snowbound SP AlCo PA train

Very interesting.  Thanks.

I poked around and found another site with some more pictures of this event.

http://cprr.org/Museum/Strande...iner_1952/index.html

and a YouTube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Yew1UQuQE

Thanks for calling this to our attention, RoyBoy.  We ought not to forget the heroic railroading that rescued the passengers and re-opened the railroad.

Ahh yes when men were men.

Fantastic story! Thanks for posting Roy!

Pentrex has a good video that covers this called snow on the run. Some of the footage is below.

Southern Pacific documentary "snow on the run"

Part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTrXHcyPj_g

Part2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq0uWb8LnAM

Thanks for the heads-up, RoyBoy, and thanks for the very interesting YouTube connections, too, Chris & Matt.

Did anybody notice that though the "crack" streamliner was diesel powered, the snowplow of the rescue train seemed to be steam powered?

Frank

Enjoyed reading the article very much. Also enjoyed watching the videos. Thanks for this thread.

A fascinating piece of railroad history.

On 15 Jan 2002 (50^th anniversary) I printed a 4 page article from trains.com. 

I remember seeing a movie about a stranded train in the early 1950s when I was a young child.  After reading the trains.com article I searched for the movie hoping to find it on CD.

I never found the movie, but I found a great hardback book (I don’t remember where I ordered it or what I paid for it).  Title “Snowbound Streamliner Rescuing the 1952 City of San Francisco”, author Robert J. Church, publisher Signature Press Wilton California, copyright 2000.

Without rereading the book, here are some things I remember; 

There were 2 SP rescue teams.  The first used huge rotary snowplows pushed by Cab Forwards to reach the stranded train.  The 2^nd also used huge rotary snowplows pushed by Cab Forwards to clear another track a couple miles away.  Due to the record snow drifts, both teams experienced plows breaking and locomotives derailing.  One SP employee died during the effort.

During the rescue effort a local ski club carrying backpacks got through with some supplies.  A few sno-cats also got in with supplies.

The 2^nd team met their objective first and a relief train was brought in on the nearby track.  The stranded passengers and crew were moved via sno-cats and other vehicles to the relief train.  Included in the relief train were 2 diners stocked with steak, lobster, and champagne.

When it was all over, there was 1 lawsuit against the SP Railroad as virtually all felt the SP did everything humanly possible to rescue them.

chuck

I recall there back in the 50's there was a Playhouse 90, Lucky Strike Theater or other live action drama show that did a fictional drama of the passenger trapped on the train.

Rusty

I did a quick search Disney Storm Called Maria.  An interesting movie made for TV, (1959) at the time that had a section train related similar to this. Not neccessarily a documentary.    The made for TV film still appears to be available.  Foggy things in an old head, I must have been fascinated with this as a 10 year old.

Rusty

I remember the Playhouse 90, Lucky Strike Theater.  That may be what I saw and it was fictional as what I remember from the movie does not match what really happened.

In the movie, I remember a scene where the conductor comes through directing all passengers to move to the forward cars as they were going to disconnect the rear cars and the engineer was going to attempt to plow out.  The next scene is the locomotive wheels spinning.  The last scene shows couplers connecting as the relief train made it and connected to pull the stranded train out.

chuck

The ALCo PA-1 was 2000 HP and the PA-2 model was 2250 HP, not 900 as mentioned in the newspaper article. And the interstate highway wasn't called that, it was US 40, mostly a two lane trans-Sierra highway. Much of old US 40 still exists. Interstate 80 wasn't opened until 1959-1960.

And 1952 was the year of the big earthquake near Tehachapi that wrecked a couple of railroad tunnels.

When it was all over, there was 1 lawsuit against the SP Railroad as virtually all felt the SP did everything humanly possible to rescue them.

 

chuck

And what was the outcome of the lawsuit?

You can still do a step back in time.  This is south near Kingman AZ, to a small tourist trap Oatman, AZ.  US Rt 66 the main trip to LA from all points east.  US Rt. 40 would have been to San Francisco a very similar trip.  We take the interstate (I-??) roads for granted. 

Does that road go to Radiator Springs?