Nostalgia & History > Friday Night Bytes-SP in the San Joaquin Valley

Three from the SP San Joaquin Valley Line for this evening.

1. SP 7321 is going solo as it heads southbound from Fresno, CA on 6-22-91. 44 car train, and the only one I can remember on the SP being pulled by one locomotive.
2. SP 6828 and three sisters are higballing north through Goshen, CA with a hot LABAF (LA to Bay Area Forwarder) on 7-6-90.
3. SP 8500 and 8505 lead a northbound merchandise train at MP 241 south of Goshen, CA. In the background is the Visalia Municipal Airport. The tracks cross over Hwy. 99 and under Hwy 198 here.

Thanks for looking back with me,

Tom

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One locomotive in the flat valley is okay, but SP always was thrifty with their power. I remember dragging 90 cars from Newark to Santa Clara one morning with one SD45. Good thing they didn't stop me before going into Newhall Yard at the Brokaw Road end. A goat would have had to couple on my head end to get me going again and into the yard.

The LABAF 1990 was the last year these trains ran the valley and Mococo Line, before SP moved them over to the Coast Line and closed the Mococo, that same train would fly by my house in Antioch a few hours later, always loved that train when it came through always had 4 units and going track speed 60mph through Antioch on stick rail, damn miss the old SP!!! Thanks for the memories!!

Great shots, Tom.

~Ryan

Single unit SP freights through Stockton were fairly common in the mid-60s through the 70s. I remember a single F7A heading a lengthy freight for Roseville, and a single SD9 struggling to keep a 101-car empty lumber train moving north. The KMs, when new, often ran solo. Probably my best memory of single unit freights was when a single KM turret-cab leading a northbound died between Stockton and Lodi. They had a following northbound, with a single Alco C628 or C630, couple up to the caboose, to push them to a siding. Well, the Alco managed to move about ten car lengths before it too died! They had a third northbound come up from behind and couple to the second train's caboose. This third train had a "bunch" of F-units for power; I'm sure that the caboose crew on the second train joined the headend crew of the third train in the locomotives! Well, the F-units revved-up, and lo-and-behold, the entire consist of all three trains slowly headed north. I don't know how far they went in this configuration, but it must have ticked off a lot of drivers stopped for them at crossings!

Beautiful pics of a great time for SP railfanning. I never saw a single unit run up the valley in my day, but it's well documented in books and on here.
I'd say your LABAF has the perfect power!

Thanks for the look back at the San Joaquin Valley Line in the SP era. Adding to the other comments and information already posted, SP ran lots of single unit freights in the 1960's and early 1970's, and not just on the Valley Line. We used to chase single K-M hydraulics pulling LONG freights at 65 MPH in our old 1950 Buick "Super" on parallel Highway 99 on trips to and from Yosemite in that era -- it was all we could do to catch the power given the small towns and stoplights along 99 in those days. In the Bay Area, single unit trains were quite common up and down the lines in the East Bay as well as on the Peninsula. I recall seeing PFE reefer blocks behind a single SD45 on both the Mulford and Decoto (today's Hayward) Lines, as well as a single big unit, such as an SD40, SD45 or U33C, on manifest trains as well as the Warm Springs auto parts and new auto trains. Lone UP SD40's got into the act starting in about 1969 and 1970, and most of this action was observed passing the small Hayward Yard and the Hunts tomato cannery along the Decoto Line. Sometimes these single-unit trains would run that way beyond Oakland Yard on the Cal-P Line to Martinez and then on to either Tracy or Roseville. However, the Roseville-bound trains had to be careful that they did not stall on the approach grade to the Suisun Bay Bridge leaving Martinez. When that happened, the switchers at Ozol Yard had to come to the rescue for a shove up onto the span. There was a lot of very interesting railroading on the SP all around the Bay Area and in central California. It is sad how little freight now moves by rail around the Bay Area compared to 1970... Thanks again for sharing and the look back!

ShastaDaylight