Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe PA's in freight service

In DEC 1968, Traffic took a big jump in the valley and created a power shortage that Santa Fe quickly jumped on the situation and sent a set of five PA cabs and two sets of a-b-b-a passenger F's to solve the problem...  In photo # one, a five unit set of Pa's led a short 908 train that ran lite to antioch fromRichmond and made a pick up....The location is Stockton tower....The PA's had come west the morning before on a pig train and were working their way back to Bakersfiled.... At Stockton, the Pa's changed train Id's and it became a 2nd section pig train out of Stockton....  The last shot is at Pinole,shootingscross the city park baseball field as the SF chief with three PA's has just made its stop at Pinole and is headed west to Richmond....  The Pa's ran about 10 days and then returned to Barstow from freight service in the valley...

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 Magnificent and outstanding are just two of many words to describe the historical nature of these photos.

Now THAT'S cool!
SR

PA's on a pig train - That would be a fast freight to be certain...

Another example of:
Value in my TO subscription
Learn something new every day
Appreciation for those who photograph and who share here..
A fun post!

Thanks for the photos!  The very last stand of the Santa Fe PA's!

PA's on freight on the Santa Fe in the Valley. Never knew about it, never saw any images before now. Much less in full passenger paint, and acting like Alcos act, smoke and all. Wow. Thanks for posting these for us to wonder at...and enjoy.

ironmtn Wrote:

> PA's on freight on the Santa Fe in the Valley.
> Never knew about it, never saw any images before
> now.

A number of photos have been published in books and online showing Santa Fe using PA's on freight in the valley in the summer of 1968:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4927247
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,661322

Photos of the December encore, though, are much harder to come by.

RARE!!! Thanks for posting these.
Bob

Really NICE and interesting series!!

Larry

Yeah, the PA's could haul freight in the dead flat Central Valley. Probably got a bit "interesting" between Stockton and Richmond where you actually had to deal with 1% grades!!!

In mid-December of 1968, I was home in Stockton on leave from the Army.  One day I grabbed my camera and headed to Santa Fe Tower to take in some action.  As I pulled up to the tower area, a westbound Santa Fe freight with four PAs started crossing the diamonds at a slow speed.  I rushed over to paralleling Hazelton St. and headed west to get ahead of the train and get a photo.  To my horror, as soon as the motive power crossed the final diamond, the hogger "opened up" the throttle and quickly accellerated.  As I reached my last possible photo location, the last of the four units was quickly clearing the crossing, and any opportunity for a photo was lost!  I returned to Santa Fe's trackside several more times before returning to Army duty, but I never again set eyes on a Santa Fe Alco PA!

Great photos, George!!
- Eric B.

Just plain WOW......

Lance/199

Were those things as loud as they look like they would be? Great photos of a cool locomotive.

Wow, incredible group of photos!

Rich

If you know the numbers of the five PAs, what were they?  Thanks.

Steve

Rmosele Wrote:
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> Were those things as loud as they look like they
> would be? Great photos of a cool locomotive.

Actually, they were quieter than the corresponding EMDs.  At full throttle, they had sort of a "whoosh" with a chug, sort of like modern GEs, but a bit louder. 
In 1966 and '67, they broke up 51 L-A-C, the PA set re-engined by EMD, and ran those units in multiple with other PAs.  I had a part time job at the Sears warehouse just north of the San Diego River bridge, and I could hear trains on the mainline passing behind the adjacent buildiong,  The San Diegans often needed two PAs, and when one oif them was the EMD-engined 51L or 51C, the EMD would drown out the PA accelerating out of town in Run 8. 

D F W