Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe at Sand Cut 38 years ago

In a Jan 1973 trip out to the Needles Sub the weather was dark and cloudy so I decided to head west to the Tehachapis. Shortly after arriving at Sand Cut 15 miles west of Bakersfield, CA on SP's Mojave Sub an eastbound appeared down the long 15 mile or so tangent from Bakersfield led by a nice set of DL600's at the time in captive service between Bakersfield and Barstow [top] with a four unit helper set cut in about three fours of the way back in the train [middle]. Not far behind came another eastbound led by a then new paint 45 [bottom]. As it turned out I believe this was the last year of active service for the "gators" and I am glad I turned around and headed west toward the sun.
JB

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WOW!

The sound must have been great!! Any more with the 4 RSD15's?

Ron

http://www.calcoastrails.com/photos/

Does the gator have anything to do with the BCS? Cuz if it does, we're gonna throw down.

Utah is #1.

On one of my many camping trips to the Tehachapis, this one being at the end of May in 1974, A lot of the Santa Fe trains had a mix of EMD SD24s and ALCo Alligators. I believe that was the last year that they ran over the Tehachapis as I didn't see any after that trip. They was a mix of other units too, but it seemed more of the trains had the 24s and alligators than any other units. Have a bunch of photos of them, just none of them scanned at the present time. Had to go back to one of my Tehachapi files to make sure of the date. Only Alligator photo available was taken April 12th, 1970. Taken at Walong in an Eastbound train sandwiched between two SD24s.

C.C.Chas.

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