Nostalgia & History > East LA UP shop buildings, some SP video

On the 18th of this month Evan posted a couple of photographs of the #29 Turbine at the UP East LA shop. I have some 8mm film that I couldn't definitely place in LA, but the backgrounds of his photographs matched up with this short film, I figure this was filmed in the early to mid 70's, not the best quality, but all I have of the UP in LA, the 400' reel was all Sp except this 4 minute flick, there is some Sp at the end of this. Unknown photographer, KCRW287 collection

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Great material! Can you post some of the old SP material?
Someone on You Tube has been posting some old SP under the heading "Forever Espee"
Grreat subject matter but your material appears to be of better quality.
Regards, Jim Evans

I am glad that you liked this posting, let me go thru the reel and see what is in decent shape, this has almost all SP, with a little ATSF and UP. The film was never stored correctly and has issues, but let me see what might be worthy to put on, Thanks, KCRW287

Wow, really great reel.  Like so much in seeing all the good generations of power that was used.
Brian Stevens

A really interesting video. So many details to be seen, starting with the buildings, which are fairly unusual in design with those multiple tiers of windows for light and ventilation high on the roofline. I liked the brief glimpse of the U50, and that cabless booster SD with the big turbo bump on the side (an SD24, I think) sitting by the side of the shop building, too. A former world, indeed, and a most interesting one - thanks!

MC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/24 18:16 by ironmtn.

If this was all the same reel of film (i.e. no splice between the UP and SP portions), SP SW1500 2610 entered service in November 1971, and UP started tearing down the East LA shops in late 1972.  Anyone recognize the wooden passenger cars and steam locomotive at 01:53?

East LA as I remembered it. Beautiful!. Railroad names on the cars, no graffiti, and LA smog. 

Thank you for sharing. 

Dave

Evan, I don't know if there is a splice at your mentioned spot, who ever put this film on 7" reels didn't put much thought about a timeline. Weren't the old passenger cars and steam engine part of a traveling exhibition that the UP had to help celebrate the 1869-1969 centennial event. I do have some pictures some where that show these 2 pass cars & steam engine in KC KS at Fairfax yard, right now they are misplaced.   KCRW287

Thanks for posting the great Super 8 UP East Yard video the other day. I recognize nearly all of the locations as I started working there in 1978. The first part of the video is at the west end of the yard at the top end of "C Yard". The yardmaster in charge of the west end of the yard and the switching going on there was up in the tower that is in several shots. "A Yard" for arriving trains is visible off to the left. The row of switch engines was called the "Diesel Spur", that's where all of the west end switch jobs went on duty, a busy place. The shot of the switch engine with a caboose is probably going to the caboose track which was nearby. All of these west end views are long gone. One of the mills visible in the background was Centennial Mills served by the UP. I heard that it was torn down around a year or so ago. 
The second half of the video was taken at the east end of the yard. The old trailer dock and "Drott tracks" for arriving and departing intermodal trains are in some of those views. That part of the yard hasn't changed as much. There is a real quick scene towards the end where the photographer is panning from west to east and you can see two buildings that were next to the mainline that have round roofs. Those are/were actually old airplane hangers from an early airport that predated East Yard.