Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe Intermodal at Sullivan's Curve

Santa Fe SD40-2 5066, one of the few equipped with the Mars light package on the nose, leads a Eastbound Intermodal train through Sullivan's Curve with the rear of the train seen stretched out at Cajon. Photo was taken in November of 1986.

---

Stellar view!

Adam

A time from another era. *sigh* Great shot!

SP8595 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Santa Fe SD40-2 5066, one of the few equipped with
> the Mars light package on the nose,

Not a "Mars Light"; rather, an "Oscitrol" Light Package. Users were (off the top of my head): Amtrak, ICG, L&NW, Santa Fe, and Southern Pacific/SSW. The Santa Fe units so equipped were thirteeen SD40-2's, numbered 5058-5070 (Thank you, Evan!). There was or may still be an image of one of these Santa Fe units on eBay, photographed on "Houlihans Curve" (Illinois), with the Oscitrol OPERATING - which is the first image of it operating I've ever personally seen.

"Mars Lights", like that on the 4449 (an earlier version), were known primarily for their distictive variations of a "Figure Eight" lighting pattern - see here:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,2340229,2340257#2340257

"Gyralights", maufactured by Pyle-National, only made a sweeping, circular light pattern, and were pretty much the standard oscillating light on SP hood units.

For further information:

http://www.trainweb.org/gyra/

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/11 19:14 by ATSF100WEST.

You must have done some climbing. You can see the old ROW thru the cut to the left, it was straightened in I believe 1970, around the same time as Summit.

Beautiful shot my man!