Nostalgia & History > E Unit Friday: UP #937

Another slide purchased on eBay:

Union Pacific E8A #937 leads an A-B-B-B-A lashup, the power for the eastbound City of St. Louis ascending Cajon Pass at Cajon, sometime in 1964.  Depending on the exact date, this might actually be the combined City of Los Angeles-City of St. Louis.  This is a Blackhawk Films duplicate of a Frank H. Wolsford slide.

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the best shot this year

Really a scenic slide!
This is why UP could operate through the mountains with E Units.  They had five on this train.  The Bs really gave the consist a finished appearance.
Southern's normal Washington-Atlanta power during 1970s for Southern Crescent was four E Units, all As.
GN unsuccessfully tried to operate the Empire Builder with only two E7s.  To have made it work, they probably would have needed at least four, maybe five.
Thanks for posting.
ALLEN    

regarding the photo ... would that be an ominous sky or an image taken at dusk or dawn ... to me it looks like stormy skies but i'm an east coaster and only having traveled down I-15 once in 2000 and not familiar with the atmospheric conditions around Cajon ??? ...

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
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> regarding the photo ... would that be an ominous
> sky or an image taken at dusk or dawn ... to me it
> looks like stormy skies but i'm an east coaster
> and only having traveled down I-15 once in 2000
> and not familiar with the atmospheric conditions
> around Cajon ??? ...

Could be the typical "marine layer" associated with the costal clouds typical of LA from late April through July....aka "June gloom".

Could be a dupe.

Uncle Joe

Out_Of_Service Wrote:
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> regarding the photo ... would that be an ominous
> sky or an image taken at dusk or dawn ... to me it
> looks like stormy skies but i'm an east coaster
> and only having traveled down I-15 once in 2000
> and not familiar with the atmospheric conditions
> around Cajon ??? ...

Having lived near Cajon in the 60s and 70s, I can tell you this is the result of a storm.

4 units on the Southern Crescent was overkill... 3 would have been enough for a 15-car train on the Southern main line. But Claytor wanted the train to be able to make up lost time. Closer to 1979, the locomotives began to have reliability problems and 4 was insurance.

ctillnc Wrote:
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> 4 units on the Southern Crescent was overkill... 3
> would have been enough for a 15-car train on the
> Southern main line. But Claytor wanted the train
> to be able to make up lost time. Closer to 1979,
> the locomotives began to have reliability problems
> and 4 was insurance.

Agree with your comments that fourth unit on Southern Crescent was to provide the capability of making up time.
My understanding is that on the occasions they operated two sections, they used three units per section.
The real point, though, that I was trying to make was that two E7s were hopelessly inadequate to power the Empire Builder.  They probably needed four or five to avoid any need for helpers.
ALLEN
   

That is what a Class I railroad streamliner should look like.  Yowser!

If this were 1964 i believe the number boards on the engine would have read 103 or 104 (COLA)   or  9 or 10  (COSL).
In the later 1960s the engine number boards reflected the actual engine number rather than the train number

jeff

jsalba Wrote:
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> If this were 1964 i believe the number boards on
> the engine would have read 103 or 104 (COLA)   or
>  9 or 10  (COSL).
> In the later 1960s the engine number boards
> reflected the actual engine number rather than the
> train number
>
> jeff

Jeff,

Thanks for pointing that out!

jsalba Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If this were 1964 i believe the number boards on
> the engine would have read 103 or 104 (COLA)   or
>  9 or 10  (COSL).
> In the later 1960s the engine number boards
> reflected the actual engine number rather than the
> train number
>
> jeff

Santa Fe never let the UP have train number in the indicators while on Santa Fe rail. They were required to change to the engine number.

 

I think UP changed from train number to locomotive number around 1962, but not 100% sure.  No reference materials at hand right now.

The lead unit appears to have had its paint freshened on the entire nose below the roof, and also on the center access door. By the late 1960s most UP E-units looked pretty war-weary and faded. 1964 seems plausible given the condition of the units. The note about Cajon and train vs. engine numbers in the indicators while operating over Santa Fe rails is something discussed on TO in several posts as I recall, including here by UP's John Bromley (Copy19):

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3031782,3031782#msg-3031782

~ BZ

still hs an rpo

still has an rpo