The Barren Creek & Santa Fe Railway Story

I first met Keith Bell in 1963 at a monthly NMRA sponsored meeting at Bass Hill, NSW [Australia]. The quality and workmanship of his HO-scale layout was outstanding and as good as anything appearing in contemporary Model Railroad magazines. Whilst Keith’s “Barren Creek Railroad” was a free-lance prototype with an American theme, it had no connection with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF). At that time I had a passion for the AT&SF, but no layout.

In time Keith left the hobby and prior to his death in 1995, he encouraged me to start building my own HO-scale layout. Hence my layout is dedicated to him and the name “Barren Creek & Santa Fe Railway” is an appropriate tribute to our shared love of trains.

John Parker

“Santa Fe, All the Way … Downunder”

A Brief Technical Overview

Initial construction of the BC&SF moved very slowly, but upon my retirement in 2000, it has since moved ahead in leaps and bounds.

The HO-scale BC&SF layout was built in two small rooms with an overall dimension of approximately 20x9 feet [or 6.1x2.7metres] and utilises multiple levels. The lower level is a simple loop with two opposing, yet overlapping reversing loops shoe-horned in and around Caldera Junction. On the opposite wall are two stub staging yards (Barstow and Argentine) with the main line passing through them.

The hub of activity on the lower level is Bell Junction, where it serves as an interchange between the busy AT&SF main line and BC&SF branch line.

The branch line climbs the infamous “Devil’s Corkscrew” [helix loop] at Caldera Junction to Carbon Bend, and then onto Isadore and Summit. The final destination is Rowlands on the top level which serves as another interchange with the AT&SF and other railroads. Hence the BC&SF could be described as a “Bridge Railroad”.

Access into and through the layout rooms are via two swinging gates, each of which supports multiple track levels. These gates are electrically protected and an audio alarm is sounded when they are not closed or ready for traffic movements.

From its earliest days of operation, CVP’s EasyDCC System was adopted as a means of allowing flexible and transparent operations. When trains started running into the rear room, the first of two wireless handheld throttles were acquired. The DCC system is exclusively wired for locomotive control and an auxiliary 13v DC system supports such things as alarms, lighting, switch motors, signal indicators etc.

Early days saw the use of Peco code 75 rail and turnouts, although there is now a preponderance of hand laid track and customised turnouts. Most of the original Peco turnouts have been modified to make them DCC friendly and more reliable. Turnouts located in hard to reach places use Tortoise brand turnout motors, with manually operated turnouts with electrical connections being the norm.

Mainline track uses code 83 and 75 rail. The branch line uses code 70/75 rail with code 55 rail on its sidings. A small amount of code 100 Peco track is used in the hidden “Loco Pool” area. Minimum radius curves of 18” can be found in a few tight places, but 24” is the preferred standard wherever possible.

The Historical Barren Creek & Santa Fe

There is no actual historical basis for the Barren Creek & Santa Fe Railway [BC&SF]. It is a free-lance layout embracing my love of the Santa Fe Railway during the 1945-53 era, somewhere in the American Southwest.

Nonetheless, there is a pseudo pre-history evident on the layout. The abandoned narrow gauge roadbed of the old Barren Creek Railroad can be seen around the Bell Junction-Dry Wells area. It is testimony to those halcyon days when tiny “steam kettles” hauled freight and passengers at very profitable rates.

However, subsequent hard times together with the “Great Wash Away of 1903” saw an insolvent “Barren Creek Railroad” fall into the hands of an ambitious railroad baron who re-laid standard gauge track on its most profitable branch. Following World War I, the AT&SF gradually bought up increasing blocks of the Barren Creek shares so as to ultimately wrest control of it prior to World War II. Consequently, the “Barren Creek & Santa Fe Railway” came into existence.

Between 1941 and 1953 the significantly shorter and tortuous route of the BC&SF between Bell Junction and Rowlands saw it become the domain of the Santa Fe’s “red ball” freight trains.

A Pictorial Look at the Barren Creek & Santa Fe Railway

[Please note some of these photos were taken at various times of the layout construction].

On the lower level, the AT&SF main line is a continuous loop around both rooms, passing through the east and west staging yards on one wall (see below]. Each turnout in the staging yard [only] has an LED inserted between the rails to indicate the turnout setting. The turnouts are manually thrown by a DPDT slide switch which also changes its LED indicators. They are each assigned a coloured geometric symbol so as to identify its respective slide switch. Along the edge of the layout are the obligatory waybill holders and “maintenance drawers” for placing tools on.

On the opposite wall, the AT&SF main line passes through Bell Junction [below] which serves as an interchange to the BC&SF branch line. The two bridges over these tracks are part of the abandoned narrow gauge right of way. The branch line passes behind the Bell Junction interlocking tower into the rear room where it climbs a steep 3% helix loop before arriving at Carbon Bend.

Carbon Bend’s primary industry is a coal loading facility, although there are nearby team tracks and the nearby Swingate interchange. Directly beneath Carbon Bend is the hidden “Loco Pool” area. As shown below, the fascia drops down to reveal the tracks where unused locomotives are stored, and low voltage Xmas festoon lights can be switched on if required.

The single track branch line continues its 2% climb up to Isadore [below left] where a passing loop and a team track siding permits limited operation. From Isadore the double track reverts back to single track and climbs far above the “Devil’s Corkscrew” helix at Caldera Junction before looping back onto the uppermost level [below right] in the front room. This track immediately branches into three tracks at Summit where west- and east-bound traffic is staged.

The future track plan will see the single track arrive at Rowlands [directly above the lower level staging yards] where it will interchange with both AT&SF and foreign traffic. There will be several industries serviced by the BC&SF between Summit and Rowlands.

The photo [below left] was taken during the construction of the upper level track between Isadore and Summit. The coal train is shown climbing the helix loop between Bell Junction (behind the rear wall) and Carbon Bend. The photo [below right] was taken recently during the pre-scenery work of this same area.

The photo [below left] shows the site of the “Great Wash Away of 1903” (in the centre of the photograph] at Dry Wells (an ironic choice of name]. In the next photograph are the nearby remains of the abandoned narrow gauge “Barren Creek RR” roadbed. The photo [below right] shows a kit-bashed Walthers REA Warehouse beside the Bell Junction freight yards which was the first area built. Immediately to the right of this building is the scratch built highway overpass and a mirror to create the illusion of the yard extending beyond it.

The next photo shows in the foreground, the track on the access [swinging] gate at Dry Wells when it is fully open. Compare this scene with the photograph above left.

And the saga of the Barren Creek & Santa Fe Railway will continue …