Nostalgia & History > mundo: OETM excursion to Barstow, 1964

Been enjoying the photos of the Pacific Railroad Society excursion that ran to the Orange Empire Railroad Museum in Perris, CA last Saturday. 

Back in 1964, when it was the Orange Empire Trolley Museum and the freight railroads were still running their own passenger trains, Ed Von Nordeck, TO user mundo, put together a small excursion under the auspices of OETM from LA to Barstow, CA and back.  The consist was two Alco PA-1's, 69L and 67L, pulling just three cars, Santa Fe combine 2544, chair car 3368, and cafe-lounge-obs 1509.  The first and third cars still exist:

http://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/rsearch.cgi?coaches=Atchison+Topeka+&+Santa+Fe+Railroad=2544
https://www.psrm.org/trains/passenger/atsf-1509/

Ed will have to correct me if I'm remembering the story wrong, but as I recall, adding any more cars to the train would have triggered a requirement an extra brakeman.  Just three cars, though, meant a maximum of 150 riders and a $10 ticket price.  The trip didn't sell out completely, but looks like it was a good time nonetheless, with several photo stops and runbys.  Here are some of the slides Ed took during the excursion:

1) A photo runby eastbound at milepost 28 near Prado Dam west of Corona, CA.
2-3) A runby at Alray on the north track on the way up Cajon Pass

---

---

---

4-5) More of the Alray runby
6) Stopped at Barstow, facing eastbound.

---

---

---

7) Turned and ready to head back west
8-9) Photo stop at the flyover at Frost, where the two main line tracks swap sides.  Back in the days before CTC, each track was only signaled for one direction of travel, and Cajon Pass (behind the photographer) was left-hand running so eastbounds could run up the easier grades of the north track.  The flyover got things back to a right-hand-running arrangement.

Thanks to Ed for sharing his photos of this trip from nearly 53 years ago.

---

---

---

In the fifth picture, is the train over Route 66?  In the last picture, is that the Chief going under the excursion?

Steve

Yes in the last photo is the Chief going under.  We had to wait to obtain this photo.

Total passenger count was 137 passengers.  Folks thought I was crazy to charge $10.00 for a day trip, when others were going for 5 & 6.  Bugt got a 3 car train in place of a 10/12 car train of wild railfans.

Please forgive this otherwise cheeky question, why didn't you shoot the front of the Chief? Just curious.

Those were the days !  Nowadays the tickets would be $1000.00 perprson, even if the equipment were available andd the railroad willing to operate it.
Another classic from Ed and Evan ! 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/17 19:15 by The_Chief_Way.

Nice photos Mundo.


How many Platforms did Barstow have?

And how many Passenger Trains served Barstow at that time?

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

SGillings Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In the fifth picture, is the train over Route 66?
>  In the last picture, is that the Chief going
> under the excursion?
>
> Steve

​Yes. Pic #5 shows the train going over what was Route 66.

IIRC, this was the first fan trip I ever went on.  It originated at Pico Rivera to avoid extra LAUPT costs.

Great photos!  Thanks for sharing.

How many other railroads hosted excursions with PAs until the D & H ran so many excursions with PAs through the 1970s?  I think there were excursions with PAs on the Erie Lackawanna, but I cannot think of any others.

Very cool shots!! Excellent!

Larry

GP25 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nice photos Mundo.
>
>
> How many Platforms did Barstow have?
>
> And how many Passenger Trains served Barstow at
> that time?

Jerry, since no one answered your question, I'll give it a shot.  I don't have a 1964 Official Guide, but I do have them from February 1960 and April 1966, so the answer lies somewhere in between.  In February 1960, 4 daily trains came through Barstow on the Santa Fe, 1-2 San Francisco Chief, 17-18 Super Chief/El Capitan, 19-20 Chief, and 123-124 Grand Canyon.  I'm unsure about the mail train 7-8, just where it did carry passengers, although times are shown for its operation west of Barstow toward Bakersfield.  Union Pacific had 4 daily trains through Barstow, 5-6 Mail, 9-10 City of St. Louis, 103-104 City of Los Angeles/Challenger, and tri-weekly (Thursday, Friday, Sunday) 115-116 City of Las Vegas.  By 1966, the only change to the Santa Fe was renumbering the Grand Canyon to 23-24.  Trains 7-8 are still shown in the Guide west of Bakersfield.  On the UP, they had combined 9-10 and 103-104, building the "City of Everywhere", but 5-6 still rain daily, and 115-116, now named the Las Vegas Holiday Special was down to twice weekly, on Friday and Sunday. 

Lee Hower - Sacramento

GP25 Wrote:

> How many Platforms did Barstow have?

The 1971 photos in this old thread show seven platforms at Barstow:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3932935

Thank you Evan and Lee.

Looks like Barstow was a busy little station at one time. 

 

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

GP25 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like Barstow was a busy little station atv one time. 

The size of the Harvey House there would also tend to suggest that.
 

Truly amazing stuff.  

It's heartbreaking seeing stuff like this and comparing it to what we have today.

That first picture is about where the 91 Freeway crosses over the tracks now.     

I was nine years old at the time and would have given a king's ransom to have been there, but other circumstances didn't allow it.  Being the one-and-only railfan in my family and not having a driver's license or money in my pocket determined a lot of things.  

My parents DID take me to Riverside in 1965 and I managed to ride a Santa Claus Special that UP ran from the Riverside Plaza shopping center (adjacent to their track near Magnolia Ave.) to Summit and return.  It was a good deal.  A trainload of kids were being babysat on a train, giving the parents a window of opportunity to do Christmas shopping at the mall.  I remember the train was powered by GP9s, which was rare for a UP passenger train.  The whole operation was something you'd certainly never see today.  The risk management people would go ape-$%#@ over the potential of a runaway train coming down Cajon Pass loaded with kids!        

Thanks Ed and Evan!