Nostalgia & History > SP ALCO PA #6036 leads the Cascade at Salem, OR (1966)

The late Dave Nicoletti caught Southern Pacific’s last Shasta Route passenger train, the “Cascade,” making a quick early morning stop at Salem, Oregon before continuing on to its scheduled 8:15 a.m. arrival in Portland after an overnight trip from Oakland, CA.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

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Wow. 

Just wow.

Beautiful lighting...almost looks like a painting.  I guess this would have been about the last year for the PAs, with new SDP45s on the horizon.

Dave

Fantastic image , thanks for posting it !

Wonderful

Agreed with the painting observation. Low light magic here.

Incredible photo, have stood in front of that depot countless times in the past 20 years - nice to have a connection with the past.

Rich

Looks like a lot of AI/Photoshop enhancement there.  I bet the original slide was just fine as it is.

Rare for 1966 on 11/12. PAs were captive to 101/102

Always happy to see an SP  PA especially in Oregon!

Well Greg, if this was a Photobob post, I would suspect some funny business going on here. Quite an image, whatever the case.

EO
Wx4.org

I have doubts the photo was taken in 1966.  Alco PA units were taken off Shasta Route passenger trains around 1962.  I have never seen a photo taken after that time of them on any Shasta Route passenger train until the photo posted here came up.

But it is in the realm of possibility they could have made the trip between Oakland and Portland a very small number of times in the mid-sixties.  On the San Joaquin Daylight, Alco PAs showed up maybe once or twice a year in the mid-sixties (I took a photo of one instance. The last time Alco PAs were regularly used on the San Joaquin Daylight was the summer of 1961).

I also have doubts the photo is real.

johnsweetser Wrote:
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> I have doubts the photo was taken in 1966.  Alco
> PA units were taken off Shasta Route passenger
> trains around 1962.  I have never seen a photo
> taken after that time of them on any Shasta Route
> passenger train until the photo posted here came
> up.
>
This is a photo I took as a 15 year old in 1966.  Not sure of the train but PAs sure enough. Near Fairgrounds off Silverton Road in Salem. Signal is for the west end of Labish.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/26 21:49 by roustabout.

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Here's the original scan of Dave's image.  I grew up in Salem and visited this location several times a year during my days-off from school, etc. in the 1950's.  Many good memories of the Cascade, Shasta Daylight, etc., in their original colors... but I did not own a camera!  I spent most of the 1960's in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia, so I missed out on the demise of many of the trains that I had known from previous years.  When I returned, nearly everything on the Espee was "gray."

Since I had so many memories of this scene, I felt that posting a copy of what my memory was would be appropriate.  And, frankly, Dave's camera at the time was simply not very capable of producing great images.  In my digital processing of his image I felt that the lackluster impression of the solid gray locomotives would be enhanced if I brightened-up the sky a bit.  Which version is more "real" is just in our minds.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

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My eyes seem to detect some Daylight red and orange colors back in the train. I sure do like that first image.

johnsweetser Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have doubts the photo was taken in 1966.  Alco
> PA units were taken off Shasta Route passenger
> trains around 1962.  I have never seen a photo
> taken after that time of them on any Shasta Route
> passenger train until the photo posted here came
> up.
>
> But it is in the realm of possibility they could
> have made the trip between Oakland and Portland a
> very small number of times in the mid-sixties. 
> On the San Joaquin Daylight, Alco PAs showed up
> maybe once or twice a year in the mid-sixties (I
> took a photo of one instance. The last time Alco
> PAs were regularly used on the San Joaquin
> Daylight was the summer of 1961).
>
> I also have doubts the photo is real.
PAs lasted on 11/12 until 1965

This video explained the whole post processing capibility for me, I do well in PSE but had no idea what Lightroom was all about. I had noticed a number of TO posters talking about Lightroom post processing, now I know too

" Lightroom Finally Added This "
Mark Denney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URA8seDHBjE