Railroaders' Nostalgia > Santa Fe still smiles

While spending a huge part of my 1960s growing up years in Abilene, KS I had a virtual front row seat from my Grandparents’ house on SW 4th St. From that house, now long gone, I could turn my young grade school eyes north and see all sorts of RR activity around the Santa Fe depot a mere block away. I can vaguely remember seeing black engines trimmed with those silver zebra stripes. But the overwhelming majority of my early childhood gazing was upon the original blue-trimmed-with-yellow engines. What struck me most was I could easily read the huge “smiling” letters: Santa Fe on the boxy engines (Geeps & FM units). And somehow I understood why the letters on those round engines (F-units) were so much smaller. Those letters didn’t have to smile, because another smile was already wrapped around the nose! Yesiree-bub: By age 7, or there abouts, I had the Santa Fe ALL figured out…

Those magical letters were a huge factor in my becoming an avid fan of the Santa Fe instead of my home town road Union Pacific. I often took adolescent comfort in those letters. I would smile right back any time I looked at them. As I grew from a grade school aged railfan up into an adult, camera-totin’ railfan the smile was always there. I even ended up working for that Santa Fe smile for the first 9 years of my RR career. That smile followed me as my career took me up to Montana. Though the Santa Fe ceased to exist in a merger now 20 years old, that smile still blessed me. It showed up semi-regularly on trains that I ran for MRL.

And now that I’m retired and back home in Kansas I can still find that old smile now & then. As I was visiting a friend in Matfield Green last June a westbound train roared by high up on the embankment behind his house, and I was ready with my camera. As those unexpected, but familiar red letters entered my viewfinder another smile spread across my face…

1. Red & Silver BNSF 647 passes through Matfield Green, KS on June 29, 2015. This latest smile was shot from the property of Mr Floyd Beck.

Thanks for looking!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Smile on, santafe199 . To me, the Santa Fe will live on forever!  Santa Fe................All The Way!

SantaFeRuss