Nostalgia & History > WAG Wednesday: More FTs, maroon style!

While doing some more scanning I found this perfect follow-up to last week’s Santa Fe FT thread. It’s still an FT theme, this time from that “Mighty Fine Line”. Enjoy…

1. CRI&P 71 & 71B are westbound with a reefer block/manifest at Bishop siding just west of Topeka, KS on December 12, 1959.
Photo by William A. Gibson (WAG) Sr.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/22 02:07 by santafe199.

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Without the four portholes on the side I had to look at the close coupled A/B units to convince myself that we have a pair of FT's here.  Nice shot.

boejoe Wrote: > ... Without the four portholes on the side...
Bill put a notation on this slide about the lack of portholes, but didn't elaborate. (There's only so much room on a 2" x 2" slide mount) But I am confident some of TO's resident Rock Island experts can expand on this subject. Personally, I'm wondering if they came from EMD this way, or did the Rock Island modify them somewhere along the line...

Lance/199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/16 08:37 by santafe199.

      Don't know about the porthole timing but the Rock Island would also accumulate empty reefers in Liberal, Ks until they had two yard tracks full and then run them west. In order to do that, they had to get their air and then double over to the second track and put things together. That meant covering Kansas Avenue and two other streets west of main street while getting their air. I don't know of any complaints back in the 60s - early 70s doing this. Also don't know if the switcher ever pulled the rear half out east and put it on them so only 8th street was covered for a while. I think this made trains close to 8000 ft going west.

Lance; another Beautiful photo !

But what is that on the top of the Lead unit between the Horn and the top of the ladder on the Firemens side of the cab ?

miralomarail Wrote:

> But what is that on the top of the Lead unit
> between the Horn and the top of the ladder on the
> Firemens side of the cab ?

Don't know but notice the B unit also has one on the far end.

miralomarail Wrote: > ... what is that on the top of the Lead unit...
I have nary a clue...

That's a beauty!
JB

Lance, et al, I hope you know better than that! wag216  (four portholes)

> 1. CRI&P 71 & 71B are westbound with a reefer
> block/manifest at Bishop siding just west of
> Topeka, KS

Hello,

I can't see the whole train, but it appears to be one of the empty reefer drags headed back west (reefer blocks were groups of loaded cars moving eastbound).  In the 1970s those trains were operated as "01R" symbols, not sure what they were called in the 1950s.

Take care,

Mark

The Rock modified them. The Rock had a penchant for externally modifying its F units.

Best regards,

Rob L.

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> boejoe Wrote: > ... Without the four portholes on
> the side...
> Bill put a notation on this slide about the lack
> of portholes, but didn't elaborate. (There's only
> so much room on a 2" x 2" slide mount) But I am
> confident some of TO's resident Rock Island
> experts can expand on this subject. Personally,
> I'm wondering if they came from EMD this way, or
> did the Rock Island modify them somewhere along
> the line...
>
> Lance/199

Not your typical later track maintenance!

That is an oil cooler on the roof. The FT's got them in this location by the Rock Island early on.

Keith Turley
Monrovia, California

boejoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Without the four portholes on the side I had to
> look at the close coupled A/B units to convince
> myself that we have a pair of FT's here.  Nice
> shot.

Not only did they change the side panels but they also replaced the FT numberboards with the later F-unit style.  

8000ft of 40 foot reefers would be about 170 cars, nice train. But I did see a few Santa Fe trains in Amarillo about that size, one with 167 mty reefers, about half of them CNW's.