Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP T&E at Mojave, CA.

Guys, did you have the whiskers to hold the KI Blitz?
Remember spotting the "Big BLDG"?
Once inside you felt like the size of an ant!
Good job-Daylight.
What more could you want?
How about the old Mojave RH and depot?
You knew the agent and I'm sorry to see the depot go.
I always was fond of those SP two story ones.


JJ Bucksnort.

   Never had the whiskers to hold the old "KI Bitz", but I was the conductor on a local that came out of Los Angeles, and did a the local work between Burbank Jct and Rosamond, and yes, we've spotted wing cars in the "Big Building" at Lockheed at Palmdale.  At the time, Lockheed was building the L-1011 airliner.  The building was also known as "Plant 10." We also spotted tank cars of a special jet fuel for the SR-71 "Blackbird."  By itself, that JP-7, as I believe it was called, was almost inert.  A caralyst of some kind had to be added before it could be used in a plane.  We spotted these cars to USAF Plant 42.  As a note, we had to cross an active taxiway to get to Plant 42, and this created interesting situations a couple of time.
   The "KI Blitz" took care of everything west of Rosamond, Mojave yard, the cement plant at Creal, and was also bulletined to make a haul to Searles and back.  That was their last move, and would occur about the time we got there.  Val Favero and his crew didn't want to go to Searles, they wanted to go home.  We were more than willing to make the trip to Searles, since we weren't bulletined to go out there. "Ca-ching!"  More than often, we would do it.
   We would get our rest at Mojave and go back on duty at 730a.  Very often, our first move was to carryall out to Searles and bring the train in that the Trona RR had left at Searles during the night. Again, "Ca-ching!" Once we put that train away in the yard at Mojave, we would gather up our LA-bound traffic, and work our way back to LA.
   A very good job, and the only reason I was able to hold it was because I possesed a seniority date as a prior right San Joaquin Mountain District conductor.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

Excellent description of the work around around Mojave-Palmdale. A first class narration of the work involved.
Loved those technicalities about the BlackBird and the fuel.
What happed to Conductor Carpenter??
And I don't mean Cable!!

happy Holidays to Brian Black

Ray Carpenter retired and passed away years ago. When he retired, he was number 1 on the Mountain seniority roster.

Brian

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/22 13:35 by tehachcond.

What were the “interesting” situations involving the active taxiway at Plant 42?

Little Green Men!

A taxiing L-1011 had a near collision with a crew switching Plant 42. The train was strung out across the taxiway, and had to make a quick move to get out of the way. Someone on the plane even flipped the crew off. On another occasion, we were switching Plant 42, and a C-130 approached. We had a fireman on the engine who was half asleep, and when he woke up, all he could see was spinning propellers! He let out a yell, grabbed a red flag, and was giving the plane a big washout stop sign. The stop sign got slower and slower as he realized the plane was stopped a safe distance back, and he’d just made a total fool of himself. After we cleared, the plans went by, and we could see the crew laughing their butts off.
After these incidents, if we had to switch Plant 42, we would call Mojave, who would call plant security, who would coordinate any moves.

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I'm surprised they let you guys anywhere near the "aircraft movement area" without an escort from Airport Operations in the first place.

We were never escorted at any time even after we had to call Mojave. Plant security simply told Mojave to tell us to come on, or hold back if they had something going on.
Different era.

Brian

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I think Tom Siembieda held the Blitz for a while IIRC?
TAH

90mac Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think Tom Siembieda held the Blitz for a while
> IIRC?
> TAH

Yes after the merger the jobs were all rebulletined.

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