a nice benefit of doing the historic research. One thing that that Google Earth map shows - rather well - is the overall REDNESS of the dirt around there. It's RED, almost like iron ore. The ties are faded to gray, the dirt is red, and the red Spanish Tile, can, literally, be seen from space!
SteveR: Drop me a line I have photos of Winslow from the mid'80s if you are interested. "Middle Main, leave it on."
