ATSF Glorieta District in the 19th Century

Hello. I'm building an N scale layout in my garage loosely depicting the
Santa Fe mainline through Albuquerque, New Mexico around the 1890s. I've read that in the mid to late 20th century the line north of Albuquerque was known as the Glorieta District part of the New Mexico Division. Does anyone know if it had different name before that and what that name might have been?

 

You need to read "History of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway" by Keith L. Bryant, Jr. Theirs alot of discussion of Santa Fe over Glorieta Pass & New Mexico. But it doesn't ID the timetable name there. Hopefully someone here has one that old. Are you going to model the Spider Bridge & the 3% grade up the west side of the pass on your layout?

 

Thanks Cajon,
I have the Bryant book and Myrick's New Nexico's Railroads too (and a couple of others). Perhaps someone with a very old timetable can help me. I've promised myself that I would start a build thread, but I would like a more snappy name than something like - "My New Trackplan" (no offense to anyone who has already used that). I was thinking about something like - "N Scale AT&SF Glorieta District 1890s", but I wanted to avoid any anachronisms in the name.

I have a trackplan (I'm sure it needs work) and I've started the benchwork, but the only scenes I've really thought through so far are the Albuquerque railyard before the Alvarado Hotel was constructed in 1902. I don't think that my modelling skills are up to scratch building something on that scale yet. Also I am fond of my old MDC/Roundhouse passenger cars and want to feature them on the layout.

I like your suggestion about the spider bridge, but I am going to try to avoid grades over 2% from an operational standpoint, especially since I want to also use small steam power (e.g. 2-8-0s, 4-6-0s, even the new Atlas 4-4-0). I think I can acomplish that with a 16X4 waterwings style table, but we'll see.

 

If you haven't heard of the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Historical Society here a link tho there site: http://atsfrr.net/index.shtml
You have to be a member but there's a ton of info on the Santa Fe including track charts, but the earliest are 1960. You might check w/ USGS topographic maps. Think you can find some very early ones in their archives.
Also there's an operating group out of Pueblo CO that has an HO Santa Fe layout that runs from Las Vegas to Watrous NM. Got to operate on it back in 2009 & it was great! Here's a link to check them out & find info on that layout:
http://home.comcast.net/~rockyop/

 

I bet you could run any/everything with proto length trains, just use a cheater boxcar (Kato railcar motorized chassis in an old reefer). Could allow you some steam sound too, plenty of room in there for decoder/speaker, and it'll bump whatever 1890's train/loco combo you have up any 5% slope! I'm halfway done building my own cheater from a 1910 woodside reefer

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys,
Looks like I'll have to get a reprint of an old AT&SF timetable. I have a line on a reprint of the 1891 timetable, but my model train budget for this month is tied up on a preorder for the new Atlas 4-4-0. I guess I'll have wait a few weeks for a definitive answer to my OP, unless someone reading this already has a copy and can help me sooner.

I'm sure eventually I'll need the timetable anyway to schedule my model train runs: locals, express, etc. I'm expecting alot of timber and lumber extras. Ty Bannerman,in his Forgotten Albuquerque (pp 47-49),refers to stats of 325.000 board feet per day in 1905, being processed at the sawmill owned by American Lumber (established in 1902). Another source that escapes me at the moment mentioned 32 trains per day of lumber/timber moving through Albuquerque at some point. My layout's era is more fin de siecle, but there was a lumber yard in the 1890s while New Town (now called downtown) was growing and, I suspect, still must have moved significant amounts of wood throught the railyard even then.

Cajon - yes, I know the organization and I may join them eventually. Is the layout you refer to the one by Bob Folz? I've read about it in MR and his work is inspirational, especially his scratchbuilt Castaneda Hotel and Las Vagas depot, but they are as intimidating as they are inspiring to one at my modelling skill level. Another modeller that I would love to emulate one day is Leslie Trill. His scratch built Nn3 Santa Fe yard and Chili Line are simply amazing.

EMD F7A - your cheater boxcar sounds awesome. Perhaps I'll try something like that one day, but at this stage, I'm still trying to finish my benchwork. If I bite off more that I can chew too soon I might get discouraged. I do know my limitations. I've already been working on it for 8 months and I'm not done yet. Speaking of which, I need to go out to the garage and turn on the space heater so I can work on it a little today.

 

Yes Bob Foltz is the one w/ the great Santa Fe layout in your area. You should get a hold of him to see what info he might have for your era.

 

Bremner - I'm glad you think that the old Roundhouse engines bear a resemblance to an actual class of Santa Fe 2-8-0, being that I have three of them. The side details seem sparce, but the smokeboxes do bear a similarity to the loco that you posted. Here's a pic of a couple of them.

View attachment 50868
The 664 class wasn't in use until 1899, but the AT&SF had consolidations in use since 1879. Do you think these can fit Allen McClelland's "close enough" standard - at least when following the "3 foot rule"?

 

Well, I found a copy of the AT&SF employee's timetable for 1891. While it has some great info on operations, it did not answer my OP concerning the use of districts or subdivisions by the Santa Fe in the 19th century. It only uses the terms branch and division, e.g. New Mexico Division, Western Division, etc. I am now leaning toward calling my layout "N Scale AT&SF New Mexico Division 1890s." Is that too long? I think that I want a descriptive title. What do you folks think?

The timetable listed all scheduled express and local traffic. One thing struck me about the way the AT&SF named its express trains. They had different names depending on whether they were westbound or eastbound. Par example, there are two 1st class trains listed: the #1 westbound is called the Pacific Express, but its eastbound counterpart, #2 is the Atlantic Express. The other 1st class is called #3 Mexico and San Diego Express (westbound), but on the return trip (eastbound) is called #4 New York Express. I found this curious. Was this common in the 19th century? Does anyone know of other examples of this at other times or on other railroads?


Here's the link:
http://www.railsandtrails.com/ETT/ATSF/1891-03-15 ATSF/index.htm

 

Back in those days San Diego was more of a destination than LA so a San Diego Express makes more sense. The mainline back then went straight from San Berdoo to San Diego. But flood in the late 1890s south of Temecula forced Santa Fe to abandon that route & build down the coast. It's all covered pretty good in Bryant's book.