Steam & Excursion > AFT Confidential 25- St Louis MO

25 St Louis April 4-11, 1976

St Louis! We were spotted on the Mississippi River bank in the shadow of The Arch. Very impressive! This was easily the most spectacular site of my year with the train. (Good job, Ed!)
We were to be in St Louis for 8 days- a long stop, and I took full advantage:
It was going to be my birthday, so Wild Bill, Curator. (I was his assistant) covered for me while I slipped away for a few days to visit my Grandmother & Uncle in Chillicothe IL. Bill is an Illinois native, so when I got back we swapped and I covered for him while he visited fam in DeKalb. BTW: Bill's nick-name was based solely on a cowboy-ish hat he'd picked up when the AFT passed through Montana or Wyoming. Bill & I are still in touch- in fact, we swapped texts just yesterday to gripe about the SF Giants pathetic '21 season opener.
Anyway- My trip to Grandmother's House had enough railfannie content to warrant a separate posting- I'll get that out tomorrow or the next day.

St Louis is home of the other surviving Southern Pacific GS, GS-6 4460, and so we made the trip out to the Museum o' Transport to pay proper respect. Below are photos of the 4460 and other cellmates that caught my eye. I visited the still active St Louis Union Station too, for a bit more (unexpected) Southern Pacific historic content.

Golf Carts.
At every city along the way the AFT was given the use of courtesy cars and golf carts supplied by local dealers. Usually 6 of each. The golf carts proved a huge source of entertainment for the late night staff (yeah, like we needed one more thing). At 2am there would be golf car polo, golf cart jousting, golf cart 'water skiing' (tow line & a skate board), and golf cart slalom racing. In St Louis it was Golf Cart Slalom at it's best. The Mississippi riverbank provided a most excellent race course with many challenges for the AFT's top seeded drivers. Down to the river's edge the riverbank itself was paved with cobbles that, at 2am, were slick with moisture from the river. These road conditions combined with a driving style best called “manic” resulted in tragedy at turn 6.
But driver Doc Harvey was okay- 'cause he's a pretty good swimmer.
SR Bush
Dutch Flat

Epilogue. We kept an eye out. We checked the riverbanks of Memphis, Baton Rouge & New Orleans.
No luck.
That cart is probably half way to Havana by now




Photo 1. We passed this guy while being switched into the St Louis site.
Photos 2&3. Best Site Ever!

Photo 4. St Louis Union Station as a proper station and not a mall or whatever.
Photos 5&6. Three SP Shasta Daylight chair cars along with a Sunset sleep and diner! A bit of a surprise to say the least.

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Photo 7. Silver Lookout and a Milwaukee Super Dome.
Photo 8. A very early all HEP train set: a P-30 with new Amfleet cars.
Photos 9&10. Budweiser's home brewed RR. Very British looking cabooses.

Photos 11&12. Out at the Museum of Transport: The other SP GS: GS-6 4460.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/21 08:49 by BoilingMan.

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Photo 13. Milwaukee Bi-Polar E-2 (insert sophomoric joke here)
Photo 14. General Pershing Zephyr's Silver Charger
Photo 15. EMD's original lead FT.

Photo 16. And finally: one of Rock Island's Aerotrain's. As time goes by these just seem to look more and more bizarre!

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The St Louis stop did seem like a colorful one. Here are some of AFT crewman Craig's pictures from the visit.

1-2. Railfanning right from the display site.
3. What a view from the top of the Arch.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/21 11:52 by ble692.

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4-6. More railfanning from the display site.

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An interesting small irony of living and traveling with the AFT was that it provided us with the ideal railfan platform for touring the country.
The ultimate foam’n safari!
SR

7-9. More railfanning from the display site.

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10. Frisco somewhere near the Museum of Transportation.
11. Alton & Southern somewhere around there.

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12. Another sweet ride.
13. Some other attraction.
14. A little R&R.

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Saint Louis was sort of a special trip for me, as it was my first time as Fireman without any "supervision". We arrived in Kirkwood very early, i.e. well ahead of schedule. Thus, Andy Adams decided to go back and crash, while Doyle and I took night photos while stopped at the Kirkwood depot. After messing around for well over an hour, we put our camera equipment away, and went back to the cab to "baby sit" until the time for the press to show up finally arrived. Upon instructions from the rearend, it was sun-up by then, we eased forward to load the media folks on the rearend.

Finally, we got the highball, and started on the ascending grade, for Saint Louis. The strange thing was, we were on the westbound main of the double track RR, in order to load all the folks at the Kirkwood depot. Thus, there was lots of photographers all lined up on the track we were on! As we accelerated, on a slight lefthand curve, I realized that there was some idiot with a large movie camera on a tripod, straddling the rail we were on. I hollered to Doyle to blow the horn (he was already using the whistle), as I had a guy on the track. Luckily, he jumped at the last second, but didn't take his tripod & camera with him. The left corner of the pilot hit the tripod, and flung it down the embankment. To this day I wonder what sort of movie he got.

Upon arrival in St Louis, the standard procedure was to take down the 2 American Flags from the front flag stick holders, and present them to the Mayor of the city we were displaying in. We carried a new set of flags for every move. Well,,,,,,as luck would have it, the Mayor never showed! So,,,,,,,,,,,,I took it upon myself to retain the 2 flags, including a color slide of me taking down the flags. As a result, I had a nicely framed collage of the two flags, the night photo at Kirkwood, a photo of me in the Fireman's seat, and the photo of me taking down the flags. Also included are the business cards of the 4449 crew members. Although it is a pretty large framed piece, I had it hanging on the wall of my office at EMD, and now hangs on the wall up stairs.

Good memories.

ble692 As an aside the "steamboat" in picture #12 never went anywhere on its own. It was a purpose built restaurant constructed on a barge. Sure looked nice though and the food was quite good.

MWPerkins

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EMD2024 Wrote:
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> ble692 As an aside the "steamboat" in picture #12
> never went anywhere on its own. It was a purpose
> built restaurant constructed on a barge. Sure
> looked nice though and the food was quite good.
>
> MWPerkins

Is that the one that became a floating McDonald's?
 

Unfortunately, my movies and slides never made it past 2003 of this and a few other locations. As for the golf carts, the Capt. stood on the bridge and went down with the ship, er cart. It was a sight to behold, full throttle, skipping into the water to avoid a major collision. Doc and myself were racing down each side of the train and I got around turn 4 first. Well, we saw each other with only a second or two to make that decision, he went right, I went left up the grassy knoll. After leaving the site 1 cart short, they locked the keys in "Control", fancy name for security. Not to worry, a well placed paer clip under the body and we were back in business. They never did figure out how the carts in different locations in the morning. These were the gas engine carts and for some reason the governors got disabled. More cart mania later.
Dale
Blue 24

Scott, that's "Boris" (Tom) on the far right in your photo of the three on the steps.  That's Bobby (Steam Crew) on the far left, and I recognize the guy in the center but I can't quite place him- I think he was in Security but I'm not sure.
SR

Mike Shannon




BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Scott, that's "Boris" (Tom) on the far right in
> your photo of the three on the steps.  That's
> Bobby (Steam Crew) on the far left, and I
> recognize the guy in the center but I can't quite
> place him- I think he was in Security but I'm not
> sure.
> SR

Mike Shannon- right, of course!
Yeah, and yes, he was in Security.
SR

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> Mike Shannon- right, of course!
> Yeah, and yes, he was in Security.
> SR

And here I thought he was just an ex Cardinals player and current broadcaster.

(Joking of course)

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