Nostalgia & History > Old (1949-50) Photos from Assoc. of American RR (Part 2

(continued......what railroad and location?)

Photo #4 (AAR print #12 labeled 'The Locomotive Engineer in the Cab')....western RR location?

Photo #5 (print #42 - 'Icing the Refrigerator Cars').......got to be S. California......

Photo #6 (print #44 - 'Livestock Arriving at the Stockyards')....probably Midwest.....

(.....a few more old prints another day if anyone is interested)

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Top one looks like westbound on Miramar Hill Santa Fe San Diego line but speedometer shows NINETY MPH! Don't think that is a ninety mph curve.
JB

The locomotive control stand does not have dynamic brake control, which rules out the SP, UP, or ATSF.
The reefers look to be N & W, which rules out California, as they would have been PFE, the joint venture of the SP and UP if they were loaded out here, or SFRC I think on the ATSF.

They may have cut and paste the scene outside of the cab shot through the windshield, 90MPH---no way.

90 mph possible with ultramax superelevation!!!

That cab interior shot is a dead ringer for a scene from some railroad publicity movie, I'm pretty sure. Maybe the one about the engineer that was arguing with the fireman or conductor and missed a signal (because he was looking across the cab) after 11 hours or so of driving into the sun?

In any case the lighting feels very artificial. (And the light through the fireman's window onto the dash doesn't match the angle of the sunlight on the exterior scene.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/14 22:26 by lwilton.

It was not unusual for alterations to be made in the darkroom for publicity photos in that era. For example, one Wabash photo has "Wabash" on a tender which they never did. Another Wabash photo shows a mainline freight with an ABA F7 consist in a track at Decatur that didn't exist. They took liberties for sure but still, they are fun to view.

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> It was not unusual for alterations to be made in
> the darkroom for publicity photos in that era.

That might explain how the scandalous 1954 Western Pacific timetable came into being.

It seems that WP had to hastily pull their September 26, 1954 timetable from circulation do to an embarrassing printing mistake, wherein a publicity photo of a waiter serving dinner to some dining car patrons shows what appears to be a part of the male anatomy is hanging out from under the waiter's immaculate white jacket. Here's a report from another WP fan who had spoken with WP PR Director Art Lloyd about the timetable.

"As I suspected, Art Lloyd was VERY much involved in the entire fiasco----although this [the timetable] was a sales item, as PR Director he raced around with the Marketing Department people trying to scoop them all up off the shelves as fast as possible. The photos for the timetable were taken by the usual photographer, John Brennis and printed by Dover Litho----after they had been "on the street" for a week or so, an item appeared in Herb Caen's column about "the Western Pacific pornographic timetable." Art says that this was what tipped all of them off to the offending "addition"----he said that no one in WP caught it before or after it was printed----he also said that someone from WP had to have been the one to tip off Herb Caen. At any rate, it was a printing error---back in the days when photos were printed from metal plates, something in the process had gotten on the plate in that particular location----there was no sign of it in the photographer's negatives. The waiter in the photo, an actual employee, was absolutely mortified and as a result of this, the printer had to make cash settlements to him and the photographer as well. Art said that everyone was absolutely embarrassed beyond belief."

SOURCE:
http://calzephyr.railfan.net/tt54.html

The photo:

http://www.californiazephyr.org/images/Images_RR_Jumbo/California_Zephyr/timetables/WP/WP_54_TT/shadow_image.jpg



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/14 04:58 by CA_Sou_MA_Agent.

wyemarsh Wrote:
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> (continued......what railroad and location?)
>
> Photo #4 (AAR print #12 labeled 'The Locomotive
> Engineer in the Cab')....western RR location?
>
> Photo #5 (print #42 - 'Icing the Refrigerator
> Cars').......got to be S. California......

Looks like it could actually be a Midwest location.
>
> Photo #6 (print #44 - 'Livestock Arriving at the
> Stockyards')....probably Midwest.....
>
> (.....a few more old prints another day if anyone
> is interested)

Railroad names were always obscured in old AAR pamphlets and booklets. I remember seeing photos of cars that looked like "N&W" cars, except that they were relettered as "E&W" or sometimes "N&S."