Nostalgia & History > Texas Style:The Eighties

To add to Lance's comments about power on the Texas lines & B units in message http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?18,4036896,4039464#msg-4039464 and to show a continuation of similar consists shown in Gary’s fine photos from message http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4035341 , I offer a photo of Texas Style from the 1980’s from the camera of the late L. E. Raby taken in September of 1985.

Threading through S-curves three geeps lead an intermodal train of TOFC, COFC and autoracks eastbound through the narrows at Valley Mills, TX on the Santa Fe’s First District between Temple and Cleburne on the Southern Division.  My notes don't show which train this was but it was a hot one out of Houston easily making track speed with the non-turbo 567’s chanting for all their worth making it hard to keep up with on the parallel highway.  The train is coming down the 1.25% Manhattan grade and is getting a break for a bit but after several miles the hogger will give the trio the spurs for the 1.4% climb into Meridian.  As previously mentioned in the above links we didn’t get the newest power that lived on the Transcon but got to see a good variety of old and new though we used to joke about the early stuff still pulling some of the ‘hottest’ trains the division had to offer.  Santa Fe wasn’t the only railroad to do this in the region.  A little over a hundred miles away the SP had a similar show on the Sunset Route with assortments of aged GP9 and GP20’s pulling the hot COFC/TOFC traffic amid braces of tunnel motors and SD45’s doing the same between LA and New Orleans.

You’ll notice the fresh paint on the units, no doubt from recently having had work done at Cleburne and being kept close to home to iron out any kinks that may surface.  For those interested in locomotives, the lead unit has a unique background having been built by EMD as a cabless GP7 booster in March 1953, numbered 2790A and delivered in zebra paint.  After years of playing second fiddle working as a B unit in road-switcher's dress in August of 1978 the unit was rebuilt into a GP9, given a ‘Topeka’ cab and new number 2258 (the second unit to carry that number-the first a VO1000 scrapped in ‘67).  Whether lugging dogs or fast manifests 2258 continued on through the years later being leased to the Utah Railway for a while before returning home in 1999 to what had become the BNSF.  Though assigned new BNSF number 1647, but never wearing it, the geep languished in storage at Topeka, KS and was later moved to Pasco, WA.
 
Enjoy!
Tom Kline
Houston   
 

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nice one, Tom.

Excellent post, Tom.  Thank you

Excellent shot your Mr. Raby got here! It must have been a bit frustrating to play a constant second fiddle to the main mainline up in Amarillo...

Lance/199

What an outstanding photo, nice comments as well.
JB

Outstanding

Posted from Android

To me, it seems a little unusual to see an ATSF unit with a blue end sill/plow.  This really stands out.  Thought they were always black!

Nice shot by Mr. Raby.
Thanks for all the interesting info in your post.