JAMIE'S RANDOM AMERICAN RAILWAY PHOTOS.

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

The Tardis has just left Detroit on what I think was 6th June 1978

If there was the remotest possibility of Time Travel being possible, it would be totally monopolised by rail enthusiasts..!!!   

[jamie92208]

Good afternoon from a sunny Charente, it was meant to be raining but isn't.  Our Tardis is still at the platform end on the south side of Union Station, Chicago.  It's somewhere near the 7 th. June in the afternoon. First of all a long distance train, I think it was the eastbound SF Zephyr was pulling in behind two SDP40F's. I was going to get better acquainted with this class of locos later. 

Behind me was a classic E unit in Amtrak livery.  The engineer was a great bloke and invited me up into the cab.  The train was to form the Broadway Ltd and he was a Pennsy man who went back to steam days and told me tales of T1's.  IIRC the loco was an ex New York Central one.

I should have taken some photos inside the cab but  only took these next two of a motley assortment of old rolling stock that was pulling in.

These included a filthy ex Erie Lackawanna coach.

A switcher went past us marked for Conrail.

Then an IC unit still in GM&O livery.  I kept thinking of In the Heat of the Night, one of my favourite films. The  Amfleet coach looks a bit out of place.

More tomorrow.

 

Jamie

 

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

I should have taken some photos inside the cab...

If you could just pop back & take some, then? You did say you have a TARDIS...??

[jamie92208]

2 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

If you could just pop back & take some, then? You did say you have a TARDIS...??

I have often been accused of living in the past......Who am I to argue with the boss,

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Well, the Tardis is still in action.  It's still June 1978. With a touch of Groundhog Day it's the 6th June.  I made a table yesterday that correlated my shift pattern, the date and my memories of the trip. I now know that I left Chicago on the 6th.  Meanwhile I stayed on the platform as long as I could, watching the rush hour traffic.  The main action was on the BN line to Aurora The very clean rebuilt E units looked good as they left.

As soon as one went another appeared from under the building on the right, backing down from the yard.

Two more Conrail switchers were in the station as I walked back to find my coach.

A pleasant evening on the train as we sped out of Chicago through the suburbs.  I got chatting to a lady in the seat behind me who told me to ring her cousin when I got to San Francisco.  As the evening drew in I went up into the dome car and watched the Mars light working from side to side on the loco and listened to the sound of the horns as we approached grade crossings.  Next morning this was the view from the dome as we entered Colorado. I had seen nothing of Omaha during the night.

As lunchtime approached we got into Denver where there was a stop of about 90 minutes. Coning in I saw my first Union Pacific loco, a GP30.

Another GP30 833 was nearer as we passed it.

The windows were pretty filthy.  However it was already turning into a great trip.

 

Jamie

 

 

[jamie92208]

Another day another dollar.  The Tardis is now approaching Denver on the 7th of June 1978.  The GP30 was attached to a UP Business car.

And I really knew that I had arrived in the west when I saw this loco.

Not quite sure what model it is.

After a long layover the train reversed and headed north for Cheyenne.  Thus is the sight that greeted me when I stepped off the train, which by the way was all heritage equipment.

Cheyenne was still on the Zephyr's route in those days.  However I was more interested in what was behind me,

None other than 3985, which was to awaken from it's slumbers in a couple of years.  Anyway I headed for my motel, booked in then walked down to Holiday park where I was greeted by the immensity of 4004.

It looks even longer side on.

To say I was a happy bunny would have been an understatement.  It certainly beat working football matches at Elland Road for overtime to pay for the trip.

 

Jamie

 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by jamie92208

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Jamie,

I’m enjoying your US pictures too!

Your Santa Fe loco is a General Electric U36C, see here;

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2874416

No doubt, a proper chugger - I love em.

[jamie92208]

57 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Jamie,

I’m enjoying your US pictures too!

Your Santa Fe loco is a General Electric U36C, see here;

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2874416

No doubt, a proper chugger - I love em.

Thanks, there are many more to come. I got through 17 films on that first trip and we are only on film 4 at the moment. I'm now adding metadata to my scans as I go along.

 

Jamie

[pH]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

It certainly beat working football matches at Elland Road for overtime to pay for the trip.

We quite possibly passed each other, then !

[jamie92208]

On 25/05/2021 at 18:35, pH said:

We quite possibly passed each other, then !

I take it that you were a Leeds fan in those days.  For me it was a lucrative source of much needed overtime.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Good morning, no picture yesterday for various reasons, however the Tardis is still in Cheyenne, Wyoming on the afternoon of 7th June 1978.  One thing I did manage yesterday was to sort out the metadata on quite a few photos and researched some of the locos that I saw in Chicago.  It turns out that the E9 that I cabbed (Amtrak 427) was actually an ex Union Pacific unit. I will go back and correct some captions in due course.

 

Anyway back to 1978.  After paying homage at Holiday park I went back to the depot and went up on the overbridge that's just east of the station building.  It's been rebuilt now but then it was was quite a spindly iron bridge that provided great views.  First up was this, two of the fabulous Centennials heading east. I think that this was the last one built 6944.  13,200 HP in two locos.

