Michael Portillo's Great American Railroad Journeys photo search

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I was recently informed by someone I know to be a reliable witness that there was a photo that looked like something I've previously modelled in Michael Portillo's Great American Railroad Journeys series through California, complete with a Pacific Fruit Express Reefer visible in the picture. Knowing that the continuity and accuracy of material used in such programmes can sometimes be a bit iffy, I went through the series (pre-recorded but not found time to watch yet) and found said photo.

 

 

I can see how they used it to illustrate how the Railroads moved Fruit (oranges in the Los Angeles area), but the loco didn't look like anything used by the major carriers in that area, and furthermore the sandboxes didn't look like anything from General Electric. Looking further afield I found an American Car Company Steeplecab that went to the Petaluma & Santa Rosa nr San Francisco in 1917, and it's Alco car body was a good match for the above loco. A further search found the same photo as used in the programme.

 

http://heritage.sonomalibrary.org/digital/collection/p15763coll11/id/1528

 

There is a link to my own prototype -the Yakima Valley, in that the Trucks from YVT Freight Motor 301 were brought by a museum and used to power the preserved Petaluma & Santa Rosa combine Interurban Car. There is also another photo in a later programme of a McKean Gas Electric Knife edge car, as also used to my own layout based on Wiley City before wires were strung up.

Edited March 23, 2018 by 298

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....and is it modellable...? Another thread on here laments the lack of plastic loco kits, yet here is one from Cannonball Car Shops that uses a commercial chassis and allows the basic shell to be finished to suit.

 

 

The short but mixed train is easy enough to model, and if you don't like trolley poles the P&SR later converted to pantographs, and had a bloody nose Southern Pacific 44 tonner lettered in their own scheme.