JAMIE'S RANDOM AMERICAN RAILWAY PHOTOS.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

8 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Old Walt was quite a rail fan I believe.

Indeed he was. He famously had “Walts Barn” now the LA Live Steamers clubhouse I believe. He had a few large scale live steam American 4-4-0s but in around 1957 wanted something bigger, and went to Bassett Lowke’s  London store and commissioned a 5 inch gauge live steam GWR King class with fully working valve gear. About a year later the engine was completed and loaded onto a ship bound for the west coast. Unfortunately when the engine was landed on the docks it was absolutely covered in seawater corrosion. The hatch above it had not been sealed. To this day the engine which now  sits in the barn has not been run.

[Wendell1976]

On 01/07/2021 at 00:42, jamie92208 said:

Quite an array of SP power was present. 

A friendly engineer even took this family photo for us. I'll have to look up what the loco is. I do know it's an EMD of some kind.

There were other newish locos around plus an older one in the background.

 

Long live the Espee!

 

Wendell

Idaho, USA 

[Wendell1976]

13 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I did manage to see the southern end of the Blue Line that I believe runs on the remains of the old Pacific Electric Empire.

 

 

L.A. Metro's A Line(formerly Blue Line) runs mostly down Long Beach Boulevard(formerly American Avenue) in the City of Long Beach. Long Beach Boulevard is a former Pacific Electric Railway corridor.

 

Wendell

Idaho, USA 

[Adam88]

7 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Indeed he was. He famously had “Walts Barn” now the LA Live Steamers clubhouse I believe. He had a few large scale live steam American 4-4-0s but in around 1957 wanted something bigger, and went to Bassett Lowke’s  London store and commissioned a 5 inch gauge live steam GWR King class with fully working valve gear. About a year later the engine was completed and loaded onto a ship bound for the west coast. Unfortunately when the engine was landed on the docks it was absolutely covered in seawater corrosion. The hatch above it had not been sealed. To this day the engine which now  sits in the barn has not been run.

 

 

 

https://www.psbooks.co.uk/All-Aboard

 

This book is worth looking up if you want to go a bit more into the Disney connection.  It could set me going on a tangent but I'd better desist.

 

[jamie92208]

Good morning again from a slightly damp Charente.  The Tardis is still in California. It's now the 2nd August 1995 and we headed out of Long Beach up Cajon Pass and then into the Mojave desert.  As we headed towards Mojave from Cajon summit this Santa Fe freight headed towards us.

Then on to Tehachapi.   It was rather warm I remember.  We stayed overnight in Tehachapi and I took the family down to look at the loop.  Fortunately there was a train ascending.

This I am fairly sure is Tehachapi itself.

The next morning we drove down through Bakersfield, and stopped briefly at a model shop before heading up the central valley. This SP freight came past at one stopping point.

Two days were then spent seeing Sequoia and Yosemitie  national parks before a night stop in Modesto where the family were treated to the  drive in movie experience.  Waterworld if I remember correctly. Then on to San Francisco to return the hire car.  We stayed overnight in Emeryville in Oakland ready to catch the train east the next morning.  A desperate bus journey back to the hotel to retrieve our daughter's teddy bear was made.  Said bear was inside the fold up bed.  We got back to the station in time and several of the Cal Trans trains were coming through.  Here what I think is an F59.

And another one heading south.

It was then time to wait for our eastbound train to Denver.  This day, by the way was the 5th August.

 

By the way the famous teddy bear is still in existence and much loved by our gorgeous granddaughter.

 

Jamie

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by jamie92208

[pH]

The Caltrans engines are F59PHIs.

 

There are F59PHs, meaning Full cowl 59 series, Passenger gearing, Head-end power. Here’s a GO Transit one:

 

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1638839

 

F59PHI means all that plus an Isolated cab, separated acoustically and vibrationally from the locomotive frame.

Edited July 3, 2021 by pH

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

On 02/07/2021 at 21:24, Wendell1976 said:

 

Long live the Espee!

 

 

Oh Wendell, if only that were true.  My first SP was an SD45 in speed lettering in a helper set at Mojave. And then look at my avatar on here...

 

I've tried to like UP and BNSF but they killed off my two favourite roads

[jamie92208]

8 hours ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

I've tried to like UP and BNSF but they killed off my two favourite roads

I will pray for your soul.

 

Jamie

Edited July 4, 2021 by jamie92208

[Wendell1976]

1 hour ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

Oh Wendell, if only that were true.  My first SP was an SD45 in speed lettering in a helper set at Mojave. And then look at my avatar on here...

