Hello David, Let me rephrase the above. Keeping in mind these are only rough estimates from an old fart's memory that may be questionable, at best...grin! The length of the yard going from East to West is no more the 1.2 miles and the width of the yard going from north to south is no more then .50 or 1/2 to 2/3 or .66 of a mile. Sorry, I must have thought we were talking about a big flat top when I first started writing. "Stem to Stern", what was I thinking? Raise the anchor mattie. LOL The yard proved to be undersized from the day it was first built. My understanding is that it went through three or four revisions before it was deemed to small and they decided to build west of the present yard. The large cut on the east end of the yard was widened a number of times to stretch the yard. It helped. However, the expansion proved to be once again to little too late. Never, all it could be. On one occasion and I don't remember the precise year this was done. I must have been 12-13 years old. So that would be in the early 60's. Two lead tracks were built on the east end almost out to Daggett to handle longer trains. The cut on B Hill (Barstow Hill) was widened and two lead tracks were built out toward Lenwood, for the same purpose. According to family stories and the usual rumor mill. On the West end it was difficult to get the locomotive lash-ups down past the freight switching yard and all the action...to spot them on the front of their assigned passenger trains. Seems when the passenger yard was the busiest, was when the difficulties started. Arriving from the east you had passenger trains that needed to be switched or reassembled as trains headed north to Richmond, Ca. and those to Los Angeles, Ca. From the West you might have loads of Strawberries in REA refrigerated cars that would be switched to the front of the Chief or Super Chief. Also, locomotives that either needed to be fueled or pulled out for servicing. One of the pictures shows a rebuilt GP 7 MU, with the Santa Fe herald on the nose. It is switching a Santa Fe Express Car on to the point of a L.A. bound train. For whatever reasons, the Union Pacific freight and passenger trains, almost always ran through on the passenger yard track, closest to the station. During peak periods of passenger traffic UP trains were required to hold either at Yermo on the east end or hold in sidings outside of Lenwood on the west end. Oh, it could get very dramatic and the sound of the supervisors voices (yard masters) could be heard getting louder and the pitch (a high C or E flat) as equipment needed to be kept rolling. Lot's of chatter between the passenger yard boss, freight yard cut throat and the locomotive ______ (well I can't repeat what they called him) grin! Never mind the UP and Santa Fe dispatchers. No matter what they tried there was no way to make it run smoothly. Reactive management for the most part. I was at the station when they experimented with running a UP train, east to west, on the passenger tracks furthest out from the station. Seems to me they ran into trouble on the west end of the yard as they ended up going out on a track that everyone else needed. You know the picture... to move locomotives, switch freight cars and handle arriving freights. I think the train ended up on a blocked siding, as well. Such fortune...everyone should be so lucky. More fun on the west end. Here you had trains arriving and departing to and from points north over the Mojave tracks and points south over the Los Angeles tracks (must be a better way to put this...grin!). My grandad, who hogged the Boron and Edwards locals, said he would try to get his train back before 4:30 p.m. so they wouldn't put in the hole, waiting for all the freight and first rush of passenger traffic to pass through. By the way the hole for him would be the Y on the north side of the Mojave river. He would back in, sit and wait. Now think about turning a whole passenger train or single cars and having to go out the west end on the Mojave main, to do that. It would get ugly on the west end. Have I put you to sleep yet. My kids say I was the best bedtime story teller. Put them and any other audience I ever had to sleep. Sheez. One last history lesson, and I know you will be off in na na land, cutting timber with your zzzzz's. The Santa Fe tracks starting at Mojave, Ca. east to Needles, Ca. once belonged to the Southern Pacific. Put in to keep the then Atlantic and Pacific (a subsidiary for ATSF), out of California. SP had an eye on the tracks ATSF built into Mexico and when approached gladly traded off the Mojave to Needles tracks figuring Santa Fe wouldn't get any further into California then Mojave, requiring Santa Fe to hand off to SP for a significant fee. What they didn't know...Santa Fe was in the process of surveying their own route over Tehachapi. Think about this one: We would have had two Tehachapi loops within sight of each other. There is so much unconfirmed history here as my family on the native side were involved as guides assisting the survey crews. Santa Fe did build tracks on the east side of Mojave with every intention of building tracks that would parallel and finally cross over the SP tracks. What stopped ATSF, SP got an injunction and wouldn't allow them to build a crossover on the tracks that left Mojave going north to Trona. As a passenger you would deboard the ATSF train, cross town to the SP station and wait until the next SP passenger train left town. My great grandmother tells of going to see her son Billy and having to do just that. Those were the days. Moving from ancient history to present day history. Remembering when, UP and SP merged opening the way for SP trains to cross over from Mojave to Barstow and then back onto UP's tracks at Daggett. It seemed oddly out of place to see the SP or UP trains lumbering along on SP's and then Santa Fe's old tracks. But then you aren't building all the way to Mojave...right? Just having some fun and putting off getting the schematic copied. Grin! Oh the fun they had in Barstow.baffled:
Thanks Rick Good information and a great story of what it was like. I think I can start looking at the benchwork now!
