Nostalgia & History > ATSF Passenger Loco Questions

Hi:

Wondering if anyone can answer the following

1) What year did the PAs get the "table top" radio antennas?

2) What year did the E6s recieve the lower headlight and what year did the same units get the "fins" on the roofs that were supposed to help cool the radiator grills?

Thanks,

Genevasub

genevasub Wrote:

> 1) What year did the PAs get the "table top" radio
> antennas?

Long about 1960. I can't find a reference claiming as much, but thumbing through a couple of Santa Fe all-color books whose photos are arranged in chronological order (Bill Marvel's Santa Fe All the Way and Steve Allen Goen's Santa Fe in the Lone Star State) the PA photos from 1959 show them without antennas, and 1960 photos mostly show them with.

> 2) What year did the E6s recieve the lower
> headlight and what year did the same units get the
> "fins" on the roofs that were supposed to help
> cool the radiator grills?

The Fourth Quarter 1999 issue of The Warbonnet contains a timeline for E6 modifications on p. 27. The fins showed up in 1953-54. The fixed headlight was moved to the nose and an oscillating light installed in the upper housing ca.1956-57. Initally, the fixed headlight remained the old single bulb/reflector type, but around 1960-61, this was replaced with twin sealed beam lights. For what it's worth, the E6's got their antenna ground planes about 1960, too.

Thanks Evan. Trying to keep my modeling pre-modifications so 1952 or so works for me!

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> genevasub Wrote:
>
> > 1) What year did the PAs get the "table top"
> radio
> > antennas?
>
> Long about 1960. I can't find a reference
> claiming as much, but thumbing through a couple of
> Santa Fe all-color books whose photos are arranged
> in chronological order (Bill Marvel's Santa Fe All
> the Way and Steve Allen Goen's Santa Fe in the
> Lone Star State) the PA photos from 1959 show them
> without antennas, and 1960 photos mostly show them
> with.
>

Good history, Evan. I was looking at my books for the photos of the ground plane antennas and some units were showing them by 1958.

Bob