 

I've tried to like UP and BNSF but they killed off my two favourite roads

 

I am going to always love the Southern Pacific Railroad because I had grew up around that railroad in the Los Angeles area. Now, I am not one of those people who loves the Espee but hates the Union Pacific Railroad. Life goes on. The Southern Pacific was in a financial mess and close to bankruptcy before the Union Pacific bought them out. 

 

Wendell

Idaho, USA 

[Johann Marsbar]

As I never made it to the West Coast of the USA until 1997, I never saw a great deal of SP traction, and those which I did were the later purchases which were being used south of Denver by 1999 or which appeared on a fairly random basis in other parts of the US thereafter..

Only photo I did manage of older power was this one, taken near Turlock, CA, in April 1997......

 

 

I was actually on an Aviation based tour at the time, but the minibus driver was persuaded to stop on an overpass so I could get a photo of the train!

They got used to requests like that as the tour went on......

 

 

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a rather damp Charente.   The weather was rather better in California in 1995 as we got ready to head east via Amtrak. It's the 5th August and we are about to board the San Francisco Zephyr  for a roughly 36 hour trip to Denver. Our train was late, even though it had only just set off from Oakland but it looked clean. Here are our pair of F40's.

Then a Superliner equipped train, a first time for me, with what I think is an ex Santa Fe High level coach at the front.

Before long we were settled in our seats and before long passed the BART terminal on the shore of the bay at IIRC, Richmond.  

Now some eye candy for the poor benighted espee fans, plinthed at Martinez. Not quite a cab forward but looking nice.

Then the reserve fleet at Suisin Bay.  Memories of seeing it in 1978 came back.

And yet another form of railed transport, Sacramento trams alongside us as we approached Roseville.

More to come tomorrow.

 

Jamie

Edited April 11, 2022 by jamie92208

[Johann Marsbar]

41 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Then the reserve fleet at Suisin Bay.  Memories of seeing it in 1978 came back.

 

Jamie

 

I don't know when they started clearing the vessels from storage at Suisun Bay, but the 1997 Aviation trip I went on did cross the road bridge at that point and there were still lots of vessels there, though perhaps not as many as your photo shows. There were certainly lots of WW2 vintage ships there at that time, including what looked like Liberty ships. I took one very bad photo from the minibus crossing the bridge, but it's not worth reproducing here.

 

Fast forward to 2016 and I travelled from Oakland to Sacramento for a day trip on the train to see the California State Rail museum & travel on the Light Rail.

There were all of about 7 ships there then, and they were relatively "modern" ones.....

 

 

 

[Wendell1976]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

And yet another form of railed transport, Sacramento trams alongside us as we approached Roseville.

 

 

This light rail train is from the Sacramento Regional Transit District.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_RT_Light_Rail

 

Wendell

Idaho, USA 

[Johann Marsbar]

31 minutes ago, Wendell1976 said:

 

This light rail train is from the Sacramento Regional Transit District.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_RT_Light_Rail

 

Wendell

Idaho, USA 

 

They run several of their services with seriously long trains of coupled sets - certainly the longest I've seen in the US - like the 4 unit train below....

 

 

I had a run out to Fulsom on the LRT when I was there and it seemed a well patronised system.

 

 

[jamie92208]

On 04/07/2021 at 08:56, Johann Marsbar said:

 

I don't know when they started clearing the vessels from storage at Suisun Bay, but the 1997 Aviation trip I went on did cross the road bridge at that point and there were still lots of vessels there, though perhaps not as many as your photo shows. There were certainly lots of WW2 vintage ships there at that time, including what looked like Liberty ships. I took one very bad photo from the minibus crossing the bridge, but it's not worth reproducing here.

 

Fast forward to 2016 and I travelled from Oakland to Sacramento for a day trip on the train to see the California State Rail museum & travel on the Light Rail.

There were all of about 7 ships there then, and they were relatively "modern" ones.....

 

 

 

I've just had a look on Google earth and all the ships have gone, looking on the historical imagery, the last stragglers went in the last 3 or 4 years.

 

Jamie

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by jamie92208

[mdvle]

10 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Then a Superliner equipped train, a first time for me, with what I think is an ex Santa Fe High level coach at the front.

 

 

Those are California Cars, which were based on the Superliners.  They (and their successors the Surfliner cars) are easy to ID because they have 2 door per side on the lower level vs. a single door on the Superliners/SF equipment.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Car_(railcar)

[Florence Locomotive Works]

11 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

I don't know when they started clearing the vessels from storage at Suisun Bay, but the 1997 Aviation trip I went on did cross the road bridge at that point and there were still lots of vessels there, though perhaps not as many as your photo shows. There were certainly lots of WW2 vintage ships there at that time, including what looked like Liberty ships. I took one very bad photo from the minibus crossing the bridge, but it's not worth reproducing here.