Started layout out the yard Hi, Well thanks to Rick, I have the copies of the yard drawing and have started building up the yard using my CAD program. This has the 30 yard tracks and the 2 arrival departure tracks in the main body Above are the 6 tracks for the passenger station Overall, this is 4 feet wide by 44 feet long, passenger tracks are 16 feet long on the shortest track. The real yard is curved, but this gives me a good idea about the proportions and the raw flavor.
Wow, that is going to cool. I’ve been fascinated by the Barstow yard for awhile now. I would have loved to model it, but that’s way too big for me. I’ve been working in Barstow 2-3 days a month and I just realized this year that it had a hump yard. I’ve been trying to get a better look every time work in the area. I’ve even asked around to see if there may be a motel with a view of it so I can stay the weekend and explore. You will have it made, your going to have a birds eye view without going anywhere.:thumbs_up:
JohnnyB, I don't know of a motel that overlooks the hump yard. There are some new ones down near the truck stop. They might have some rooms where you can rent a room that overlooks the new yard. The main entrance to the BNSF Barstow Yard. I should know the name of the street...oh well... When you get to the Fosters Freeze (if it's still there) take the street north. You will see a sign that says BNSF Barstow Yard. There is a visitors viewing area just inside the main entrance. It isn't marked so look for the first black topped area to the left. You can park there and see most of the action taking place in the hump yard. I would advise staying in the black topped area, don't go over to the fence and hopefully security will tolerate you. The large yard tower does have a perfect view of the yard and the staff there takes note of any visitors on the property. If you'd like a tour of the yard, you will need to make arrangements ahead of time. Give the BNSF Public Relations office in Los Angeles a call. They will arrange to have the BNSF Police / Security give you a tour. Have fun!
There is another thank-you and acknowledgment I need to make. To Kenneth L. Anthony, a word of appreciation for sending me a plat of the Santa Fe Barstow Yard. I have plans for it. I'm hoping to get more copies made. It will then take a trip to the W.A.R.M a railroad museum in Barstow, Ca. I hope to get it framed and under glass so it can be examined by the visitors. With copies available on a donation basis. Now don't get to excited. I haven't worked out the details with them. I will let you know once the map is in place. The thing is they may already have a map and don't need it. Just a plan.
When was the hump yard built? Was it there in the 40's/50's? I will look again on the plans, but I do not remember seeing one. Also, in talking with a buddy of mine, the US Library of Congress has all of the railroad valuation maps of all railroad track assets. Copies of these can actually be ordered from the Library. I am still looking into the costs. With this information, I can revise my plans to be more of a Layout Design Element (LDE) approach than trying to model the whole line. I can start with Barstow, and then get Boron, Needles, Topick and the Colorado River bridge, followed by Kingman, Seligman, Williams, Flagstaff and Winslow. So I will, like I am doing with the Barstow yard, build out each of these areas using the plot or valuation maps. And then connect them all up with a good long sceniced run until the next LDE has been reached. The connections should be pretty easy since ATSF used a double mainline along this route. I figure in this way there will be a nice balance of local operations and sweeping scenic runs. So I am still working away on Barstow, I just need to figure out how to make the CAD program put a little bend in the yard tracks, there is a slight curvature to the tracks....
