Nostalgia & History > FA’s pulling, FM’s pushing on Cajon

Yesterday over on the Western board, I posted some modern-day images of trains on east side of Cajon Pass:
 
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5995750
 
The Jeff Moreau collection at the Southern California Railway Museum contains a number of negatives covering the area in the late 1940’s, when Union Pacific was dieselizing its operations with sets of Alco FA-1 and FB-1 road freight units assisted by Fairbanks Morse H20-44 road switchers (despite looking like overgrown end-cab switchers, an H20-44 packed more horsepower than an FA-1 and rode on the same trucks).  Most of the images appear to be the work of James N. Spencer and H.L. Kelso, but unfortunately, only a few are properly credited. 
 
1)  It’s probably a stretch to call Lenwood, CA part of Cajon Pass.  Westbounds passing the diminutive train order office 6 miles west of Barstow were actually on a slight downgrade, but what the heck.  Extra 1516 west is clearly moving right along as the operator watches the crew snag their orders and Spencer trips the shutter.  According to Don Strack’s site, FA-1 1516A was built in November 1947 and renumbered 1616 in October 1948.
 
2) Nine negatives earlier, Spencer photographed the type of helper that most likely awaited Extra 1516 at Victorville.  D.S. 1360 was one of eleven Fairbanks-Morse H20-44 road switchers UP acquired in 1947 to dieselize helper operations over Cajon.  Although first in the series, August 1947-built 1360 actually had the third lowest builder’s number.  The units that became UP 1365 and 1366 were built as FM demonstrators a few months earlier and were sold to UP in October 1947 after the first order of production units was on the property.  The FM’s proved to be a disappointment, and UP steam helpers returned to Cajon for about a year from 1950 into 1951, when UP brought in EMD TR5 sets to re-dieselize the helper assignments.  The H20-44's were all gone by mid-1964.
 
3) Extra 1500 west is digging in to the 1.6% grade of the north track shortly before it flies over the eastbound main and becomes the south track at Frost, CA.  The photographer is uncredited, but the photographic style and 4x5 negative format fairly screams H.L. Kelso.  Lead unit 1500A is missing its coupler shroud, and the support piece for the shroud is hinged up.  The unit was built in June 1947 as the first of 44 FA-1’s on the roster.  The Alcos barely outlasted the FM's, with the last ones stricken from the roster in 1965. 

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4) From the hillside on the other side of the tracks at the same spot, we see 1516A on another westbound with the Upper Mojave Narrows in the background and the eastbound main, a stockyard, and the Frost station sign to the right.
 
5) At the other end of the train, D.S. 1360 shoves on LA&SL-assigned CA-1 class wooden caboose 3352, which Don Strack’s site says was built by LA&SL back in July 1918.
 
https://utahrails.net/caboose/caboose-wood-roster-5.php#lasl_ca-1_3340-3363
 
 6) The landscape at Hesperia, 7 miles west of Frost, may look flat, but Extra 1600 is working against a 1% grade as it passes below the signal bridge.  Left-hand running west of the Frost flyover meant signals needed to be mounted between the main tracks to place them to the engineer’s right.  Santa Fe opted to use signal bridges and cantilevers rather than wider track centers and mast-mounted signals.  UP 1600 is the former 1500A seen in photo 3, renumbered in April 1948.

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7) A wave from the fireman as Extra 1511 West smokes it up on the 1.5% grade through Lugo, still six miles below Summit.
 
8) Four-stroke chugging on the front gives way to two-stroke drumming on the rear as D.S. 1360 pushes against yellow, steel, CA-3 class caboose 3731 built by the Mount Vernon Car Manufacturing Co. in May 1942.
 
9) Jumping all the way over to the other side of the pass, we’ll finish with this view of D.S. 1364, positioned ahead of the caboose this time, as it sits in the eastbound siding that wrapped around behind the depot at Devore, CA.  The caboose is CA-4 3828, built by Pullman-Standard in October 1944.  UP changed its caboose paint scheme from red with white lettering to yellow with red lettering three months before this photo was taken.

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These are amazing photos--so detailed, so crisp--black and white photography like this I findm ore appealing than color.

Look at all those wide open spaces back then near Victorville and other parts along old Route 66--so open, so "free" of urban problems, like today.  I miss that so, so much.  Now, the desert areas up there are just growing, endlessly, as if it will never end.

The irony is back then, despite WAY LESS PEOPLE, we had WAY MORE TRAINS.  Less people, but more trains.  Go figure.  I would love to see that ratio again.

Were there way more trains on Cajon then? Total tonnage was what, a quarter of what it is now?

Can the two flags in pic 7 possibly be the same color?

