Nostalgia & History > Moving The Beets, Santa Maria Valley and Holly Sugar, 1987, 1991

1. Santa Maria Valley GE 70 Tonners 9/11/87. For those not familar, the whistle warning sound is from rare in the West, 4700 class Hancock Air Whistle. Unique to SMVRR
2. Former SP Alco S6 1273 operated by Holly Sugar at Hamilton City, California. After this facility closed many yeas ago, the locomotive remained there for some time.
    Anyone know where it finally ended up? Video taken 11/13/91

Tony Johnson videos.

Regards, Jim Evans



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/19 19:35 by FiveChime.

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Great video Jim. I especially liked the part where the brakeman rode the two cars up the ramp to the beet  dump. It reminded me of when I did the same at Dyer, on the PE, 50 years ago.
Thanks for sharing.

The wide vision caboose shown in video #1 came from the Maine Central.  Long way to travel to find a new home.  Last I knew it was on display at the Amshack in Guadalupe CA

Priceless.  Never seen a video of the beet gons being switched at the sugar plant.

When I was in 9th grade in Davis, I was supposed to go on a field trip to Spreckles in Woodland, which they did with many of the classes; sadly the field trip never materialized.

Cheers, Jim

boejoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The wide vision caboose shown in video #1 came
> from the Maine Central.  Long way to travel to
> find a new home.  Last I knew it was on display
> at the Amshack in Guadalupe CA

Still there looking fairly good considering that it's land locked.

Anyone know what happened to the Holly Alco switcher?

Regards, Jim Evans

SPDRGWfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Priceless.  Never seen a video of the beet gons
> being switched at the sugar plant.
>
> When I was in 9th grade in Davis, I was supposed
> to go on a field trip to Spreckles in Woodland,
> which they did with many of the classes; sadly the
> field trip never materialized.
>
> Cheers, Jim

Its an interesting process. Loved seeing the philomass (sp?) which is brown spun to separate the molasses from the sugar. LIke watching the Wizard of Oz go from B/W to color. Loved walking through the packaging area and warehouse. The air is a hazy white and lick your lips for a very sweet taste

FiveChime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone know what happened to the Holly Alco
> switcher?
>
> Regards, Jim Evans

If I remember Jim, it went to the Philippines, but not sure. Maybe Rob will chime in.

FiveChime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyone know what happened to the Holly Alco
> switcher?
>
> Regards, Jim Evans

According to this thread, the Holly S6 met it's demise at the Holly Sugar plant about 2015:https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3562835,3968707#msg-3968707