Nostalgia & History > I have questions

The photo was taken in May of 1952 by Santa Fe PR Department. Questions: 1) What is the name and location of the siding? Is it Serra, Poche, San Onofre, Las Flores, or Stuart? 2) Is the man behind the train the Conductor or just someone who missed the train? 3) What importance does the sign with the strips have (just to the right of the RDC)?

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2) rail fan
3) is that a phone box

I would say the person in #2 is walking down to the Beach

On Page 117 of Donald Duke Book " Santa Fe Steel Rails Through California " is the Same photo, but from above and it says its Clipping through San Clemente at 75MPH

OK, San Clemente it is, but what is the name of the siding? Poche is above San Clemente and San Onofre is below the San Clemente station.

Regards the man on the track....the dark attire leads me to think flagman, but that would mean the train is stopped. Also, I do not see the engineer in his seat. AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

75 mph may be hype. Don't see any speed blur. My thought is its the flagman, too.

In 1951 this was San Clemente siding not "normally" used for meets with only a 33 fifty foot car siding. You can see this is a manual hand thrown switch when all the others mentioned above were TCS (Train Control System, same as CTC but Santa Fe liked to think they were different) dispatcher controlled sidings. The photo is looking rr west and the speed limit here was eighty.
JB

The engineer fell out and the train went into emergency and the flagman is walking back looking for the missing engineer.

Al - in - Stockton

Its pretty improbable that this train is going much of any speed at all. Aside from the switchman or possibly conductor, there is a reefer or more likely bay window hack on the tracks back at the other switch, with no power nearby to get it off onto the siding. In fact it looks like it may be fouling the other switch on the siding.

The train was stopped for a photo shoot by Santa Fe. It would become a "file" photo for Santa Fe, one of only 5 that have surfaced.

gwl Wrote:

> 3) is that a phone box

Is it a phone box or a timelock for the switch? It's pretty low to be a phone, and the wire would have to go into the ground and then over and up a pole to reach the phone lines. I've seen similar boxes next to hand-throw switches in CTC territory elsewhere on Santa Fe, but have never seen one open. In some places, several switches and their associated boxes were located close enough together that it would have been overkill if the boxes had all been phones, which is why I suspect they were timelocks.

the CTC installed on the Fourth District (Surfline) had dispatcher controlled electric lock on non-powered switches. I don 't recall seeing any time locks in a box like the one shown in the photo. While the SP and UP used time locks in So Cal mounted in raised units, the first I notice on the Santa Fe lonesome in the area. Was well after the Formation of the BNSF. I would tend to think that is was a phone box.

The freight car seen in the distance in on the side track which was used as the San Clemente team track. I am pretty sure that you would not see a bay window hack the Santa Fe at San Clemente, as suggested earlier.

Cliff


Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> gwl Wrote:
>
> > 3) is that a phone box
>
> Is it a phone box or a timelock for the switch?
> It's pretty low to be a phone, and the wire would
> have to go into the ground and then over and up a
> pole to reach the phone lines. I've seen similar
> boxes next to hand-throw switches in CTC territory
> elsewhere on Santa Fe, but have never seen one
> open. In some places, several switches and their
> associated boxes were located close enough
> together that it would have been overkill if the
> boxes had all been phones, which is why I suspect
> they were timelocks.

MyfordBrowning Wrote:
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> The freight car seen in the distance in on the
> side track which was used as the San Clemente team
> track. I am pretty sure that you would not see a
> bay window hack the Santa Fe at San Clemente, as
> suggested earlier.

It could be a boxcar. I think it might even more likely be a reefer. As you can see below, it is really hard to tell with the few pixels available here.

It also looks (at least to me) that it is more likely on the main than the siding, though I would have noramlly expected it to be on the siding.

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