 

Fast forward to 2016 and I travelled from Oakland to Sacramento for a day trip on the train to see the California State Rail museum & travel on the Light Rail.

There were all of about 7 ships there then, and they were relatively "modern" ones.....

 

 

 

Most would have been WW2 “Victory” ships, which were the updated version of the liberty, and were designed to be sold off to private owners after the war, and were fitted with modern turbines. The last one went in around 2007-2010, sold to scrappers in Panama. Liberty ships come from a British design of the 1890s and were designed with a working life of 5 years, and had very old fashioned reciprocating steam engine power plants. In fact they were incredibly underpowered, if the sea was heavy enough the often could make headway.

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I've just had a look on Google earth and all the ships have gone, looming on the historical imagery, thevlast stragglers went in the last 3 or 4 years.

 

Jamie

 

 

Not all of what was there went for scrap, the last stragglers included the “stealth ship” and its water barn, and the I think the GLOMAR Explorer. They have been moved to other locations, and some of the merchant style vessels have been moved either back east or probably to Puget Sound.

[J. S. Bach]

There are two surviving operational Liberty ships: the SS John W. Brown in Baltimore, MD and the SS Jeremiah O’Brien in San Francisco.

 

An odd coincidence: both ships' first names start with a "J". 

Edited July 5, 2021 by J. S. Bach
To add some information.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

7 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

There are two surviving operational Liberty ships: the SS John W. Brown in Baltimore, MD and the SS Jeremiah O’Brien in San Francisco.

 

An odd coincidence: both ships' first names start with a "J". 

Oddly enough the other one is in Greece, it’s now called the Hellas Liberty.

 

However we are starting far away from such things as SP SD40s.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works

[J. S. Bach]

33 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

However we are starting far away from such things as SP SD40s.

The further, the better! However SD40T-2s are a different story! And just maybe SD45s.

 

On Liberty ships (from Wikipedia):

SS Albert M. Boe – The last Liberty ship built, sold to private ownership in 1964 and renamed Star of Kodiak. Used as a fish cannery ship. She is currently landlocked but remains the headquarters of Trident Seafoods in Kodiak, Alaska.

 

Thread drift; I love it!!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

SS Albert M. Boe

Knew I missed one!

[jamie92208]

Interesting comments above about the Liberty ships.  A shipyard in Sunderland, Austin Pickersgill designed a replacement that was known as the SD14.  Quite a lot were sold and I saw the last ones being built.  The yard is now long gone.  

 

Anyway the Tardis is still in California on 5th August 1995.   We are on board the San Francisco Zephyr heading east. We skirted the north side of Roseville yard where there were acres of Espee power. It would look a little brighter the next time I went there.

Soon we were heading up towards the summit and met the westbound Zephyr behind what I think is a GE loco.

Our train was visible quite a bot of the time on the curves as we headed on up Donner.

I didn't take many photos the rest of the day and we settled down in our seats for the night.  I didn't sleep very well so went downstairs and got this shot as we headed towards Wendover at about 4am. It was fascinating watching the approach lit signals suddenly lighting up as we got closer to them.

We stopped at Salt Lake City at about 05.30. I believe that the locos were either changed, or detached for refuelling.  When they came back onto the train we set off then came to a very sudden halt.  Apparently the couplers hadn't engaged fully.  Anyway we got going a few minutes later and had breakfast in the diner as we headed down to Provo.  After that we started climbing and I wondered what the other railway below us was.  It was of course the track we'd come on as we wound back and forth to ascend to Soldier summit.

Then we stopped at Helper Utah.   By now of course it was 6th August.

Here, I think is one of the last SD14's under construction on the River Wear in Sunderland. This would be February or March 1979.

That's it for today.  Now time to sort out some photos for the next few days.

 

Jamie

Edited April 11, 2022 by jamie92208

[pH]

10 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Soon we were heading up towards the summit and met the westbound Zephyr behind what I think is a GE loco.

Yes, a GE engine - a Dash 8-32BWH. In their ‘as delivered’ colour scheme, which this one is, they were sometimes known as ‘Pepsi cans’.

[Johann Marsbar]

I visited the Helper/Soldier Summit area on one of those Travel Bureau "van" trips back in September 1999.

Quite a spectacular location, and lots of DRGW locos were still in evidence....

 

 

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Your photo at Helper is looking across to the Utah Railway depot and the silver caboose is one of theirs....

 

 

It was another place we called in at on the 1999 trip...