To European eyes the sight of triple deck car carriers was eye opening.  I later found out that the loading gauge was 21'

For those not familiar with the location, Cheyenne became a major crew and locomotive change point as the relatively lightly graded line over the prairies, hit the start of the Rockies.  1 in 500 to 1 in 65. The roundhouse also had a large workshop at the back that was capable of overhauling all steam locos, including Big Boys. Steam lasted till the autumn of 1959 and most of the big locos were scrapped here. This view looking south west from the viaduct shows part of the yards that were south of the roundhouse. The southern part of the workshop had become the diesel servicing area.  Here 3028 and SD40 and 3144 an SD40-2 and a GP9 are waiting outside the diesel servicing shop.

There is an extensive yard to the south of the shops. The end wall of the shops can be seen here, looking west towards Sherman Hill.

In 1978 most of the roundhouse was still intact, Here part of it plus the northern wall of the shops can be seen.  The track between the two parts was known as the Omaha Road for some reason.

Back down at ground level in the station area a GP30 866 (built 1962, withdrawn 1985) was doing switching duties whilst a piggyback train was heading west.  The platform canopies had been cut back to provide clearance for high loads.

More to come in due course.

 

Jamie

 

[pH]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I take it that you were a Leeds fan in those days.  

Not really. I enjoyed watching football, lived in various places in England but never followed a particular team. I lived and worked near Wetherby for a couple of years. A lot of the guys I worked with were Leeds fans, naturally, and I would go to Elland Road with them.

 

[pH]

Cheyenne is somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a long time. Quite apart from the railway interest, my grandfather and two great-uncles worked for UP there in the early 1900s. And they lived with an uncle of theirs - I probably have distant relatives there. A road trip through Cheyenne on the way to visit relatives in Houston had been pencilled in for last year, but a virus got in the way of that. 
 

Really interesting pictures so far - looking forward to what’s still to come.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

On 21/05/2021 at 22:46, jamie92208 said:

 

I thought however that the interior was rather shabby. 

 

Fantastic thread, looking forward to more.  And look - here's another surprisingly shabby station.  From 2018, can you guess which station it is?  Apologies for the the thread hijack...

 

[jamie92208]

26 minutes ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

Fantastic thread, looking forward to more.  And look - here's another surprisingly shabby station.  From 2018, can you guess which station it is?  Apologies for the the thread hijack...

 

No need to apoligise at all. Is that Penn Station NYC by any chance.

 

Jamie

Edited May 29, 2021 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

Good morning from a very sunny Charente.  The Tardis is still in Cheyenne, WY, though and it's still 7th June 1978. After I'd seen the GP30 come through the station I must have got talking to someone because very shortly afterwards I was being given a conducted tour of the Roundhouse.  the shop area was occupied by 8444, as it was then. The only steam loco never retired by UP, built in 1944 it was the last steam loco purchased by UP and is still in service some 77 years later.  Anyway my guide let me climb up into the cab. Up the ladder, down the corridor and take the first door on the left.   The firebox was open and I managed to get this shot inside.  Big enough to hold a dinner party.  I thi

After that I was shown round the rest of the roundhouse. This lovely 4-6-0 was stored there. IIRC two of these were kept to work a lightly laid branchline.  It still resides at Cheyenne but I think that it now travels on a flatcar.

If you've got a 450 ton 4-8-4 to maintain, it's useful to have a source of spares.  This is 838 which is the spares donor for 844. The sheer size of those tandem con rods has to be seen to be believed. The boss of the rod at the crank pin is nearly 2' across.

Here#s another shot of 1243, which relly was delightful. I loved the woodwork in the cab.

Also there is a 2-10-2  5511.  Not due to be steamed as it's too slow for a modern main line but an impressive beast all the same.

And another shot of 838.

More tomorrow.

 

Jamie

 

 

[jamie92208]

Good morning again from a sunny Charente.  The Tardis is still in the roundhouse at Cheyenne WY and it's still 7th June 1978.  From the stored steam locos we had a look outside the diesel servicing shop. Here SD40 3001 sits next to a Chicago and North Western Unit. Some idea of the size of the back shop can be seen here.

 E then went back to the main shop to have another look at 8444 as she was then.  Originally numbered 844 an additional 4 was added to avoid conflict with the GP30's.  They have all been withdrawn now and 844 has reverted to her proper number.  Interesting how steam outlives diesel.  They had to renumber a more modern diesel when 4014, the Big Boy was put back into service. Anyway we had a quick look at her. She was being retubed. 

The hand powered crane for lifting the tubes was rated at over 1 ton. Here you can see my guide, the duty hostler (No sniggerring at the back I said hOstler not hustler )  , 19 yr old Yvonne.  Very pleasant to talk to.  Her normal job was shunting locos round in the yard,, particularly the SDP40F's on the two daily passenger trains that reversed at Cheyenne.

 

The uploader has played it's usual tricks. 

Edit, I've resaved and rotated the original file a couple of times and it's now playing ball.  

