Western Railroad Discussion > FRRS Portola's "RR Days 2005" Starring the UP1983

Had the pleasure of attending the FRRS Portola RR Museum's "Railroad Days" this past Saturday. Believe it or not but it was also my first time to Portola so aside from the usual lot of stationary equipment, I was quite entertained as a FRRS newbie.

Star of the show was UP1983 posing alongside the WP805A facing east after being cautiously wyed or rather "ballooned" the previous day. Fun ti get up close to her in good light again and even better to sit up in the cab, shoot the s--t with the UP Hogg (on loan for the weekend) and see some familiar faces around the museum grounds. Nice to meet you bradleymckay, cool to see "Da Other Ryan" Wilkerson up there with family and good to see you again working hard with the FRRS gang Mr. Epling.

Big thanks to driver "Colon" Werkema and backseat navigator "Smedley" Johannessen for making the foamin' carpool, well interesting and different. Not the same as fannin' with railfan_girlfriend - thaz for sho! Still, three Cal Golden Bears from Berkeley foamin' away at the mouth in the Sierra made for one fun trip. Sorry if I oversnoozed sitting shotgun on the way up to Portola and down but it sure is nice not to have to drive and not kill dozens of petro-gallons with my V8 for a change!

Should be fun when I return this Thusday to first meet the 3985 and then get the big Challenger and Heritage UP1983 with passenger consist going west through the Feather on Friday! EspeeDAd will be flying up for the occasion so should be fun seeing we haven't seen the 3985 since Cajon in 1996. I've already gotten the first report from the desert frontline today from fellow youngin' TO members Ramos Man and Kirby Dude out on steam assignment. They are currently holding short of the fireline east of Elko trying to see if the 3985 makes it through that mess. Lotsa photos of all these cool moves coming from all of us when we get back next weekend...


-Ryan aka "espeeboy"
on the ex-WP Oakland Sub MP11.2

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the first view upon arriving at the Museum while walking through the shop/even vendor and covered public seating area

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the big heritage guy at four months old looks pretty good next to the nostalgic guys form that classic age.

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the orange and green on each compliment each other so nicely. Too bad the back hood end of the 1983 wasn't silver...

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Don't forget about the Geeps! Although not a perfect match to Wobbly Perlman Green (the FRRS did supply an actual paint chip to UP/WSOR for the UP1983 paint work), the UP1983 does compliment nicely with any unit in the green new image. Faded Sacramento Northern Geep #712 with working revenue GP20 WP2001 still looked nice lined up a few tracks to the south of the 1983...

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Just before the traditional sounding of all the online locomotive horns at once (to start Portola RR Days events), the WP2001 coughs up a lung during start-up.

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espeeboy Wrote:
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> Just before the traditional sounding of all the
> online locomotive horns at once (to start Portola
> RR Days events), the WP2001 coughs up a lung
> during start-up.

Ryan, if you call that coughing up a lung, you've obviously never been around an old Alco S2 when it's fired up. There's enough white smoke that you'd swear a new pope had been elected. ;-p

DaveE

let the cab touring begin! Thought this father and son were a perfect summary of the families and many non (future?) railfans aka "regular people" attending for the day

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still really diggin' this giant orange feather

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Ryan...

Great shots! Sure sounds like you're having a blast. Is Portola awesome or what!
Reb

interesting that the feather on the shield logo sticker is a redish orange compared to the more accurate orange on the big feather.

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the SD70ACe's notched nose and dogleg-less windows that I used to hate look good now in these heritage paint schemes...

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another father/son duo fresh from their cab tour in climbing down form the rear of the UP1983.

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So painting locos like that keeps UP in the right as far copyright infringements? Use it or loose it?

yeah yeah, behind the scenes UP is claiming trademark copyrights for its logos. So letz do a comparison on how accurate they copied that heritage "we get 5% mark-up on all products" WP logo

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Great stuff Ryan, thanks for posting those shots!

Nathan Z.

now onto other happenings on the grounds, the balloon track train ride was powered by WP2001 and one of five different RR heritage hacks!

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she'll be coming around the mountain! "Next stop, Malfunction Junction!"

What was that old 70's TV educational cartoon called "Conjunction Junction, what's your function?"

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espeeboy Wrote:
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> she'll be coming around the mountain! "Next stop,
> Malfunction Junction!"
>
> What was that old 70's TV educational cartoon
> called "Conjunction Junction, what's your
> function?"

That was one of the Schoolhouse Rock episodes. I found an unofficial site for it (as the official site looked a little commercial): http://users.aol.com/MRandino/SHRockWWW.html

DaveE

some revenue makers enjoying the ride along with a different trainorders.com Dave E protecting the rear of the train.

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