Nostalgia & History > Friendly Memories: Flaggin' the Logger

Rear brakeman Dick Kester returns from flagging the Snow Peak Logger on SP's Toledo Branch --Nov 6, 1975



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/12 07:54 by WestinAshahr.

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Thanks for posting the photo. Great shot of an SP employee on one of the old cupola cabooses.

C.C.Chas.

IIRC Dick, having elected to leave the SP, was the #1 conductor on the Willamette & Pacific Railroad when it started operations in 1993. Several years before your picture was taken I would see him occasionally on spot at the Lebanon depot when I passed through there on the OE Sweet Home Logger.

Couldn't help but notice the fusee ash on the sill above the draw-bar...I can still smell the acrid scent of a burning fusee...that, and a few other scents, such as burning brake shoes, creosote on wooden ties on a hot day, and the smell of a coal fired caboose stove, remain indelibly etched in my memory...all part of working on the railroad.

Kester's a regular attendee of one of the local railfan gatherings. He's doing well, it seems, and the stories flow when he's around.

Thanks for showing us another of your great photos, Dan-o!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/12 13:09 by roustabout.

I don't recall seeing the horizontal 'anti-tumble' bar approximately 5 feet above the deck.
Was this standard SP equipment? A regulatory requirement? TIA!
...Lorenzo

567Chant Wrote:
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> I don't recall seeing the horizontal 'anti-tumble'
> bar approximately 5 feet above the deck.
> Was this standard SP equipment? A regulatory
> requirement? TIA!
> ...Lorenzo

Interesting observation- and one I hadn't noted before! A quick survey of other photos from that era shows the bar was common on all types of SP cabooses. Judging from the photos in Tony Thompson's SP caboose book, the bar was not an original item but began to appear in the late 1950's.

Dick is a class act. You could never find a more dedicated employee, in addition to being a fine Engineer/Conductor, he put his ham radio experience to use by taking care of all of W&P's radios in his spare time.

Here are a couple of pictures from his retirement party, held in the EffBee-2 baggage car on the old main across from the Albany depot. He is shown with Bob Carskadon, another fine former SP employee that was a key member of the early W&P team.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/12 11:38 by donaldcurtis.

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There's no end ladder on this caboose?

Starship_Conductor Wrote:
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> There's no end ladder on this caboose?

When the roof walks were removed there was no more need for the end ladder ....