Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP's Palmdale Cutoff project

There are some very interesting comments on the Western Board about the 50th anniversary of the SP's Palmdale Cutoff..In the 1960's, I was still a brakeman/conductor on SP in Los Angeles. I remember very well the talk for years of building a bypass line around Los Angeles, and it finally broke ground in 1965. The primary reason for the cutoff was the ridiculous congestion and delays to all trains in the Los Angeles terminal area. Working freight from Indio to Los Angeles over Beaumont Pass, 129 miles, was at best, a 10 hour proposition. It was not uncommon for a "drag" freight to spend 6 hours from Alhambra to Taylor Yard, a distance on less than ten miles, what with a set-out at the shops yard downtown, and then dragging up to Taylor Yard and waiting on the main for a track to open.
In short, if the cut-off had not been constructed, the SP would have slowly strangled itself in the LA basin. Now, 50 years later, the cutoff is litely used by about 8 trains a day, a far cry from the post construction days. There are several reasons why the traffic has declined. First, general manifest "boxcar" traffic has dropped sharply everywhere. Also. when UP bought the SP, they looked quickly for ways to cut costs to pay for the acquisition - SP was living day to day on its cash flow and almost no reserves. UP, after digesting MKT, CNW, CGW, MSTL WP and MP, was a bit cash short too, but the SP was too good an opportunity to pass up, especially since the Feds encouraged UP to so something to save the poor unfortunate SP. One of the quickest savings was for UP to route all lumber and paper business coming out of Oregon North to Portland and then East over the UP - savings about 800 miles per car but getting about the same revenue per car. You could estimate that hauling a load of lumber 800 extra miles to Memphis or St. Louis by SP via San Antonio cost the SP $4800 for each car. UP quickly banked that saving, as well they should have, but the Eugene to St. Louis and Eugene to Texas thru trains disappeared off the cutoff.
Well, what does all this speculation have to do with nostalgia?
In Spring, 1967, I positioned myself to work the rumored passenger special which would operate from LA to Colton to Bakersfield to Fresno, and back to Oakland. This train was for the Board of Directors of SP so they could observe first hand what had been built. The train consisted of nine or ten business cars and, on the head end, a Shasta type coach for the crew, the air conditioning man, and the trainmaster. We left LA early in the morning, and ran out to Colton, where a special car, a open observation car formerly used on CP, was added to the rear.
Of course, the train was accompanied by a trainmaster all the way - and from Colton, it was J E Neal, a man not kindly regarded by crews. Mr. Neal seemed to feel that the first thing to do upon meeting an employee was to chew them out, and he was true to form with me at Colton. After a short delay in adding the car, we were on our way up the Cajon Pass. Of course, I spent the whole ride in the open vestibule. What an opportunity!
Somewhere between Phelan and Palmdale in the high desert, the train went into emergency. After stopping, I grabbed my "flagging kit" and intended to head for the rear of the train, some 11 cars or 800' back. Neal chewed me out again. "You just stay here!" he said.
"But this is non-block (dark) territory - I have to go out to flag" I protested.
"Dammit - just stay here!"
"OK" I agreed.
Someone toward the rear of the train apparently fixed the air problem, and we were moving after about 10 minutes, but I sure felt uncomfortable not at least attempting to provide flag protection. If another train had been following us closely, do you suppose I could have proved what I was told? I always wondered.

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/17 23:31 by aronco.

Thanks for the tale. Stories like the one you have just written are my favorite things in TO. Of, course, a very, very close second place are the great pictures members folks post.

Is this the same Joe Neal who took the infamous trip on the company jet to Mexico? It is still sort of a company secret and can't be talked about. However Herb Caen did get a hold of it for his column in the Chronicle.

wharfrat Wrote:
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> Is this the same Joe Neal who took the infamous
> trip on the company jet to Mexico? It is still
> sort of a company secret and can't be talked
> about. However Herb Caen did get a hold of it for
> his column in the Chronicle.

