Western Railroad Discussion > AT&SF Railroader Bob Wagner remembered

Chard Walker called today with the sad news that Bob Wagner, died last week in Crescent City, CA.  A memorial service will be held 11am, Weds Jan 28th, at St. John's Episcopal Church 1407 N. Arrowhead Ave.,San Bernardino.   
 
W.R. Wagner was born about 1918 per Chard.  Bob Wagner was the Santa Fe Telegrapher who apprenticed Chard at Summit, CA. about 1946/1947.  W.R. Wagner was also the last Agent at March Field. (Agency Closed May 1, 1980).   Bob retired shortly thereafter, having bumped into the Agency at Riverside.   Chard said that Bob and his wife moved to Crescent City last April from San Bernardino, to live with a daughter. 
 
Some notable photos were made in and around Colton Tower while Bob Wagner worked there.  The 1953 photo by Jack Whitmeyer,  published on page 60 of Growing Up with Trains, A Southern California Album by Richard Steinheimer and Donald Sims, shows a UP Gas Turbine, about to cross the SP diamonds.  Now that sufficient years have passed, the story can be told that Bob Wagner, called Jack Whitmeyer, who was working in the ATSF Engineering Dept upstairs in San Bernardino, about the UP Turbine being enroute.  The light was terrible at San Bernardino, for photography.  Bob replied something to the effect of, "I can hold them until you get here!"  He then held a signal on the UP Eastbound, until Jack could drive to Colton Tower.  The photo clearly shows a UP caboose and dynamometer car, for the use of UP officers,  coupled between the turbine tender and freight train.  This was before Colton Tower had a radio, so the UP folks sat west of the tower, looking at a red signal, and apparently did not get impatient enough, to get off and go to the phone.   Undoubtedly, the engineer on the UP Turbine sounded some repeated route signals.
 
There is also a humorous, posed photo of Bob Wagner, on page 77, of John R. Signor's Beaumont Hill.   John's caption reads, "As one of the busiest interlocking plants in the southwest, working Colton Tower required a high degree of professionalism, alertness and skill.  W. Robert Wagner keeps up this tradition of vigilance at Colton Tower in 1940."  The photo shows Bob with his feet up on the operator's desk, apparently passed out, from exhaustion.   
 
Another of Santa Fe's true railroaders has passed away.
 
Hopefully everyone has seen the January and February 2004 issues of Trains Magazine, with a two part article by Chard Walker, about life on Cajon Pass.