Western Railroad Discussion > Vintage 1940's Santa Fe photos

A series of 35 1940s vintage Santa Fe photos in the BusinessInsider. Thought you all might enjoy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/historic-train-photos-2012-1#servicing-engines-at-coal-and-sand-chutes-at-argentine-yard-santa-fe-rr-kansas-city-kansas-10

FYI - My parents grew up in ND and both my grandfather and great grandfather worked on the Great Northern. Thus my love for the GN. However I grew up in Wichita Kansas and have fond memories of the Santa Fe. Spent a lot of time pre-Amtrak and post-Amtrak in the evenings at Union Station in Wichita and chasing trains between Cassoday and Emporia Kansas. One of the best stretches for train watching.

Love all the photos and videos you guys post. Keep up the good work.

Color from the 1940s, great stuff! Wonder what the shutter speed had to be back in those days.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Jack Delano's FSA/OWI photos come up fairly frequently on here. Shorpy.com is another place where many of the images get reposted, and the Library of Congress site has both the color and the more extensive black and white collection of FWA/OWI images (trains and a lot of other things).

B&W: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/
Color: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsac/

Searching the site is a little clunky, which is probably why the images keep getting "rediscovered" and reposted in other more convenient places. Search terms like "Delano Santa Fe" or "Delano Argentine" will get you started, though. Once you click on an image you like, the "Browse neighboring items by call number" link will usually get you the set of thumbnails of images taken just before or just after the one you selected.

I love those old photos. I still remember watching the big trip hammer in the black smith shop when I worked at Topeka in the early 70's. The largest thing I ever saw it pounding was a red hot car axle, not sure what they were making out of it. When they were using it, you could feel the floor thump across the alley in the machine shop building, and over on the West Rip. They said it would register on the seismograph at Lawrence, Kansas, on the KU campus.

Fantastic!!

Fabulous photos, none of which I had seen before. Jack Delano
certainly got around.

A couple of random thoughts. First, a coal tower in Gallup, NM??
Now that's a new one. I thought by this time, everything west
of Belen was oil fired.

Second. The shot labeled Willard, NM, just looks wrong to me.
There's no deep trench at Willard that shows in the photograph.
I'm thinking this is more likely near Abo, just west of Mountainaire.
The trench looks like the feature the Abo River dug in the upper
end of Abo Canyon. Just goes to show that people had trouble back
in the 40's labeling their photos.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

ntharalson Wrote:

> A couple of random thoughts. First, a coal tower
> in Gallup, NM?? Now that's a new one. I thought by this time,
> everything west of Belen was oil fired.

Apparently not. This 1943 Delano shot of a train taking coal is uncaptioned:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/owi2001022527/PP/resource/

but the very next shot in sequence, showing the end of the same train with the coal chute in the distance, is labeled Grants, NM:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/owi2001022528/PP/resource/

Delano also photographed the chute at Marmon, NM (Mesita) in color from the east and black and white from the west:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsac.1a34742/?co=fsac
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8d27223/?co=fsa

> Second. The shot labeled Willard, NM, just looks wrong to me.
> There's no deep trench at Willard that shows in the photograph.

Locations for Delano's photos on the road are often approximate - note that the Marmon chute is labeled as "near Laguna" in color and "near Quirk" in the B&W. Lots of open country shots are "(someplace) vicinity" or, like the closeup of the Grants coal chute, simply untitled. It's another good reason to use the "browse neighboring items by call number" option on the loc.gov site - the untitled images don't show up in a keyword search.

> I'm thinking this is more likely near Abo, just
> west of Mountainaire.

I think you're right, somewhere west of Abo down toward Scholle. By the way, no "e" in Mountainair.

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ntharalson Wrote:
>
> > A couple of random thoughts. First, a coal tower
>
> > in Gallup, NM?? Now that's a new one. I thought
> by this time,
> > everything west of Belen was oil fired.
>
> Apparently not. This 1943 Delano shot of a train
> taking coal is uncaptioned:
>
> http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/ow
> i2001022527/PP/resource/
>
> but the very next shot in sequence, showing the
> end of the same train with the coal chute in the
> distance, is labeled Grants, NM:
>
> http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/ow
> i2001022528/PP/resource/
>
> Delano also photographed the chute at Marmon, NM
> (Mesita) in color from the east and black and
> white from the west:
>
> http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsac.1a34742/
> ?co=fsac
> http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8d27223/?
> co=fsa
>
> > Second. The shot labeled Willard, NM, just looks
> wrong to me.
> > There's no deep trench at Willard that shows in
> the photograph.
>
> Locations for Delano's photos on the road are
> often approximate - note that the Marmon chute is
> labeled as "near Laguna" in color and "near Quirk"
> in the B&W. Lots of open country shots are
> "(someplace) vicinity" or, like the closeup of the
> Grants coal chute, simply untitled. It's another
> good reason to use the "browse neighboring items
> by call number" option on the loc.gov site - the
> untitled images don't show up in a keyword search.
>
>
> > I'm thinking this is more likely near Abo, just
>
> > west of Mountainaire.
>
> I think you're right, somewhere west of Abo down
> toward Scholle. By the way, no "e" in
> Mountainair.

Thanks, Evan. And spelling was never my strong suit.
But then, you knew that.! LOL

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA