Nostalgia & History > Seabord Coast Line GP30 on the SP

Going through the late Lee Carlson's slides I found three slides showing SCL GP30 on the SP. There are no notes on the slides but I would guess they were taken on the Coast Line somewhere in southern California. I'm sure someone on this list can peg the exact location. -Lee Carlson photo, Sellar Nugent collection. - Tony J.

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Slide #2. - Lee Carlson photo, Sellar Nugent collection. - Tony J.

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In this last shot you can also see U25B SP6715 as the trailing unit. Lee Carlson photo, Sellar Nugent collection. - Tony J.

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TonyJ Wrote:
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> I'm sure someone on this list
> can peg the exact location.

Saugus.

Definately Saugus...used to live there...that's San Fernando road paralleling the tracks.

Mike
Henderson, NV

Thanks Topper and Mike for the exact location. - Tony J.

I recognized it as Saugus in the very first photo, but especially the last. Wish it still looked like that though!

Pulling For You, SP! Nice! Thanks for posting.

To add to the story... The train is just passing the Thatcher Glass Co. spur, on the right side. The switch was just at the end of those steel buildings, behind the locomotives. Sand and ash went in, in covered hoppers. Glass jars, etc., came out in box cars. A nice thing for SP employees that worked the Saugus Local, that switched the plant, were the big piles of gloves that the glass co. provided for their workers. It was always easy to get a few 'extra' pairs for RR use, since the SP didn't provide them. The caboose is on the Saugus siding, and the next track over was known as the "Bunnell" track. I can't remember how it got that name. In the caboose shot, at the far left end of the train, would be where the Saugus wye went off toward Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula and finally meeting up with the SP coast main at Montalvo, CA (just north of Oxnard, CA). As you may know, that 'branch' trackage was once the mainline into the Los Angeles basin (from the coast), via Saugus, and then through the "Newhall Tunnel". You also had the "Oil Spur" (piped from the Newhall Refining Co.) right where the MetroLink station is now. And HASA Chemical, still there today, which is right across Drayton St., where the depot was. BTW, the depot was moved down the tracks where San Fernando Road crosses the tracks. Another company, Keysor Century, made PVC pellets from the Vinyl Chloride gas that we used to spot in the plant. Out came covered hoppers full of pellets. That place is now disappearing, too. It shut down a couple of years ago, and is being dismantled. A lumber company is now where the depot was, with a spur. And out towards "Via Princessa", the G-P (Georgia-Pacific) lumber / building supply moved there from the old place they had on the Van Nuys (Burbank Branch) out at Chatsworth, CA.

The Saugus pictured here, is the way I prefer to remember Saugus... the depot, train-orders, etc. Add to that 110+ degree days, the wind,... it could be, at times, almost like RRing in the 'old west'... but only 'over the hill' from L.A.'s Taylor Yard, by about 30 miles. But sometimes Saugus seemed to be worlds-away from L.A. Always, the best part of the day was "beans" at the Saugus Cafe (still there) or the 'rib joint' (gone) just a bit further up the road, just beyond the west-wye switch.

More good times remembered... forgot to add that the glass company was bought-out, and then closed and scrapped.

Take Care, Stay Safe, Have Fun!

Larry

Larry, really love your backstories...really adds something special to a very simple image.

Thank you, Mr. Cassidy! I must have missed it the first time around, so I 'tagged' the scene this time. (BTW, they do have those photos you sent at Costco, they found them 'again', today. Hopefully, I'll get them tomorrow... thanks!)

Take Care, Stay Safe, Have Fun!

Larry

Don't forget the smell of the onion field across the wash from the tracks. Remember the hot August nights ? the aromatic smell ? before the homes were built?

Hey, Rock... Ah, I now recall the smell well! (Saugus, not quite Oxnard!)

Take Care, Stay Safe, Have Fun!

Larry