Nostalgia & History > Southwestern Railroad in 1992

Seeing Espee4Ever 's post on the Wy-Co locomotive and the subsequent shots of Southwestern Railroad GP7Us stored in Wyoming, I thought I'd share a few (Ha) slides from a trip to the Southwestern RR my wife and I took in 1992.

We were going to spend the night at Deming, NM because I wanted to see the SWRR operation from Whitewater to Hurley. As we approached Whitewater we could see in the distance a Santa Fe local returning from the Whitewater interchange. A little further along we saw the exhaust from three SWRR geeps.

Outside of Hurley we watched the train approach and noticed they were having problems. First of all, we noticed the diesel's exhaust pattern weren't in sinc. As each of the three ex-ATSF GP7u unit's lost traction, the wheelslip kicked in, the engine would drop in amps and tractive effort dropped until the wheelslip stopped. Of course, this caused wheelship in one or both of the other two units; they would slip, causing another to slip and so on. At no point were all three not slipping at the same time. And what were they pulling up the grade? Only nineteen empty gons!

Oh, the third unit was very low on water and a crewman was riding next to the "start switch" to start it when it shut down. In fact, all three units were low on water and on our third runby the third GP7u was blowing steam.

I shot about a dozen slides of that adventure and here are a few of them. The date is Sep. 15, 1992. - Tony J.

---

photo #2 of the lead unit. - Tony J.

---

photo #3 - Tony J.

---

photo #4. - Tony J.

---

photo #5 - Tony J.

---

Last shot as the three GP7s approach Hurley, NM. When they arrived water had to be added to all three units. At first they thought they blew the radiator of the third unit, but it was okay. - Tony J.

---

At Hurley we found ex-ATSF 2211 being used as a "parts horse." - Tony J.

---

We also visited SWRR's other operation out of Perryton, TX. Here is SWRR #2072 at Perryton on Sep. 18, 1992. - Tony J.

---

Back in 1992 you could stump a lot of railfans if you asked them to name all the railroads that use SD45s. At that time the SWRR had one SD45 - SWRR #5316. - Tony J.

---

Tony, great pics!! SW has another operation, the Cimarron Valley RR, based in Satanta, KS. Their units are painted in a CR-blue color with white lettering. Last time I saw their operations, all of the CVRR power were GP-30's, though I've heard that a few have suffered from grade-crossing incidents.

SantaFeCF7 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tony, great pics!! SW has another operation, the
> Cimarron Valley RR, based in Satanta, KS. Their
> units are painted in a CR-blue color with white
> lettering. Last time I saw their operations, all
> of the CVRR power were GP-30's, though I've heard
> that a few have suffered from grade-crossing
> incidents.


I have a buddy living in Tyrone, OK and he regularly sends photos of the Cimarron Valley operation. I'd like to visit him again ans see those GP30s in action. - Tony J.

SantaFeCF7 Wrote:

> Tony, great pics!! SW has another operation, the
> Cimarron Valley RR, based in Satanta, KS. Their
> units are painted in a CR-blue color with white
> lettering. Last time I saw their operations, all
> of the CVRR power were GP-30's, though I've heard
> that a few have suffered from grade-crossing
> incidents.

The last time I was by the SWRR at Hurley in 1998, they were mostly blue and white GP30's too. I didn't see any of the blue and gray "warbonnet" geeps.