Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe double stacks, 1986

A few weeks back, there was some discussion of when exactly Santa Fe started running double stacks. The answer lies somewhere in mid-80's back issues of CTC Board or Pacific RailNews that I don't have. The first time I personally saw double stacks on Santa Fe trains was on March 8, 1986. Dad and I were driving the service road between Madrone and Bodega, NM just east of Belen, NM when ATSF 5079 west appeared. We were on the shadow side, unfortunately, but stopped and took a shot anyway. There they were, right behind the power: two 5-packs of SeaLand well cars. I'm sure I shot the cars themselves, but darned if I can find the slides - what reporting marks would these buggers have had in 1986?

A month later, we were again on the Belen cutoff. At Vaughn, NM, we picked up a westbound with Kodachrome SD40-2 5068 and SD45-2 7204 on the point, and followed it all the way to Mountainair before the sun went down. Here it is at the overpass east of Encino, NM. Twenty cars back, behind the autoracks and boxcars but ahead of the pigs, were another pair of 5-packers. This time, they were shiny new DTTX "Econo-Stack" cars lettered for Santa Fe. I guess I didn't realize at the time that they were 5-packs, as when I tried to "roster" the cars on the moving train, I only got the first four units in the shot, and blew the focus besides.

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SP, meanwhile, was already running solid trains of well cars through New Mexico in 1986, albeit not all were double-stacked. On the former Rock Island portion of the Golden State Route at Simmons, NM, between Newkirk and Montoya, SSW 9066 west gets a move on its train late on the afternoon of November 5, 1986.

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Evan, the 158/851 Trains, back in '86, were MONSTER combined intermodals. They were the first Santa Fe trains I saw with stacks - almost always on the head end. This train usually drew 5-6 big motors. I'll see if I can't scan up some images of a couple of the these trains.

Nice shots as always - Thanks for sharing them......

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

Great work Evan, thanks for sharing some cool memories.