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c.sam posted:

What a great post Bill,  can you tell us more about the story of these?

Little did those people who were a part of the railroads back then realize that they were to become 'legends'!

Unfortunately I know very little.  I was approached by the lady who was looking for someone who would appreciate these items that meant a lot to her.  She was up in years and wanted them to have a good home.  She was proud of her uncle and there were no family members to inherit.  I was really surprised when she included the photo.    I will pass them along to my kids.

Steve24944 posted:
briansilvermustang posted:

 

Interesting Signal.  I don't think I have ever seen a semaphore and a searchlight signal combination like that.

Steve

It's another Santa Fe quirk.  There are a couple of things to observe:  The signal mast does not have a number plate (making it an Absolute Signal) and the searchlight is capable of displaying only one aspect.  Notice the back of the searchlight unit housing, which just contains lamp holder and is not the right size or shape to contain a searchlight mechanism.  Similar modifications to other automatic block signals were done in the late 1930's through the late 1940's.

Santa Fe did this in certain locations to advance trains past an Absolute Signal so that a train on the main track could proceed for a variety of reasons.  The searchlight can only display a yellow aspect, allowing that signal to display red over yellow (Restricting, under old Santa Fe rules).  The Operator at a train order office which was located beyond the signal could cause the lower unit to be lighted and a train could proceed past the signal, without stopping, at Restricted Speed, and receive Train Orders at the office.  This location is (I'm almost certain) in Oklahoma at the end of a section of double track.  The year is 1948 or '49 (since the windshield wiper on 72L is still bottom mounted, they were moved to top mount in 1949).  The train is the Texas Chief.

Of course, the Chief does not need to worry about Restricted Speed in this photo, as it's parting the breeze at a good clip, evidenced by the dust it's stirring up and the exhaust lying low across the roofs of the two big Alco-GE's.

             small FLAGS on locomotives...
Q I've seen pictures of small flags on locomotives, both steam and diesel, and I've noticed both white and green colors for these flags. What do these flags and their colors mean?


A In steam and early diesel days, when railroads ran a lot of passenger trains, all of which ran on published schedules (as did some freight trains, too, on some railroads), any train operating not on a published schedule was an "extra" train, indicated by white flags (or lights) on the front of the engine.

A green flag (or light) indicated a scheduled train operating with at least one following section on the same schedule. There could be as many sections as needed, and all would fly a green flag except the last one, which would have no flag. New York Central's crack 20th Century Limited, for example, often would run in three or more sections.
- J. David Ingles
 
                      http://trn.trains.com/railroad...lassification-lights
Last edited by briansilvermustang
briansilvermustang posted:

 

 This is what San Diegans and Golden Gates looked like when I was 20.  A pair of well-maintained PA1's  accelerating a train consisting of well-maintained pre-war Budd chair cars.  Some of my fondest memories.

This was a twice daily event at Clovis.  A Baldwin switcher would couple onto the front of the San Francisco Chief and switch head-end cars and through Pullmans into (westbound) or out of (eastbound) the train.  The through Pullmans were headed to, or coming from, the California Special, which ran -- via Lubbock, Sweetwater, and Brownwood -- between Houston, Dallas, or Fort Worth, to and from Los Angeles and Richmond, California.  The same happened at Amarillo with the through Chicago-Lubbock Pullman and a mail storage car.

So why did the Yardmaster have the switch engine crew use the single Baldwin?  Because the Engineer and Fireman (when there was one) were paid by weight on drivers.  Using the road engine would have saved time, but would have increased the daily rate of pay for the engine crew by a couple of dollars each, twice a day.  That was about 10% in that era.  The switcher was not m-ued to the road engines (physically impossible in this case, but that's not the reason) and the air brakes were released and brake valves cut out so that the brakes on the Alco-GE's would apply and release when the yard engineer applied or released brakes on the cars he was handling.  Passenger cars were required to have air brakes cut in during switching and train brakes had to be used each time the cars were stopped.  Some of the cars in the Clovis operation had passengers aboard.

It was a fine sight, though.  The Baldwin would dig in, make a little bit of black exhaust, and pull the heavy Alcos and all the baggage cars away from the train with a lot of raspy Baldwin chugging sounds.  Baldwins never really sounded like they were working hard, just very strong engines doing a day's work.  Their diesel engines had a maximum RPM of only about 600.

 

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Last edited by Number 90
briansilvermustang posted:

 

Clovis, New Mexico.  This would be the power for the California Special, waiting for the arrival of the eastbound San Francisco Chief.  The California Special is made up and sitting across from the depot.  When the Chief arrives, a yard crew will switch out through head-end cars and a couple of Pullmans, add them to the Special, and these engines will head east, diverging at Lone Star Jct in Texico, NM/Farwell, TX, and head down through semaphore territory, via Lubbock, Sweetwater, Brownwood, and Temple, to Houston.   The California Special was a mixture of equipment, which was mostly stainless steel, with some heavyweight baggage cars, chair cars, and  grey Valley series Pullman on the rear, and carrying a full dining car.  Usually, it was a good-sized train, 12 cars or so.

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