Nostalgia & History > Warbonnet Wednesday: Atop the Mop!

For years one of Bill’s home town ‘go-to’ locations was the high fill on the east side of what became the White Lakes Mall south of downtown Topeka, KS. This is where the Mop branch ran under the Santa Fe and came into town, reaching up from Lomax, KS on the Colorado Eagle main line. This evening he’s a bit north (TT east) of the eventual mall grounds, carrying out his normal routine on a favorite target, train #11. But he also had some unknown interest in one of the cars in this train. He shot the “San Miguel” as it passed by. Bill most likely mentioned why he shot the car on his slide, but I failed to transfer those notes into the digital scan...

1. AT&SF 335 L leads train #11, the “Kansas Cityan”. Full consist: 335 L, 327B, 327A & 331B, possibly not in that particular order.

2. AT&SF San Miguel is in the train consist behind the 335 L.
2 photos taken September 29, 1967 in Topeka, KS by William A. Gibson (WAG) Sr.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/23 03:30 by santafe199.

---

---

Awesome shots! Thanks for sharing,
Randy

Beautiful images.
Bob

Lance:

Could be worth revisiting this discussion:
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,69537

The rarity of smooth side sleepers on the Santa Fe might have sparked WAG's interest.

msw
spokane

Awesome shots Old  Santa Fe RR Kansas City and Emporia based passenger train and engine crews worked between KC and Newton, KS.

Good amount of head-end traffic (what's that ticking sound....?)

The San Miguel is a 6-6-4 sleeper headed for Dallas.

Fantastic !
Gary

Very nice...

JG

San Miguel Valley seems to be painted in a Pullman Green-type color.  I had always thought the Santa Fe painted them grey.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

The first shot is one great shot!!

RC Lundgren

Pretty sure the MoPac branch coming into Topeka was the old original 1869 Santa Fe mainline at one time. When Santa Fe rechanneled Shunganunga creek to the east, and built the "high line" from 10th street to the Frito-Lay switch near 45th Street, they let the MoPac have the old line because the new "high line" buried some of their old trackage into town.

Posted from Android

agentatascadero Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> San Miguel Valley seems to be painted in a Pullman
> Green-type color.  I had always thought the Santa
> Fe painted them grey.
>
> AA

It's painted a dark grey.  That was the default color after the two tone grey was discontinued.  I've seen SFE cars painted in both eastern and western versions of the two tone grey btw.

santa Fe also had green cars as above,   neet shot Lance
 

When WP mentions "eastern and western versions" of the two tone grey scheme, my first thought was of the SP and NYC versions, which are opposite of each other in the placement of light and dark grey.  Now, I'm wondering which of these represents the many Pullmans that were painted in the "Overland" scheme?

I'm guessing that dan's mention of green painted cars is of the many heavyweight cars operated on the Santa Fe.  There were some railroads, SP included, that painted new streamlined equipment in Pullman Green to match with the heavyweight equipment they ran with.  I don't know if ATSF engaged in that practice.....and that was my original question about this photo.

These passenger related questions always seem to bring someone in the know to the table, and I thank them for adding such value to TO.


AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA