Nostalgia & History > SP Under the Weather

In Keeping with the winter weather, and up coming Winterail, these action photos have a definite Winter Theme:

Photo 1 & 2: An SP SD40, believed to be the 8418, leads an eastbound Train Number 6 into the snowshed at Norden in February of 1974.

Photo 3: In almost darkness and fog an SP eastbound led by SD45 8814 goes under the Pepper Street overpass in West Colton, CA on November 17, 1974.

I hope you like these:

Steve Sloan
San Jose, CA

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Steve, that train was a Sparks section of Number Six (2/6) on February 16, 1974 ( I made a copy of a slide of the train at 16th St and it was flying green flags??). Gas shortage kept motorists off I-80 then, so Amtrak put together a special train to Sparks, so the regular Number Six wouldn't be 30 cars long. All the equipment came off the Reno Fun Train pool. It was Presidents Weekend, so the equipment came back as 2/5 on Monday. UP958 led on Saturday and SP6453 on Monday, the 18th.
Good catch on Donner, Steve

Amazing! Thanks for the information, it really helps. It was pure luck that I was there at the time.

~Steve

So what we have here is an SD40, an SD45, an E9 and two FP7's on the point of the second section of an Amtrak passenger train, gotta love it!

The WC shot is an excellent mood shot. Too bad the gyra wasn't operating.

good non-sunny but weather moody shots Steve! Fresh from off from "The Hill" yesterday, I can appreciate your patience/time for photo 1 & 2. Might have to actually slip in an actual normal, non-funny/foamer shot from this past weekend in 3 Favorites this year. See you at the Big Show at set up in 10 days!

(or will you be at NevesRail in 4 days?)


-Ryan M. Martin aka "espeeboy"
now on the ex-SP Martinez Sub MP6.2

Cool, I will be at both. The nine I scanned last weekend, three of which are here, are likely the last batch of slides I will do before WR2008.

The good news is we are planning a follow up show on the Bill Darrough show shown last year possibly for WR2009.

~Steve

Another thing that makes this shot interesting is the little train order shack in the foreground. Trains going up the Cut-off were given their train orders at the last minute so the Saugus dispatcher could get a better idea when the westbound train was actually ready to leave West Colton to head to Bakersfield. Eventually, the clerk that copied all of the train orders was moved to the Administration Building and the little building became a place for the conductors to go over their weighbills and wheel report (detailed train list). All that is left there now is a concrete slab. Another bit of railroad history gone.

JDE