Nostalgia & History > SP hauling frozen meat

The livestock riding on the headend of this westbound near Truckee had to have been feeling a little bit of a chill. I know my A** was frozen but youth and the prospect of capturing trains on Donner kept me going. A trip through summit tunnel with four F's sceaming upgrade might thaw them out a bit before their trip to the big grill in the sky. Even in 1961 wooden cattle cars were still in mainline service of course with steel underframes. Some how single tracking parts of Donner and tunnels you can now drive through seems to have taken a lot of the luster off this historic hunk of track. I cant even bare the thought of seeing what was once Norden. I know its all gone in the name of progress but give me an operator at Truckee who would give you a lineup of trains to expect today and saying,"Well kid I hope you get some good pictures".A time well before you could actually listen to the crews talking to each other on some device you could hold in your hands. The only way we knew the train was coming was the sound of a distant horn or the sound of dynamics and if you were lucky enough the trackside indicator would show the blade straight up then it was a mad dash to find the perfect photo spot. Oh well its all crap now.

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Know the feeling.. times have changed, indeed. Still, scanners don't get you home either.

Reminds me of being a teenager and hanging out waiting for WP f-units in Pleasanton. There were the target signals (same ones still there) and a special phone number given to me by another railfan I met trackside once. It was to the dispatcher (I think in Stockton) and they had no problems getting a few calls from fans back then. Bet you couldn't get away with that today. I still don't own a scanner.

photobob Wrote:
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> Oh well its all crap now.

Yes it is.

Reminds me of the "Farmer John special" on UP (which lasted until 1990 or 91) 6 to 12 double or triple deck livestock cars loaded with hogs for the Farmer John (Clougherty Packing) plant in Vernon (near LA). They'd come through San Bernardino around midnight, just as I was going off duty from the radio shop. Depending on the wind direction, sometimes you could smell 'em before you could see 'em, especially in the summer. You could also hear 'em: grunts of protest would emanate from the cars if the "hogger" didn't handle the slack carefully. Back in 1970 the cars were UP, but towards the end, Cloughery had their own fleet; the reporting marks were HOGX. Soooo-eee!

About three years ago our NRHS chapter newsletter published Jack Bowden's memories of the "The Last Livestock Train" on the SP. IIRC it was at Dunsmuir that it all took place. - Tony J.

Axy_Dent Wrote:
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> photobob Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
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>
> > Oh well its all crap now.
>
> Yes it is.

...and an annoying cliche to boot.

>>> Oh well its all crap now.<<<

I bet the old timers were saying this in 1961--in the previous ten years the RR would have gone from about 100% steam to 100% diesel, and probably laid off about half of the lineside employees...

I'm glad you were out there shooting photos then, and I'm glad folks are out now, too.

Gob