Railroaders' Nostalgia > Birdwood magic on a day off

Railfanning was a whole different ballgame 35 years ago. Speaking in generalities those of us who are old enough will remember a freer, more open atmosphere while shooting pictures around a given railroad. As has often been discussed, in many parts of the country the railroad industry had a much kinder, gentler attitude toward railfans. In those days there were countless places & situations where the average railfan didn’t think twice about a shooting location. Drive down a trackside access road so you could climb & shoot from that favorite little hill overlooking an S-curve? Sure! No Problem! As long as you didn’t like a moronic foamer, the RR crews & personnel usually just gave you a friendly wave. Or just completely ignored you. Today you would probably have the RR police at your side in a very short time. Unless you weren’t there because that access road already had a locked gate across it.

Back in January of 1981 old friend Keith Wilhite & I made a sojourn that has been taken 1000s of times by railfans from all over the world: US highway 30 in Nebraska! Our grand plan was to roll west from his current residence, Grand Island out to North Platte during the morning. We would be catching EB trains in the beautiful low winter sunshine. We would then have a great lunch someplace, and work our way back to Grand Island shooting WB trains in the (now) afternoon sunshine. It was a great plan! Except the sun never showed up. It was horribly overcast & freezing cold, with a slight threat of a snowstorm. So what did 2 railfans in their mid-20s do? Of course, we wasted a tank & a ½ of gas. And between us we wasted probably at least 5 rolls of Kodachrome. The only claim to glory might be the fact that we both recorded deeply overcast shots of all 6 of Uncle Pete’s GP-40X 9000s during the day. I believe their duties back then were to escort C&NW run-through traffic between Fremont & North Platte.

But then something happened in North Platte. While freely roaming the huge yard we spotted a westbound Centennial that appeared to be going through a pre-departure air test. Since I hadn’t shot very many UP 6900s I told Keith this should be a priority train for us. We duly exited town to the west to look for a suitable photo location. We found Birdwood. I had never been there before and I don’t think Keith had either. We drove up & down UP’s trackside roads scouting out a spot to shoot. We were temporarily delayed by what I believe were an outbound manifest & an inbound local. Then we settled on a spot with an intermediate signal for added scenery detail. The weather was so crappy I really shouldn’t have been shooting with a very slow & cumbersome telephoto. But I was 25 years old and fearlessly knew everything! My ancient old, second-hand Soligor 90 ~ 230 zoom could only give me f/5.6. I had no tripod so I knew I had to carefully squeeze off 125th or even 60th of a second shots while cradling the lens the best I could…

Thank goodness for today’s slide scanning & photo-editing technology! When I got these slides back from Kodak they were predictably very dark. A couple of times back then I came near to throwing some of those slides out. But a stubborn little voice told me not to. So I held onto them. I even used image #4 below for a Christmas card one year. I remember sending an accompanying note with the slide asking the Kodak lab to lighten the image as much as they could without losing it altogether. As I recall they did a marvelous job!

Over the years I pretty much forgot about the cull slides from this trip. Starting with my 2011 membership here on TO I began to explore my collection. I remembered the Centennial shot which I quickly found. I got around to posting it in a thread with a few other images I’d forgotten about. They were scanned by my first scanner, an HP 5040. That was over 4 years ago when all I had was Picasa for photo-editing. I didn’t know how bad my resultant image quality was until the HP crapped out and I was forced to buy another. My Epson V550 is hands down better than that old HP! Here are a few re-scanned images also re-edited in Photoshop. Enjoy…

1. UP 2434 is westbound(?) with a manifest west of Birdwood.

2. & 3. UP 3559 comes back the other way with a local(?) headed into the yard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/16 12:07 by santafe199.

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4. The reason we were out there freezing out patoots off finally shows up. UP 6925 kicks up a bit of gritty snow while under acceleration out of North Platte.

5. & 6. The intrepid intermodal rolls into the frozen weather toward Cheyenne

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Just one more…

7. My affection for this image has really grown since “unearthing” it over 4 years ago. By fading away into the dismal distance maybe this UP caboose was symbolic of not only the imminent demise of Uncle Pete’s Centennials, but the future demise of all cabeese in general as well…
(7 photos taken in the Birdwood area just west of North Platte, NE on January 29, 1981)

PS: As I related in my 2011 thread my job on local 1351-52 out of Abilene, KS was annulled for 01-29-81. So in effect, Santa Fe paid me to take this railfanning jaunt up to Nebraska & US 30. Not bad work for a day’s pay, if I do say so myself…

Thanks for the day off!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Great story and super photos.

Great shots all.  No. 1 is interesting as Birdwood as I recall is on the western edge of North Platte.  The Frisco unit last out on No.1 is rare as Frisco units were regulars on the run through Frisco-UP NWF and FSE trains between KC and North Platte, but rarely ran west of North Platte. 

Roberto
PRose

Nice bunch, the good old days for sure.
JB

Nice series, Lance!

Randy Lundgren

Nice story and photos,  especially like #4. By 1981, that Frisco unit was BN, don't know if that changes things regarding run-thru power west of NP?

Hi Lance,

Glad you got trackside that gloomy day.  The photos have a rare moody feel to them.  Thansk for sharing the photos and your story.

Tim Costello

PRose Wrote:
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> Great shots all.  No. 1 is interesting as
> Birdwood as I recall is on the western edge of
> North Platte.  The Frisco unit last out on No.1
> is rare as Frisco units were regulars on the run
> through Frisco-UP NWF and FSE trains between KC
> and North Platte, but rarely ran west of North
> Platte. 
>
> Roberto
> PRose

With the Frisco/BN SD45's it was uncommon but not rare to see them west of Cheyenne.  The Frisco/BN 4 axle GE's were very rare west of Cheyenne, but were used on trains to Denver and back.  N&W EMD or GE 6 axle power got west of Cheyenne too, but not too often.

The reason I know this:  one of my many cousins, that worked for UP in NP, was a "diesel dispatcher".  Diesel dispatchers sat up in the diesel tower just west of the shops, near the locomotive servicing area, from what I remember.  I was up there once.  They had big three ring binders with info on how every train was to be powered.  The instructions were "set in stone" for eastbounds leaving NP, but not quite so much for those going west, EXCEPT for the hotshots.  There was enough knowledge about the different locomotive types so that a Frisco or N&W U30B didn't wander too far west unless it was going to Denver.  That way it remained captive.  I was told some crews would complain bitterly if they had a 4 axle GE in their consist west of Cheyenne.  One thing I do vividly remember prior to 1980 - the DD's were instructed to turn all RI locomotives back east at NP.  Nothing, not even the RI U30C's or SD40-2, were supposed to go west.  That was because RI power was considered unreliable.  In fact it was common to see the RI run throughs leaving NP with dead RI locomotives, usually the old 4 axle GE's.

Crews wanted 6 axle or bigger power for the trains going west beyond Cheyenne.  And they were supposed to have dynamic brakes, so a 3000 class MP SD40-2 was not supposed to go west of Cheyenne.  However it did happen a couple of times when NP was caught short of power.  I know of at least 1 time when 2 db less MP SD40-2's made it all the way to Seattle on a hotshot in 1981.  If an exception had been granted by a higher authority nothing was said, but if one of the diesel dispatchers screwed up they certainly heard about it.


Allen



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/16 07:52 by bradleymckay.