Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe in Kansas

Probably an Oklahoma City autotrain at Matfield Green about 1995.

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The 55 permanent speed sign in your picture reminded me of a trip as a very young fireman in about 1963 on an eastbound train in the middle of the night.  We had left Cassidy and it seamed as though we were really flying.  I didn't want the engineer to think I was checking on him so slipped out my flashlight and my pocket watch and timed the next mile.  We were doing almost 80 mph.  I informed the engineer and his reply was, as he pointed to the speedometer, we're only going 60.  I said I didn't care what the speedometer read but we needed to slow down.  He didn't take my word for it but he did check the next mile himself, then slowed down the train.  I really don't know just how fast we entered the 55 mph curves but it was way over the speed limit.  This taught me not to rely on someone else just because they were older and had lots more experience than I had.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, I wouldn't have rated him more than a "2" and that would have probably been way too high.

Mark Cole
Temple, TX   

Neat consist.  Appears to be B40-8, GP40X and the lone SF30B.

Eric

Scary story mark. That must have been very unnerving not to be in control of the situation.

Indeed!

- Jeff Carlson

sd39u Wrote:
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> Neat consist.  Appears to be B40-8, GP40X and the
> lone SF30B.
>
> Eric