That's the same bird. He was a trainmaster at Mojave, and later Asst. Superintendent of the San Joaquin Division. He was a real piece of work. One night, when he'd been moved to the Traffic Department, he was in a business car behind my caboose. I carried a scanner with me at the time so I could detect the weed weasels on the PBX. Joe was on that PBX almost all night long, and most of his calls consisted of verbal abuse to someone.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

tehachcond Wrote:
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> wharfrat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Is this the same Joe Neal who took the infamous
> > trip on the company jet to Mexico? It is still
> > sort of a company secret and can't be talked
> > about. However Herb Caen did get a hold of it
> for
> > his column in the Chronicle.
>
> That's the same bird. He was a trainmaster at
> Mojave, and later Asst. Superintendent of the San
> Joaquin Division. He was a real piece of work.
> One night, when he'd been moved to the Traffic
> Department, he was in a business car behind my
> caboose. I carried a scanner with me at the time
> so I could detect the weed weasels on the PBX.
> Joe was on that PBX almost all night long, and
> most of his calls consisted of verbal abuse to
> someone.
>
> Brian Black
> Castle Rock, CO

What a jackass. Always made me glad I worked for the AT&SF; I probably would have been canned in 10 minutes on the SP with people like that and Lacey's Raiders.

Norm, would this be the same guy (I hope) that D.J.Russel had stay behind when you were invited to dine aboard "The Sunset"?

Desmond Praetzel. "4451 Puff"

wharfrat Wrote:
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> Is this the same Joe Neal who took the infamous trip on the company jet to Mexico? It is still sort of a company secret and can't be talked about. However Herb Caen did get a hold of it for his column in the Chronicle.

If it made it into the newspapers it's probably not much of a secret anymore!

Norm, do you know if anyone took any pictures of that train?

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> wharfrat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Is this the same Joe Neal who took the infamous
> trip on the company jet to Mexico? It is still
> sort of a company secret and can't be talked
> about. However Herb Caen did get a hold of it for
> his column in the Chronicle.
>
> If it made it into the newspapers it's probably
> not much of a secret anymore!
>
> Norm, do you know if anyone took any pictures of
> that train?

There were pictures posted by SP6190 on TO

For those that are interested in the history of the Cutoff (and the Mojave Sub in general) check out the Winter 2014 issue of SPH&TC's "SP Trainline". There is a dispatchers train sheet shown on pages 20 and 21 with a date of 7/6/78, along with several train orders. SP employees may notice the familiar names on there. Some of the engineers I see on the sheet include Walt Gould, Bill Kalbaugh, Joe Buschke, Steve Fabbri, the Schuck brothers, Bernie Easton, Dennis Parker and Ron Oliver, on a helper, who was killed about a year later in the rear ender at Thousand Palms.

Also included is a reference to the story about infamous SP conductor D.D. Burke using a Navy flare gun to call in his flagman, which resulted in a brush fire and a $20,000.00 fine.



Allen



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/17 19:57 by bradleymckay.

I had an "intimate" history with the Cutoff working as an SPRR train dispatcher on the LA Division. Pictured below is a "snippet" of how the Cutoff was dispatched in 1971. The first photo is of my first ever train order issued on the Cutoff on September 22, 1971, my first day as a train dispatcher at 610 S. Main Street, Los Angeles, California. The order was issued to Colton (CY) and Palmdale (NA), and was a simple wait order instructing westbound No. 515 to wait at the various stations on the Cutoff for Extra 5316 East. In the early days of the Cutoff, as has been discussed in the various posts on TO, this was "dark territory" dispatched by train order with a train order office at each end (Colton and Palmdale) and one in the middle (Hiland) which, in 1971, was a daylight office only. The second photo is from another day in November 1971 when I was working the Coast/Cutoff train order desk again only this time on 3rd trick. Each early morning the train dispatchers were required to issue a track car lineup that maintenance and other folks would pick up and use at the start of their tour of duty, giving them an idea of when and where trains might be on that particular section of railroad. This particular lineup was issued for the territory between Palmdale and Slover (where CTC started/ended in conjunction with the LA Division west end dispatcher) between the hours of 625am and 925am. The term "ERTOT NO X" means Eastward Regular Trains on Time no exceptions. Of course, because there were no regular scheduled trains in the eastbound direction as all trains operated as extras. Likewise, the term "WRTOT X 521 and 515" means Westward Regular Trains on Time Except No. 521 and No. 515. In both the train order and the lineup, each word and number is underlined by me, the train dispatcher, as the train order operators repeat the order or lineup back to the train dispatcher. The "catch all" phrase used on lineups at this time was the all too familiar phrase: "Expect other trains at any time". By the way, the train order operator at Hiland made a lot of extra money getting calls from the dispatcher on second and third tricks to copy orders when things got messed up. We finally staffed up that office to full 24x7 and established Dike as another train order office later on in the 70s. Fun times and we all made it work on the SPRR!

