Steam & Excursion > In A Big Hurry West Of Gold Run - Fire Train On The Move!

While this photo may look like this little fire train is rushing to put out a fire on Donner Pass, that is not what is happening at all.  What we see here is Southern Pacific's Donner fire train headed by #2248 heading to her very last fire season deployment in June of 1955.  After this year she will no longer be stationed on Donner and kept hot around the clock so she can tackle any fires that may arise.  With steam rapidly being phased out on the SP she will also face retirement from these last duties for her owner.

Fortunately, as we all know, #2248 was selected by SP to have her fire apparatus removed in 1956 and she spent time pulling fan trips for the SP the celebrate the end of steam.  Today she still survives in steam in Texas. 


Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/15 04:10 by LoggerHogger.

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Were the fire tankcars preserved as well?

Taylor

Posted from iPhone

The fire apparatus must have removed shortly after the photo was taken as the engine was used for the retirement of Wild Bill Silverthorn on NWP 11/20/55.

Some of the SP's tank cars have been repurposed for training purposes around the Bay Area.  
I'm not sure (but have wondered)  if these were used on Donner's steam powered trains.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,2750636,2750636#msg-2750636

When I hiked into Goat Canyon on the San Diego and Arizona Eastern in 1978 (after the line had been closed for a couple of years), there were two water cars parked on the spur beside the big trestle.  One of them had a work platform like the one shown in your photo, though all the equipment had been removed from it.  The other water car was just an old riveted tank car.

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/15 19:32 by CimaScrambler.

Great action shot of the fire train. She had rights over all other trains in this situation.

I found this car in Woodland, Calif back in Aug 2003, is is a Fire Car ?

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miralomarail Wrote:
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> I found this car in Woodland, Calif back in Aug
> 2003, is is a Fire Car ?


It looks like a locally modified tank car, the monitor gizmo on the deck would make it a 'fire' car.

The car has a pretty obvious history with the big 'S' on the dome, also suggesting it was not an SP modification. The SP had many cars with full length decking, metal railings with various tool boxes, full length large diameter pipes, inter-car fittings, water pumps, generators and nozzles or monitors on the deck but also cutting down the large dome and painting the whole car a standard color. They also had cars used for water service with the dome but no decks, not all had a standard color, or even a complete paint job.

Don't know who, how or what but it doesn't look like the other SP water cars, which had been modified for more recent fire duty. There's nothing to say it was not modified by SP either though.