Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP engineer Harvey Hansen re-post from Nostalgia & History

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4811253

This was posted earlier on Nostalgia & History and is re-posted here per 'alco636' (Tim Dickinson's) request.

There's a story behind those funky numbers on the nose of that SW1500. SP Locomotive Engineer Harvery H. Hansen was a fixture around the yards in Los Angeles, CA for many years. When he was holding down a regular daylight yard job at the Shops (LATC) in the 1980's he took it upon himself to "spruce up" some of our sad looking SW1500's. Armed with a quart can of white house paint and a paint brush, ol' Harve would repaint the number on his trailing unit during bean time. Our consists were always two SW1500's mu'ed "elephant style". He always painted the long hood number on the rear unit as he was somewhat shielded and hidden due to the way the units were oriented. All work was done freehand. Unit 2454 in this photo was one of Harve's repaints. Another unit number that comes to mind was the 2456, later destroyed by a runaway car out around Glendale, CA (crew bailed and were all ok). Harve repainted the end numbers on well over a dozen LA assigned SP SW1500's. Harvey H. Hansen retired many years ago, his final years working a job down at the Harbor Belt (pre-PHL) out of Pier A in Wilmington, CA .I would always get a nice Christmas card from Harve and we would talk on the phone every now and then. Harve's Christmas cards stopped coming a few years ago. Repeated calls to his telephone revealed that it was disconnnected. Sadly, I fear that my friend Harve has passed on . . . . . but his work lives on shown by this nice image. Thanks for the memories. 

Tim Dickinson 
La Verne, CA 
SP Locomotive Engineer, retired 



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/19 11:48 by cewherry.

Check the white pages, you might get lucky.

Dave 

Harvey was a fixture at Taylor Yard. I can picture him now smoking his pipe and dressed in his blue pinstriped jacket.

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kilroydiver Wrote:
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> Check the white pages, you might get lucky.
>
> Dave 

You mean they still publish telephone books?

Don't forget that along with his signature pipe, the front pocket on his shirt was always full of small burn holes . . . . . apparantely the pipe was still hot when put into his pocket!

Tim Dickinson
La Verne, CA

Here's the photo I made of Harvey (extreme right) when he passed through SP's engineer training program at Cerritos, Ca.
Left to right in the photo: Dale Culbertson, Manager, Bob Huddy, Dick Wilson, Jay Bell (I believe), and Harvey Hansen. 
All these guys, (Culbertson excluded), shared the same engineers seniority date: 1-31-72. 

I know Dick Wilson had worked for UP around Ogden, (on steam, I believe) prior to his SP days.
Did Harvey also work for some railroad prior to SP? Jay went on to Amtrak prior to his passing.
Don't know anything more about Bob Huddy.

Charlie



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/19 10:03 by cewherry.

---

As the commercial once said, "Sorry Charlie!".  No, that's definitely not Jay Bell in the simulator photo and I don't remember who it is.

gyralite Wrote:
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> As the commercial once said, "Sorry Charlie!".
>  No, that's definitely not Jay Bell in the
> simulator photo and I don't remember who it is.

Thanks Gary for the correction. The reason for my guess of Jay Bell is that, of the seven engineers with 1-31-72 dates,
he fell right in line with Huddy, Wilson and Hansen on the January 1977 seniority roster.
Of the remaining three; John Edwards and Denver Tucker are in other photos. That
leaves but one, Roland Fogarty. Could Roland be the one tugging on the certificate? I wonder.

Charlie
 

cewherry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's the photo I made of Harvey (extreme right)
> when he passed through SP's engineer training
> program at Cerritos, Ca.
> Left to right in the photo: Dale Culbertson,
> Manager, Bob Huddy, Dick Wilson, Jay Bell (I
> believe), and Harvey Hansen. 
> All these guys, (Culbertson excluded), shared the
> same engineers seniority date: 1-31-72. 
>
> I know Dick Wilson had worked for UP around Ogden,
> (on steam, I believe) prior to his SP days.
> Did Harvey also work for some railroad prior to
> SP? Jay went on to Amtrak prior to his passing.
> Don't know anything more about Bob Huddy.
>
> Charlie


I saw Bob several years ago at a function of some sort. I recognized him he kind of looks the same after all of these years. As I remember he was working in the lobbyists field .

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/19 04:17 by SanJoaquinEngr.

 I'd like to add my vote to the certificate holder not being the late Jay Bell.

Haven't worked with Rowland in about 20 years, but I think he is a possibillity?  I'll bet word gets to him and we hear back.
G

cewherry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> gyralite Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > As the commercial once said, "Sorry Charlie!".
> >  No, that's definitely not Jay Bell in the
> > simulator photo and I don't remember who it is.
>
> Thanks Gary for the correction. The reason for my
> guess of Jay Bell is that, of the seven engineers
> with 1-31-72 dates,
> he fell right in line with Huddy, Wilson and
> Hansen on the January 1977 seniority roster.
> Of the remaining three; John Edwards and Denver
> Tucker are in other photos. That
> leaves but one, Roland Fogarty. Could Roland be
> the one tugging on the certificate? I wonder.
>
> Charlie
>  

I would say the certificate holder is not Roland Fogarty.

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Harvery Hansen worked for the C & N W prior to coming to the SP.

Tim Dickinson
La Verne, CA

I have to agree with you SP veterans. The 'odd' man in the photo is not Jay or Roland. Someone here on TO's probably knows 
who he is and where he was from. 

Thanks for the C&NW info, Tim.

Charlie

cewherry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have to agree with you SP veterans. The 'odd'
> man in the photo is not Jay or Roland. Someone
> here on TO's probably knows 
> who he is and where he was from. 
>
> Thanks for the C&NW info, Tim.
>
> Charlie
Remember when you were teaching at the incubator sometimes the classes also included students from other divisions. When I went through we had men from the T and L Lines.

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Yep, Paul McGuffin, Rick Parsley and I had a guy in our group from the Western Division.

Tim Dickinson
La Verne, CA

alcoc636 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yep, Paul McGuffin, Rick Parsley and I had a guy
> in our group from the Western Division.
>
> Tim Dickinson
> La Verne, CA

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Trying to clarifiy a little of this, Dave was born 3/11/1940.  That would have allowed him a little over four years before being cut off as a fireman, if he was hired at age 18..

His train service date on the SP was 5/28/79.
G 

He would be 79 now. I am not sure what the Santa Fe policy at the time. I know the SP policy was in the 60 s and 70s that the minimum age of employment was 18.

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