Nostalgia & History > The late great Sacramento Shops

Taken back in June of 1986. The locomotives are gone but the buildings are still there...for now.

Adam

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Look at that lovely SD45 from the first order and looking very clean at that! Appears it even has the low mounted brake cylinders.

Cheers, Jim Fitch

Thanks Adam!

The Sacramento Locomotive Works had some serious labor problems.

The SP tried to keep them working but there were too many incidents of industrial sabotage.

One example shared with me was the power assemblies (cylinder, piston, and head) for GE engines that arrived in San Antonio to repair some of the U-series locomotives. After a couple of very premature failures they found oil passages blocked with matchsticks. After that they always tore down any component sent out of Sacramento a got the passages opened up before putting them on the locomotive.

This was at a time when the GE price for a rebuilt power assembly was lower than the SP's internal cost, but for "labor relations" reasons they had to keep the workforce at Sacramento employed.

One very senior officer told me the place never really settled the shopcraft strike of the 1920s, the grandsons of the strikers and the grandsons of the officials were still acting out their battles as the world crumbled about them.

Nice shot of the 8830 in better times. Thanks for sharing Adam.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Looks like the 8830 had recently been repainted, despite her age, leaking oil, and the fact that SP was started to retire all non-rebuilt SD45's.

Too bad about the worker problems at SLW. It's no secret the quality of locomotives leaving the shop had inconsistent reliability.

Great post.

SP 8830 was already retired at the time of the photograph. It would later be sold to Helm and subsequently leased to the Utah Railway.