Nostalgia & History > Tehachapi vs. Santa Fe SD-45 5539

On what should have been an otherwise unremarkable day, Santa Fe SD-45 5539, was a stellar player in the highest form of railroading drama.

It all began with a typical early spring trip to Tehachapi. In the days before I had a scanner, a trip such as this would require a lot of repositioning, to take advantage of the late winter/early spring sun.

The morning finds me shooting Santa Fe 5539 West (with west-facing U-36-C 8715), leading a “gravy train” just as she is dropping down into the horseshoe curve above the East siding switch at Caliente. A Santa Fe Eastbound is waiting for the opposing train to clear, in the South siding (or so I thought).

Photo 1:

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Wow! Great catch. Sometimes everything works out just right.

Excellant photo-logue...of your adventure...great shots.

Mike

Great story again, thanks.

Markb

VERY nice photos. Dammn, that new scanner does a right fine job!
Joe

WOW...great photos and a neat history of action in the Tehachapis. I love happy endings. Thanks for the trip back in time. When I was in that area in '74 I also noticed a lot of Santa Fe freights had SD24's and Alligators on them. That was a great year for ATSF train watching.
C.C.Chas.

       Quite a bit of the information is missing on each photo. The words just end before the sentence does. What happened ?

Agreed. What happened to missing info?  Great photos otherwise.