Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicles # 49: Trainmaster at Colton

Trainmaster at Colton, September 1972 to February 1973.

I had left Colton for Houston in February of 1971, spent six months at Strang and then 14 months at the Colton Belt headquarters at Pine Bluff. Now, here I was back on the Colton Trainmasters District, some twenty months after I left.

Several things had changed while I was gone. First, Jay Long had retired and the new Superintendent was R G Thruston. He had preceded Krebs as Superintendent at Pine Bluff. The fact that I had come from the Cotton Belt, helped establish a relationship between RGT and myself. Arnold Bays was still the Assistant Superintendent who managed day to day operations, however Bill Reed had been replaced by Jim Martin as the administrative Assistant Superintendent.

There was now a trainorder office at Hiland on the Palmdale-Colton Cutoff. This meant no more trains or helpers stuck up on the Cutoff waiting for someone to messenger orders

The PFE ice plant at Colton was by now largely shut down, as all of the reefers in our lane were now mechanicals. We did still do some pre-cooling and top iceing, but nothing like what we were doing less than two years before.

There were significantly less ore trains. By this time there was very little export ore moving to the Harbor. Ore trains to Kaiser Steel at Fontana were still about one a day. There was a new once a week unit train of steel coil cars loading at Kaiser, which moved east. If anything, operations around Kaiser siding at Fontana were even more complex than before.

The most significant change by far was the construction activity at West Colton which stretched from Slover, west practically to the east end of the siding at South Fontana.
My involvement in the construction of the yard at this point was limited to supervising the crews on the work trains that all originated at what we were already beginning to call “Old Colton” By September of 1972 most of the grading had been completed, most of the structures were under construction and a rail welding plant had been set up on the site. The entire new yard was to be constructed of welded rail.

Fortunately for the Yardmasters at Old Colton, there was enough track already in place at West Colton to keep most of the cars of new material out at the construction site and not at Old Colton. Since the work trains were under my supervision, I could arrange for extra trips back to Old Colton if we started to get plugged up with West Colton construction materials.

This was kind of like having a front row, box seat at a preliminary game. I already knew that I would play on the West Colton team as an Assistant Terminal Superintendent just as soon as the yard opened for business. I had been told by Bob Thruston that was to be my fate as soon as I had reported to him on the fifth of September. The Colton Trainmasters district was to become part of the West Colton Terminal territory, except for the portion west of Montclair. The west end of the territory would go to the City of Industry District. Around the same time that I became Trainmaster at Colton, Mike Mohan had become the Trainmaster at City of Industry

In any case, I was to have my own district for about six months. I got to watch the construction of the new yard. I had an Assistant Trainmaster who was taking care of most of the nighttime problems on the District. I still had a very good cadre of Yardmasters at Old Colton and most of my local and roadswitcher crews were good hard working guys.
One of the conductors on the Kaiser locals was outstanding. His name was “Snuffy” Smith. He had some very good ideas for how to make life better for everyone, too.

I settled down immediately to enjoy what may have been the best, most fun, six months of my career at SP. After all I really did not need to learn this territory, I already knew it.
Trainmasters jobs may be the best jobs on the Railroad if you work it right and get along with your Superintendent.

(To be continued)

mdo

I just realized that I posted this thread thirty two years to the day that I reported for duty as the Trainmaster at Colton.

My how time flys when you are having fun.

The construction of West Colton ruined a good Trainmaster's District. Too bad they didn't build it at Yuma, or better still, at El Paso. That is another story.

mdo

mdo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just realized that I posted this thread thirty
> two years to the day that I reported to duty as
> the Trainmaster at Colton.
>
> My how time flys when you are having fun.
>
> The construction of West Colton ruined a good
> Trainmaster's District. Too bad they didn't build
> it at Yuma, or better still, at El Paso. That is
> another story.
>
> mdo

Mike,

That leads to the question, that I've heard from time to time. That West Colton yard should have been build farther east, say like Indio or Yuma. Can you comment on that?

J.

Let me first cover what West Colton was supposed to do and what went wrong. After that why it should have been built further to the east will be easy to understand. As I said in the post just above yours. It would have been better to have it in Yuma or even maybe El Paso.

So I am agreeing with what you have heard.

mdo

mdo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let me first cover what West Colton was supposed
> to do and what went wrong. After that why it
> should have been built further to the east will be
> easy to understand. As I said in the post just
> above yours. It would have been better to have it
> in Yuma or even maybe El Paso.
>
> So I am agreeing with what you have heard.
>
> mdo

Mike,

I'm looking forward to the entire West Colton story.

J.

From what I remember, is that the design was outdated before they started building it. The make up tracks were too short and when you doubled over, the yard was blocked until you got out of town. The other was they could not extend to the east because the SP/SF Interlocking.

Just recalling what I remember, working into LA from SLO.

Nudge

West Colton has always been referred to as Malfunction Junction....

And where is our MDO these days..?

Writing a think piece paper about railroad capacity issues and the limitations of capacity analysis simulations for a team of consultants

Yes, yes, I know, I am way behind in the Mad Dog Chronicles. Got to eat, first.

So for those of suffering from withdrawal symptoms and who have forgotten how to use the search function, here is the address for MDC #50:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,787446

MDC #51: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,788488
MDC #52 ( the one about the box lunch) http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,789294
MDC #53 (the rest of the story) http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,790001

mdo

It is incredible how similar the Colton tales duplicate similar stories on the Santa Fe about the location of each railroad's Southern California new major yard built in the 70's. I was involved in the opening of Barstow Yard in 1976 and the same sort of discussions were flying about during that era except for the names and companies.

Norm Orfall
(TIOGA PASS)