Nostalgia & History > Everyday scene, why even bother photographing it?

Here's Auburn, Washington, in 1978. Nothing out of the ordinary here. . . Auburn was home to a dozen or more F-units until they sidelined the F's and shut the place down in the recession of 1980. The F's are razor blades now and the enginehouse got bulldozed down. Ah, to see something exotic like a U33C! Now, THAT would have been worth hauling out the color camera for!!

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What a great photograph! Thanks for sharing.

Keith

You shot the rarest BN F unit too, the only FP7 to get full BN green. There were only two, both x-NP, and only the 726 got the green livery. Auburn was also home to the only two green "chicken wire" F3s in green. One day I was up there on business and got all three in one slide at the diesel house.

masterphots Wrote:
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> You shot the rarest BN F unit too, the only FP7 to
> get full BN green. There were only two, both
> x-NP, and only the 726 got the green livery.
> Auburn was also home to the only two green
> "chicken wire" F3s in green. One day I was up
> there on business and got all three in one slide
> at the diesel house.


By this date, I believe it was the only F unit left on the railroad without dynamic brakes as well. Its career came to a screeching halt the next year when it was one of several F units that hit the dirt at Sumas after colliding with a cut a cars that had rolled out from the yard south of town.

As far as the rarest one? I'd think that the 702 would have qualified as well, since it was the only 3-holer F3A, albiet on one side only.

> -----
>
> As far as the rarest one? I'd think that the 702
> would have qualified as well, since it was the
> only 3-holer F3A, albiet on one side only.
>


Wound up with a bunch of slides of 702, never saw the FP-7, suppose it depended on what year you visited. Could never figure out what model 702 really was, looked kinda-like Johnny Cash's car when he worked at the Auto plant.

TCnR Wrote:

>
>
> Wound up with a bunch of slides of 702, never saw
> the FP-7, suppose it depended on what year you
> visited. Could never figure out what model 702
> really was, looked kinda-like Johnny Cash's car
> when he worked at the Auto plant.


It's a 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 1951 Loco-motive. . .

What runs were the Auburn F's assigned to? Seems today Auburn is mostly staging for Ports of Tacoma and Seattle trains. Is Auburn still being considered as a future intermodal yard?
Thanks.

AmtkGP7 Wrote:
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> What runs were the Auburn F's assigned to?

Seemed like at that time the Auburn F's went to Sumas and returned, picked up at all the yards in-between. As the number of F's were reduced the number of possible assignments were reduced, obviously. There's been a few things changed around since then.

Sometimes I think the hardest part of photography, is persuading yourself to shoot what you DON'T think is interesting at the time. When you look in the archives of museum photo collections, it's often amateurs that shot basic photographs of streets and other everyday things... Because the 'pro' guys thought that stuff was boring. It's those basic photos that don't seem interesting at that moment, that are often the most interesting years later.

Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Featuring the TrainTenna RR Scanner Antennas -

DaveD Wrote:
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> Sometimes I think the hardest part of photography,
> is persuading yourself to shoot what you DON'T
> think is interesting at the time. When you look in
> the archives of museum photo collections, it's
> often amateurs that shot basic photographs of
> streets and other everyday things... Because the
> 'pro' guys thought that stuff was boring. It's
> those basic photos that don't seem interesting at
> that moment, that are often the most interesting
> years later.
>
> Dave
> http://www.dpdproductions.com
> - Featuring the TrainTenna RR Scanner Antennas -

I totally agree. I always got photos of locomotives, but have too few shots of cabooses and still fewer pictures of freight cars.

Dave

AmtkGP7 Wrote:
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> What runs were the Auburn F's assigned to? Seems
> today Auburn is mostly staging for Ports of Tacoma
> and Seattle trains. Is Auburn still being
> considered as a future intermodal yard?
> Thanks.

Briefly, these runs:
Auburn-Centralia trains 675-676
Auburn-North Bend turn
Auburn-Everett turn (often had ABA or AB sets)
Auburn-Sumas timefreights 143/144
Auburn-Tacoma-Auburn-Seattle-Auburn "crew" jobs
Auburn-Pasco freights 175-176
Auburn-Cle Elum turns (took extra tonnage for 176 over stampede pass, returning with same)
Assorted extras and shuttle.

There were also other trains out of Auburn that didn't get F's too often--the Maltby turn, the Renton Rocket, etc. And of course the F's would be mixed up with geeps on any/all of these trains. Best bets for solid F's were the Everett turn and the Sumas trains. I did see a Cle Elum turn with an A-B-B-B-B-B-A set of F's once. I'll have to scan a shot of that one!

RuleG Wrote:
I always got photos of
> locomotives, but have too few shots of cabooses
> and still fewer pictures of freight cars.
>


Damm, ain't that the truth!!! I spent so much time concentrating on locomotives and such that I shot cabooses when they were interesting "premerger" waycars. As far as the varied and interesting freight cars seen on the BN in that era? Did I shoot em? HA! Of course, if I knew I would be mostly a modeler and not a rail photographer twenty years later, modeling the pre-merger roads, well--foresight isn't quite what hindsight is, eh? Thank god there were folks who shot freight cars back then!

Thanks for the reminders, lots of 'keepers' from Auburn yard in those days, they would have lots of pre-merger cabooses. Never tried to go east up the hill, was able to scout around and get lots of interesting power and trains in general. Still waiting for Santa to bring that slide scanner. Maybe it's in that last package under the tree?