Nostalgia & History > Toto Tuesday: Power poor, but rolling!

I’d have to dig, but I think this is the first time I’ve used one of my own B/W images for Toto. In case anyone is curious, I also got a color shot of this scene. It’s nearly identical to this one, but I didn’t take the shots simultaneously. Such as shooting with one camera in hand and the other one on a tripod. No sir, this train was moving so slow I was able to get both images with separate cameras at eye level, one after the other. The reason I chose the B/W shot was because the starkness of the image seems symbolic of the power problems the ROCK was having by this 1978 date. Those problems are obvious with this train, which I think is train #23 struggling up Alta Vista Hill.

Although the Mighty Fine Line couldn’t begin to compete with Santa Fe’s TOFC service, it did manage to get some intermodal traffic on a regular basis. Even if it was only 1 lonely pig as we see here on today’s #23. What would surely be a measly 1.5 units worth of horsepower for UP, ATSF, MP or even SLSF or MKT trains, is evidently all the diesel muscle the ROCK could afford to spare for this train. Or maybe it was all that was serviceable. So I think Black & White really fits this scene!

It’s December of 1978 the ROCK has 15 months of life left. And the clock is ticking…

1. CRI&P 4471 leads equally hardy 386 on train 23(?) c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g near the summit of Alta Vista Hill. This is an old Rock Island timetable location called Jones, KS about 2 miles west of Alta Vista.
Photo date December 13, 1978.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/22 23:25 by santafe199.

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That track looks pretty good. First car looks like a troop sleeper/express box?

CPR_4000 Wrote: > ...  track looks pretty good ...

Yes it does! And not trying to make fun of the beleaguered Rock Island, we used to say that when you found a stretch of really good looking track you were looking at a recent derailment site, all built up! And I thought that was a troop sleeper up front there. I believe they were used in M.O.W. service...

Lance/199

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CPR_4000 Wrote: > ...  track looks pretty good
> ...
>
> Yes it does! And not trying to make fun of the
> beleaguered Rock Island, we used to say that when
> you found a stretch of really good looking track
> you were looking at a recent derailment site, all
> built up! And I thought that was a troop sleeper
> up front there. I believe they were used in M.O.W.
> service...
>
> Lance/199

Converted from Troop sleeper to express service, then to MOW. 

A great looking Rock Island train that close to the end.
Excellent shot Lance.
Gary

Nice shot, Lance!

Is that tracks to the left in the weeds?  If so what line is that.

Randy Lundgren

texchief1 Wrote: > ... If so what line ...

There's no track in the weeds on the left. On the right is rural "Ave B" road running E-W. It's one of those "Minimum maintenance, travel at OWN risk" dirt roads. And as I recall I took this shot between 1000 & 1100 Rds (N-S). This is the long, flat top of the westbound grade between Volland & Dwight, KS on the old Rock Island GSR. If you go back far enough into the Rock's steam era, word is this was a helper district with helpers based east of here, at (I believe) Volland, which is now a virtual ghost town. YESSIR, lemme repeat that: Out here on this billiard table known as Kansas there was once a helper district on the Rock Island. Come to think of it, I've heard the Mop once had a helper district up on their own billiard table east of Council Grove...

Lance 

Lance,

I meant right.  I see now that it is a road.

Thanks.

Randy