Nostalgia & History > SP GP9s 1974

Here are three shot of SP GP9 variants, all shot in 1974.

The SP9E was shot in Redding California while I was on a shuttle trip between Arcata, CA and Chico, CA. I'd just accepted a position on the Bridger-Teton National Forest and my new bride and I were packing up shop after graduating from Humboldt State. Recently out of the shop with nice new paint, she looked pretty sharp.

The middle shot is one from my collection taken by EK Hall at Santa Clara in August of 1974. Pretty much a plain old GP9. Check out the old headlight!

The bottom shot was taken in November of 1974. My good friend Peter (now an outrageous O Gauger in Livermore) and I were on our way to his wedding in Davis. Seemed like we had a bit of extra time, so when we saw this commute GP9 (with steam generator and red "feathers" on both ends) sitting there, seemed like a good idea to grab a couple shots. Ended up taking a series of detail shots and arrived at his wedding just in time.

Don Hall
Yreka, CA

ps once again I'm having monitor color balance problems. Comments on the colors, brightness, contrast appreciated. Thanks.

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WOW!!!
Am I seeing correctly?
The 3418 appears to have an ash can gyralight, I NEVER saw a GP9 that late with one of those, I saw and shot many SD7's with them but no GP's.
Thanks.
Tom

do you recall a couple of units plunging through a drawbridge about 20 or so years ago somewhere north of San Francisco..?

any one have pictures?

there was a person taking pictures of the dunking i heard.

bakersfielddave Wrote:
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> do you recall a couple of units plunging through a
> drawbridge about 20 or so years ago somewhere
> north of San Francisco..?
>
> any one have pictures?
>
> there was a person taking pictures of the dunking
> i heard.

http://www.mikenachtwey.com/railroad/pages/page_4.html

http://www.mikenachtwey.com/railroad/pages/page_5.html

http://www.mikenachtwey.com/railroad/pages/page_6.html

http://www.mikenachtwey.com/railroad/pages/page_7.html

http://www.mikenachtwey.com/railroad/pages/page_2.html

Don,

Nice shots! As for your monitor, the colors, contrast, and clarity look spot on to me.

Thank you for sharing them.

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

Thanks for the photos. The shot of 3002 prompts me to ask about the history of the vertical bar code on the side doors. I know the bar code was used in the 1970's and I believe fell out of favor in the 1980's. What information was provided to the scanner at trackside from these bar codes. Thank you.

The 3002 also has an odd location for the builders plate.

John

hogantunnel Wrote:
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> What information was provided to the
> scanner at trackside from these bar codes.

Basically the same as the reporting marks, plus a check digit. Here's a guide: http://www.nakina.net/aci.html.

Each alpha railroad name was mapped to a number. I think SP might have been 721.

The bar code plates on all of the SP equipment was a wonderful idea in the 70's, "when it worked". But as with anything used by the railroads at that time (I speak of SP here) maintenance became the deal breaker. My recollection as a brakeman/conductor at the time was the track side scanners as well as the scan plates on the equipment needed to be periodically cleaned to continue to function properly. Railroads during this time frame would only fix what absolutely had to be fixed in order to get from point A to point B. And even then with heavy use of substandard bailing wire and twine. Track side scanners and the bar codes on the various cars became so dirty and obscured as well as damaged that the system quickly ceased to exist for all practical purposes. So guess what? They resorted to having the yard clerk or whoever did his/her job drive a carryall to some point where they could physically tape the train then return to the depot and prepare a new consist or compare the forwarded consist that was being used. Real progress - right?

>
> Basically the same as the reporting marks, plus a
> check digit. Here's a guide:
> http://www.nakina.net/aci.html.
>
> Each alpha railroad name was mapped to a number. I
> think SP might have been 721.

Here's the correct URL to that overview of Automatic Car Identification (ACI) labels.
http://www.nakina.net/other/aci/aci.html

The local transit district here (BART) seemed to use ACI labels many years after the "real" railroads gave up on them. Nowadays, this information about a given piece of rolling stock is kept on AEI tags (Automatic Equipment Identification) mounted on each piece of equipment on each side. AEI tags are immune to dirt, and act as transponding devices when queried by trackside AEI reading equipment.

Cheers,
Harry