Pete Baumhefner

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I've always found the cutoff to be one of the most god awfully boring stretches of railroad, turning that corner at Palmdale at sunrise can be dreadful. I am surprised that its not photographed more often though, lots of nice angles between Phelan and Hiland. It has been nice seeing the recent stories about it here on TO.

<<I’ve always found the cutoff to be one of the most god awfully boring stretches of railroad, turning that corner at Palmdale at sunrise can be dreadful.



Worst night trips I ever made was watching the sun come up at Wash.

In the late 1960s or so a rumor began that SP was cutting-back on the Mojave yard. As president of the Chamber of Commerce I asked Joe if that was true. He said it was not, I found out later that day that he held a meeting in the deport and told the crews that the story was true and they could bid into jobs in Bakersfield. He was a snotty little jerk who managed to p--- off every one he dealt with.
Years later another rumor surfaced that the Jawbone Branch would be closed east of Searles. I called my p.r. contact at SP and he said he hadn't heard about that.
The next day a legal notice was published in the Bakersfield Californian announcing the closure. That was not my PR friend's fault - SP in those days was a pretty CS outfit.
When my wife and I bought the local paper I did a couple stories about local "rails'" last runs. I stopped after two because I couldn't print what they had to say about their careers and the SP!

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

MojaveBill Wrote:
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> ". . . SP in those
> days was a pretty CS outfit."

You do, of course, mean "Common Standard," don't you? :-)

If OP Norman had been rear-ended by another train...that idiot would have denied everything...I have No doubt...Steve

wharfrat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is this the same Joe Neal who took the infamous
> trip on the company jet to Mexico? It is still
> sort of a company secret and can't be talked
> about. However Herb Caen did get a hold of it for
> his column in the Chronicle.

Oh yes the famous drug smuggling flights from South of the border .

Posted from Android

MojaveBill Wrote:
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> He was a snotty
> little jerk who managed to p--- off every one he
> dealt with.

It ran in the family, Bill.....

This thread reminded me that someone had given me a set of train orders from the Dedication train.

I just found them and here they are for your amusement.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/18 14:41 by px320.

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I guess I'm a little confused. If the clearance card was issued at Palmdale No. 1, shouldn't it be conveying information about conditions ahead of the train on the cutoff? The register check pertaining to Denis was for a location the train had already passed. Shouldn't that order # 33 have been issued to the train at someplace like Mojave?

CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> I guess I'm a little confused. If the clearance
> card was issued at Palmdale No. 1, shouldn't it be
> conveying information about conditions ahead of
> the train on the cutoff? The register check
> pertaining to Denis was for a location the train
> had already passed. Shouldn't that order # 33
> have been issued to the train at someplace like
> Mojave?


Palmdale No 1 and Palmdale were within interlocking. There was a special instruction that allowed trains getting a proceed signal at Palmdale to go to Denis regardless of superiority. Going east, there was a "M" signal at the west end of Denis, controlled by the Palmdale operator. When instructed by the train dispatcher, the operator would display the "M" signal at Denis to allow the train to proceed to Palmdale regardless of superiority.

TAW