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These are amazing photos--so detailed, so
> crisp--black and white photography like this I
> findm ore appealing than color.
>
> Look at all those wide open spaces back then near
> Victorville and other parts along old Route 66--so
> open, so "free" of urban problems, like today.  I
> miss that so, so much.  Now, the desert areas up
> there are just growing, endlessly, as if it will
> never end.
>
> The irony is back then, despite WAY LESS PEOPLE,
> we had WAY MORE TRAINS.  Less people, but more
> trains.  Go figure.  I would love to see that
> ratio again.

we had a ton more rr people thou

and todays tonnage blows this periods tonnage away

Back then, we had a "ton more" people working on the railroad with shorter (but more frequent) trains. We also had a smaller population with less railroad tonnage back then. But conversely, I would think that per capita, rail was used more than other forms of transport.

Victor Baird

Posted from Android



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/25 04:19 by wabash2800.

IMO, those ALCO F units certainly looked handsome. Also IMO, the passenger PA looked handsome too. I find it interesting they both shared the same design of snoot but the passenger unit had a longer one. Thankfully, they both didn't have short or long noses. I wonder if this was because someone was on the ball regarding asthetics or that it had something to do with six axle versus 4 axle trucks.

Victor Baird

Posted from Android



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/25 04:02 by wabash2800.

True historic photographic masterpieces!
Bob

What an amazing series

Even though I don't like diesels, these are great photos! Must either be postcard (122) or 4x5 Graflex or Speed Graphic. Big negatives with bang on exposure yielded super photos.
B&W is the only way to go from back in that era, but I would like to see Frisco steam in color from that period of time.
Thanks for your postings.

Thanks for posting those, Evan.  Wonderful time machine!  (...I was 6 years old.)

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

Thanks for a very cool series of a very interesting time!

Larry

Per Lloyd Stagner's book on UP motive power, George Ashby (UP president 1946 - 1949) pushed dieselization and UP ordered 10 four-unit FA/FB sets in December 1947 (along with EMD diesels).  Ashby also pushed through the board an approval for 12 more four-unit FA/FB sets in October 1948 (along with other diesels).  Stagner stated "This portion of the order proved to be a serious mistake, brought about by the failure to wait until more time had elapsed after the first units were acquired.  Turbocharger troubles plagued the Alcos, with frequent failures and high maintenance costs resulting.  By 1952, the Union Pacific was on record that it would never purchase another Alco diesel locomotive."  That was one of a number of reasons that George Ashby was fired in early 1949.

Steve

UP was dieselizing the LA&SL "early" for the same reason the Santa Fe and the WP did, good water in the desert was hard to find and providing that good water for steam locomotives was very expensive.
Especially when you factor in the post war inflation that the country was going through in the late fourties. It was just UP's bad luck that the CMO believed the ALCO salesman's line.

"Total tonnage was what, a quarter of what it is now?"

Less than that, it turns out. In 1952 SFe carried
8.3 million net ton-miles per mile (total, east plus west)
between Barstow and San Bernardino. Looks
like that doesn't include UP, since the map
shows about 7 million on the 3rd District.

(Next question: how much extra tonnage during the war.)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18gVzQ_V965Vu9TK9EmGSHPS1V_JxVLyG/view?usp=sharing

UP was late to the game for road freight diesels.  Ashby's predecessor, William Jeffers (who retired in early 1946), was a steam man and did not think that the diesel was as good as UP's modern steam power.  Thus, no road freight diesels were purchased by Jeffers.  Ashby liked the economies and improvements from diesels and wanted to dieselize all through freight service Green River to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City to Pocatello, and Cheyenne to Laramie, and submitted an AFE (Authority of Expenditures) to the board in January 1948 that he thought would allow such.  This from Lloyd Stagner's book on UP motive power.

Steve

SGillings Wrote:

> "By 1952, the Union Pacific was on record that it would never purchase another Alco diesel locomotive."  That was one of a
> number of reasons that George Ashby was fired in early 1949.

Thanks for the additional information.  Does the book have any insights on why UP gave Alco one more chance with the C-630's and C-855's (which UP would also come to regret)?

No.  The book is called Union Pacific Motive Power In Transition.  It covers the period 1936 - 1960, from when the first Challengers were purchased until the first year in which there was no operation of non-excursion revenue steam.  A very good book as are his other books.

Steve

As I look at the 1st photo at Lenwood with the passing UP power, I can't help but wonder--- 
   How many such close station/train scenes existed, with the trackside operator becoming either injured or becoming a fatality in a high-speed derailment. ???  
    I'd hope NONE!!  Most stations I've known of, the agent was at least, outside and performing a "roll by inspection" where they might at least attempt to escape such incident.
I see the agent/operator is standing outside and waving to the engineer, but still way to closeby in my books! 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/25 19:46 by rrman6.