Nostalgia & History > My AFT Epilogue Part 1 o'5

Over on the RRers Nostalgia pages I ran a 52 part week-to-week series last year retelling my year with the American Freedom Train. Here is the “rest of the story”, an epilogue to my AFT adventure.

My employment as Assistant Curator with the AFT officially ended at midnight on New Years morning of 1977 and I returned home to Santa Barbara where the whole thing had started for me a year earlier. In April of '77 the 4449 was returned to Portland OR via the Amtrak Transcontinental Steam Excursion. I wasn't personally involved in this- until the very very end.

Photos 1-2. I drove down to LAUPT to see the 49's arrival on April 24th. I joined Doyle & Co for dinner that evening* and seem to recall Dick Yeager nearly got us into a “street rumble” (I think that's what you'd call it?) that surely would have made the 10 o'clock news! Jeez!  (if you happen to know Dick you're probably thinking, "Yeah, that sounds about right")
*my memory as to the timing of this may be off by a few years- this might have been when they were in LA for the “Tough Guys” filming- I'm not 100% sure..

Photo 3. This was 2 days later in Oxnard CA waiting for the excursion. This message came over the SP operator's teletype machine- I don't know if the sender (Glendale?) was referring to the train, or those in hot pursuit!

Photo 4. Arrival in Oxnard April 26, 1977.

SR Bush
Dutch Flat



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/15 13:25 by BoilingMan.

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