Nostalgia & History > Salton Sea State Park 1972

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/15 23:54 by atsffan.

Nice mood picture...Thanks! Sir Steve

Great pic, wish I had a chance to head down there in the 90s before UP took over. From stories I heard from my friend Mark and my dad, SP trains and Amtrak opened it up wide on that section of track from Indo to Yuma!

ProAmtrak Wrote:
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> Great pic, wish I had a chance to head down there
> in the 90s before UP took over. From stories I
> heard from my friend Mark and my dad, SP trains
> and Amtrak opened it up wide on that section of
> track from Indo to Yuma!

Back in the early 1960s my family would go down to North Shore in the early evenings to do some fishing for the night for corvina, sargo, and whatever the 3rd popular fish was (croaker?).

I'd be more interested in the traffic going by the east switch at Mortmar. You could even see the signal at the east end at night when a westbound would show up. I remember seeing a red over green signal and a flashing yellow signal asking my dad what those signals meant. Like I said, I had more fun watching trains at night than I did fishing.

Years later when I did work for the SP out of Indio headed for Yuma we would open up that throttle and very seldom would it come out of run 8 until you had to slow down for the turnout at the end of double track at Thermal or for a slow order. Just a few guys would let you run because they figured you couldn't make the running time but I was one of the fortunate ones. An hour and forty minutes was the running time for the BSM from Yuma to Indio which is a 122 mile run. I think it was the only westbound freight train authorized passenger train speed. Other hotshot westbounds were limited to 65mph. At least I think that's the way it was. Yeah, we actually railroaded in those days. Too bad we don't do that now.

JE

Yeah, most of that route is a parking lot! SP in my opinion just had a better understanding on how to keep a single track main fluid compared to how UP is doing it. And yes, I really miss the SP!

atsffan Wrote:
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> Mortmar! Thanks, Steamjockey. That was the siding
> name. I'll dig out my SP timetables and reference
> them before I post any more shots that I'm not
> positive of the location. Once again - I'm an
> ATSFfan, so that might buy me a little slack.
>
> Richard
>

Richard,

Don't let the lack of the location of a photo stop you from posting a pic. I'm sure somebody on here would be able to help you with it.

You will also see that when somebody does post a "Whereizit?" I usually put "Mortmar" as my guess figuring that one of these days somebody will post a train at Mortmar and I'll actually get it right.

JE

atsffan Wrote:
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> Steamjockey - I'll pull out my Mortmar slides
> next. I'm sure I've got 3 or 4 coming through the
> east switch. That searchlight signal meant
> everything to me back then; that was my indication
> that something was coming through.
>
> Richard


Thank you, Richard.

JE