Track Information - Design plans After looking at the geometry, and using a little space planning, it looks like the following turnouts will work nicely for the Barstow Yard: The yard ladders will be Fast Tracks #5 turnouts with a 14" divergent route radius. They will be fed by a Fast Tracks #9 turnouts with a 50" divergent route radius. The cross overs at the yard boundaries will also be #9 Fast Track turnouts. For the mainlines: I have high speed cross overs using #12 Fast Track turnouts (82" radius) already made for use in the scenic runs where ATSF switched tracks and ran the "wrong way" because of grade consideration along the Arizona Divide and then came back to "right side" running. I should have used a #14 for this, but I chickened out and used the #12 instead. The length of the cross over is about 2 feet, so the pair of crossovers each side of the divide will take up about 4 feet of space. I did test these on a mockup and ran 85 foot passenger cars with no wobble, shimmys or shakes at a scale 80mph. They just slinkyed between the frogs. I also have built up an assortment of Fast Tracks #10 turnouts with 64" radius for mainline passing sidings. I will be using Micro Engineering Code 55 track that I will weather myself on the mainlines and in the Barstow yard. Industry tracks, small yard tracks, and branch line tracks will be Code 40 hand laid track. Sidings will also be made using hand laid track so the siding will have the different tie spacing than the mainline. I do not see this a such a tough thing to do in that Fast Tracks also has fixtures with the proper tie spacing. That and using the QuickSticks looks like a pretty good way to go. I do not expect to have anymore than 10% of the layout using hand laid track. All of the rest will be flex track. I am not using ME code 40 flex track because I do not want to have to worry about wheel flange issues. Even a recent, 2007, Atlas release of an EMD SD-9 has wheel flanges that hit the ties on the ME code 40 flex track. So, in a nutshell is my approach for my ATSF layout. from the Logical Design Elements to the track implementation. This will be a point to point layout terminating where I run out of floor space, hopefully in Winslow or Flagstaff. When all of the track is in place and running, I plan on hosting a scenic and run event to help get the scenery going. Scenic for a few hours then run for several hours. Or I may outright bribe Jerry (OC Engineer JD) and others........
Hump Yard...Two Yards David and all tuned in, As Andy aka Cajon was saying the new yard was built in 1974. The old yard the one we've been discussing, maps and etc., did not have a hump yard. It was to short, according to old rails. See the attachment below. The new classification yard is the one to the left or west of the old yard. Here, they built a hump yard. One more time in case I confused you. In the attachment below going left to right. The new classification yard is to the left or on the west end. To the right and on the east end is the old yard. The location of the former Santa Fe Passenger Station and Harvey House. So relax, there's no need to worry about all the complexities of a hump yard. I just read where you found a map source. How about that. Be sure to post the web address here so we can all get in on this.rolleyes: Have fun!
Hi Rick, Well I have been searching there, and it is like finding a needle in a haystack. But I will press on. Here is one starting point Railroad Maps Collection If worst comes to worst, I can hit the trail between Barstow and Winslow stopping at every railroad museum along the way. I will be doing that in January anyway when I drive that route to with my camera to take tons of photos to help get the scenery just right.
FWIW, there's a basic map illustration contained in Chard Walker's Cajon - Rail Passage to the Pacific (pg 103), which shows both the earlier yard configuration, as well as the 1974 hump yard addition. The illustration also shows the basic locations of the station and roundhouse, and should be good enough to create a reasonable facsimile of the yard.
Just saw this pic in Steve Schmollinger's web site: Old Barstow Yard photo - steve_schmollinger photos at pbase.com
Video of Barstow Yard Action Here's some video on YouTube I shot at the Barstow yard. [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYrbIskpzUc"]YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.[/nomedia] Video
That's some nice video. Hearing the scanner adds to the experience. Thanks for sharing and I see you have more on the right side to view. Nicely done.
