Steam & Excursion > This Steam Locomotive Put Her Power To Work Where Most Needed!

The date is June 17, 1950 and the job at hand is assisting AT&SF #3904 and her freight train up and over Raton Pass in New Mexico.  The dispatcher called out AT&SF #3851 and her crew to handle the job as helper.  We see here in this fine photo that they were more than up to the task.

#3851 is part of the 2-10-2's that railroad was so famous for, that wheel arrangement became known as the "Santa Fe Class" on all railroads.  AT&SF rostered just over 250 of the huge engines over the years of steam operations.

On Raton Pass this fine June day, the 2-10-2 was just what #3904 needed at the rear of her train pushing.

Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/19 03:27 by LoggerHogger.

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Nice image.  What are the two round disc things on the caboose cupola?
Doug
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/19 03:46 by hoggerdoug.

LoggerHogger Wrote:

> The date is June 17, 1950 and the job at hand is
> assisting AT&SF #3904 and her freight train up and
> over Raton Pass in New Mexico. 

This is another Richard Kindig photo.  The train is westbound at Wootton, CO and still has a few miles to go before crossing the border into New Mexico just before plunging into Raton Tunnel. Kindig's picture of the front end of this train with 3904 on the point can be found on page 84 of the first edition of Santa Fe's Raton Pass.  The caption says the train had 41 cars.  That's old "Uncle Dick" Wootton's ranch house visible above 3851.  Wootton owned the toll road over the pass, and Santa Fe bought the rights to the right-of-way from him, narrowly beating the Rio Grande to the prize.  Today the ranch house is gone but a much-photographed point-of-interest sign has been added:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,4703813,4703813#4703813

hoggerdoug Wrote:

> Nice image.  What are the two round disc things
> on the caboose cupola?

Santa Fe drawings refer to them as "Wig Wag Signals," but I've also heard them called Highball Signals or simply Highballers.  Borrowing an answer from an old thread, Ellington's Caboose Cars of the Santa Fe says they  were introduced in the early 1930's as a way for the conductor to signal to the engineer that, for example, the brakes were released, or that the rear of train was in the clear at a siding, etc. The earliest drawings date to 1928, but an article in the 1st quarter 1999 Warbonnet claims the earliest known photo of a waycar equipped with the devices dates to 1940. The large discs were painted orange, and the two round objects near the centers are a pair of lamps, one white and one red, to be used at night. The lamps faced toward the cupola, so from the ground, one can usually only see the backs of the lamps.  This elevated view is nice in that we can actually see the front of one of the lamps on the disc to the right.  These 30" discs are a later design; earlier discs were smaller, had a single lamp, and some were painted in a target-like scheme of unknown colors:

http://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsa/8d27000/8d27000/8d27002v.jpg

One thing missing from all the references I can find on these devices are exact rules of usage, even in the 1953 rulebook. Reportedly, the devices were operated from inside the cupola via a crank, and from the "storage" position shown in the photos, they could be swung outward nearly 180 degrees such that the discs were beyond the side of the caboose/train. The Warbonnet article indicates that they were "waved" when in use, while Santa Fe Waycars says more likely they were simply swung over to the outer position and left there until it was obvious the engineer had received the signal.

The advent of radio lead to the gradual removal of the Wig Wag signals during the 1950's. At least one car is known to have made it to 1960 with its Wig Wags intact.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/19 23:16 by Evan_Werkema.

Evan, excellent reply.

Out

I was going to say it must have been a lite train to have only one helper, then I read the caption of it having only 41 cars.  A lot of freights over that hill had two helpers and more cars.

Great photo and neat details on the caboose but man it'd sure be nice to  have a good shot of that reefer too!

Andy

Is that the Wootton Ranch as in the ghost story on this line involving a scout that hired out on the Santa Fe as a brakeman way back when, when brakemen rode the tops of the cars setting hand brakes to slow the decent of a train downgrade on the Raton line? Freeman Hubbard wrote a great story on that.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
  That's old "Uncle Dick" Wootton's
> ranch house visible above 3851.  Today the ranch
> house is gone but a much-photographed
> point-of-interest sign has been added:



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/19 15:07 by wabash2800.

I think the advent of radio doomed those highballs...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

MojaveBill Wrote:
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> I think the advent of radio doomed those
> highballs...

That it did.

I'll bet Uncle Dick heard many a heavy metal concert daily.   What a place for a steam nut like me.