Nostalgia & History > Warbonnet Wednesday at LRC

During the 23 year-long Montana stretch of my RR career (with MRL) I had slipped deeply into a non-railfanning attitude. Against all sage admonitions I let the drudgery of the job take away the fun of railfanning. The cobwebs on my camera equipment tended to get pretty thick at times during that 2 decade hiatus. In August of 1996 I was working the Laurel engineer’s extra board which protected all road vacancies & switch engine jobs in the Laurel-Billings zone. It also covered the few helper & local jobs at Livingston. On the 20th I was deadheaded up to Livingston for a routine 2 days on the helpers. It was always a nice diversion to work a few days out of Livingston. Even if I was in “deep hibernation” as a railfan I thankfully had the sense to take my camera along on those outside-job assignments, just in case I saw something unusual.

But for me to actually drag my camera out and shoot on a very few occasions, it usually had to be something pretty special. I guess an A-B consist in Red & Silver must have qualified. These 2 Warbonnet beauties were at the Livingston Rebuild Center, which was located at the ex-NP shops in Livingston. LRC did all kinds of locomotive work, including custom painting engines for various other concerns. It wasn’t all that unusual to see Santa Fe Red & Silver hanging around. It would be good enough this day to get my camera out of mothballs…

1. AT&SF 578 & 339 camping out on the LRC facility grounds in Livingston, MT on August 22, 1996.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/22 21:21 by santafe199.

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we never lost faith in ya, buddy !

The_Chief_Way Wrote:
> ...we never lost faith...

(chuckling) Thank you, my friend! I'm sure glad to learn this about the 'home front' guys, because I sure LOST THE FAITH (my own) for a very loooooong time while up in the Big Sky...

Oh no, he's baaaaaack...

;^)

Livingston is one of our stops when we take what has become our twice a decade vacation to Yellowstone/Glacier/Canadian Ice Fields. For each of our four trips, Livingston has always yielded a surprise. The most memorable was when the Santa Fe GP60M's were being warranty repainted at LRC. I have a photo of the fresh red noses shining just inside the doors.

Thanks for posting this photo. I imagine there are dozens of photos you now wish that you had if given another chance during those "missing" years.

Jay