Nostalgia & History > More sad photos from Terminal Island, 1955

Various online and print resources say the mostly man-made island that is today part of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA is called Terminal Island because the Los Angeles Terminal Ry. built onto it in the 1890’s.  In the era when National Metals & Steel had a scrapyard there (1947 – 1986), “terminal” took on another meaning as retired locomotives and other rail equipment were sent there to be scrapped. 
 
1) Ira Swett was on hand in June of 1955 as 29-year-old Santa Fe 2-10-2 3897, stripped of its tender, lettering, and dignity, was shoved to its demise by…an orange something-or-other that I wish Swett had also photographed. A single layer of equally doomed streetcars stand in the background, trolley poles reaching skyward for non-existent wires.
 
2) Looking the other way, 3897 faces a crane that looks decidedly like a gallows.  That NM&S hopper being used as an idler doesn’t look like it has many shoves left in it, either. 
 
The end had been agonizingly long for AT&SF 3897.  Its final out of service date was way back on May 7, 1951, when it was put in storage at San Bernardino.  Santa Fe finally sold it for scrap to NM&S on September 20, 1954, but the scrapper was only just now getting around to cutting it up.  The real shame is that none of the 141-member 3800-class 2-10-2’s was preserved.

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Gone, but thankfully not undocumented.  The 3897 was among several 2-10-2’s that finished their careers on the Los Angeles Division within the sights of a large population of railfans eager to capture them on film before they disappeared forever.  Below are some not-so-sad photos of AT&SF 3897. 
 
3) Ira Swett also chanced to catch 3897 intact and standing near the sandhouse at Redondo Jct. in Los Angeles, CA in February 1949, keeping company with a 2-8-2 and assorted “growlers” that were slowly but surely pushing her kind toward oblivion.
 
4) An unidentified photographer who was almost certainly H.L. Kelso caught sisters 3866 and 3897 blasting up the east side of Cajon Pass at Frost, CA, just out of Victorville with a westbound extra in September 1947.

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5) Kelso also copped a roster shot of the 3897 at Victorville on May 30, 1947.
 
6) First 24 rolls past the 3897 with an ABA set of Alcos on the point.  Bright, shiny PA-1 52L, the promise of the future, wouldn’t even last 22 years before eternity beckoned…and we’re darn lucky its type didn’t go extinct as well.
 
Photos courtesy the Southern California Railway Museum and the Western Railway Museum Archives.

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Marvelous views of California glory days with steam fading away and new diesels parading on passenger varnish.  Love your informative captions, Evan.

Nice look back of interestimg times!

Larry