Nostalgia & History > Trains to Wingfoot:Who Remembers?

Two images along Gage Avenue in South Central Los Angeles from 1987.By this date things had pretty much dried up.Both ATSF and SP had depots in the Wingfoot Industrial District.I remember switching Goodyear and seeing the Blimp, plus the cool manufacturing plant(vertical brick with multiple stories),all gone now replaced by the Post Office.All the alleys with spots for cars ,now all gone.Railroading in Los Angeles sure has changed. Bill Webb

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Some of us remember going to work with Dad down Slauson when the station on the Santa Fe said "Wingfoot" and there
was a zebra striped HH-660 sitting there waiting to go switch the tire plant.

Out

Looks like Bill Lord standing on the lower step. The engineer looks like Roland Fogerty.

Posted from Android

Bill,
Nice pair, thanks for the share and narrative. What's with the red lettering? Looks like it left the paint shop a little early. I think I prefer white.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Remember this little PE branch line very well as I grew up just a few blocks south of Gage Ave. I delivered the Herald-Express in the late 40s-early 50s along Gage Ave and then would stop by and watch the Goodyear blimp "Volunteer" land or take off in the big field on Florence Ave at the gigantic Goodvear factory. After landing, the blimp inched up to an old Flxible bus with a tripod on it. After it was moored to the nose, the bus backed the blimp into its big hangar. All this after school entertainment for a young kid.

On Wingfoot, the power at the time was the PE's electric freight motors. The wire ended a few hundred feet west of Central Ave. I liked it best on the years the SP switched the area - had a ride in the cab once. The year the ATSF switched the area, they used modern high hood Alcos and that wasn't to interesting.

The PE had one of the old box car cabooses used as an office just west of Central for years. The LATL "S" line ran in the center of Gage also. The Wingfoot station was on the east of Central and looked like a long shoe box. I imagine everything has been ripped out now days. It's a dismal neighborhood and don't want to tempt fate by going back.

Had lots of slides of both steam and electric locos there, but loaned them to a friend that can't find them anymore. So much for good friends.

Watts local

DynamicBrake Wrote:

> Nice pair, thanks for the share and narrative.
> What's with the red lettering? Looks like it left
> the paint shop a little early.

It left the paint shop right on schedule with white lettering. Here's a view from 1978:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1537659

The lettering consisted of reflective "stickers," which were applied after the coat of SP scarlet but before the coat of gray was applied. The stickers came with masking on the front so the gray could be sprayed over them. The masking would then be peeled off revealing the white, reflective letters, with the coat of gray "sealing" the edges so the stickers would hopefully last longer. Unfortunately, the stickers tended to crack, disintegrate, and fall off anyway, revealing the red underneath. Here's a view of SP 2474 in 1983, part-way through the disintegration process:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1209095,1209099#1209099

This happened to quite a few other SP locomotives painted around the same time. See mwbridgewater's posts in these old threads:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4231751
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,1746419

Nice catch. IF I remember correctly SP and ATSF rotated switching duties every two years? Been in that complex many times. Around ten "alleys" with many industries some south of and some north of Gage in addition to Goodyear. Track was absolutely terrible it's last decade in service. One place was a Christmas decoration distributor. The difference between a loaded and empty boxcar of Christmas bulbs was barely a couple tons. Still have and use some decorations from their handouts. Once ran a Pico Rivera Road switcher out to Malabar Yard to meet a yard job up from the Goodyear plant with two hot shut down loads of tires. Was handled like a Z train from Malabar back to Pico Rivera.
JB



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/17 06:16 by 3rdswitch.

Pursuant to 3rdswitch comments above, the tracks in the alleys weren't in great shape when I worked it as a summer switchman for the Santa Fe in 1964.

Cheers,
Jack