 

Anyway after that I wandered across to the office of the Sherriff of Cheyenne and spent the evening being driven round in a patrol car. After breakfast the next morning I went out with them, Don the lieutenant pictured here was amazed that I had never fired a gun so we wnet out of town and I was allowed to have a go with some of the Sherriff's collection, including an SLR and an Armalite on automatic.  The 'range' was the railway embankment east of town firing at a coke can, with trains above us.  A different world.

 Anyway  I told Don that I was heading out on the train after lunch and he mentioned that he knew the Union Pacific Special Agent (Railroad Police).  He took me along and introduced me.  One of the first places that I was taken to was the despatchers office in the depot. The mimic board here covers about 400 miles  of double track across Wyoming.  

The Special Agent also introduced me to some other officials, of which more tomorrow but before I got on the train I took one more photo of 3985 plinthed at the west end of the station.

I never dreamed that only 2 years later it would be pulled out of storage, onto the main line and restored to service.

 

Jamie

Edited April 20, 2022 by jamie92208

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Jamie,

Wow, that was some trip! You sure were lucky to have such an ‘in’ with the local law enforcement. I am slightly surprised though, that Don the lieutenant’s front registration plate is rather misaligned, maybe it’s a sign that the car was used in anger at some point? To my more European eyes, it seems “rough” but I gather the US police use their vehicles quite aggressively.

Anyway, a tidbit of information for you: the C&NW loco pictured alongside UP3001, appears to be number 975 which makes it an SD45, one of the last of the North Westerns fairy unique original series that had the typical nose gong but lacked the dynamic brake blister. This gave them an unusual appearance as they still had flared radiators at the rear of the hood. 
Cheers,

John.

[jamie92208]

31 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Jamie,

Wow, that was some trip! You sure were lucky to have such an ‘in’ with the local law enforcement. I am slightly surprised though, that Don the lieutenant’s front registration plate is rather misaligned, maybe it’s a sign that the car was used in anger at some point? To my more European eyes, it seems “rough” but I gather the US police use their vehicles quite aggressively.

Anyway, a tidbit of information for you: the C&NW loco pictured alongside UP3001, appears to be number 975 which makes it an SD45, one of the last of the North Westerns fairy unique original series that had the typical nose gong but lacked the dynamic brake blister. This gave them an unusual appearance as they still had flared radiators at the rear of the hood. 
Cheers,

John.

Thanks for that Info John.  I'll add it to the metadata.  Yes the local info helped, though the best is yet to come. 

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Good moaning again from a somewhat sunny place.   The Tardis is still in Cheyenne, WY and it's still 8th June 1978, roundabout 2pm.   I mentioned that I'd been introduced to the UP Special Agent and this was because I'd mentioned to Lt. Don, that I would love to be able to get a cab ride on part of the route of my next train journey from Cheyenne to San Francisco.   After visiting the despatchers office I was taken to the Superintendent's office and after the various courtesies had been gone through I signed my life away on another blood chit (Insurance waiver) and emerged with a cab pass for Cheyenne to Laramie, over Sherman Hill.  A tad different to walking the the grotty streets of South Leeds at 3 in the morning.  I'd also been offered a job by the Sherriff.

 

Anyway, I was taken back to the motel to collect my bags and then back to the station.  A westbound freight was waiting to follow our train over Sherman with an SD40-2 on the point. Also in the station on the southern platform track was the eastbound San Francisco Zephyr, train no 5 which had just arrived.

The locos of No 5 were running round as the train was about to reverse to head for Denver.  A few years later a new stop was created at Speer a few miles south west of Cheyenne so that trains to and from Denver could head west directly from Speer.

After the power for 5 had passed I got this photo of the first two SD40's.  You can see the long rear platform of 3394.  Apparently EMD used the frames from the  SD45 to save money.  8067 is one of the so called 'fast forties' that had higher speed gearing for 80 mph.  They were often seen working with Centennials on priority fast freight.

The two SDP40F's then backed down onto their train.

Then our train arrived from Denver with 596 leading.  The whole train was still made up of so called heritage equipment that Amtrak bought from the freight railroads, when it was formed in 1971.

The locos ran round quickly, I took my luggage to my allocated seat in the train and showed my ticket to the conductor, then headed back to the head end with my camera bag.  I was greeted by my guide for the afternoon and we were soon in the cab.  The engineer, whose name I can't remember was ready to go. 

And  very shortly, we were away, train No 6, heading along track No 1 for Sherman Summit. The underbridge in front of us is the road which goes under the main tracks and yard, but also gives access to the roundhouse. 

It doesn't get much better than this.

 

 

Jamie

 

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

40 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

It doesn't get much better than this.

 it certainly doesn't!! What a trip you had!! And we're still only on what, day 2 or 3? I've lost track already  

[Mike_Walker]

On 22/05/2021 at 16:21, John M Upton said:

The Switcher in your last photograph is an Amtrak owned GP9 still in its previous owner Illinois Central livery.

Incorrect.  Amtrak 760 was a GP7 built in 1/52 (15577 5112-2) as St Louis San Francisco 612.  It sports the later Frisco livery and was acquired by Amtrak in 8/77.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

 it certainly doesn't!! What a trip you had!! And we're still only on what, day 2 or 3? I've lost track already  

It's day 6 of the trip and I'm just about to start my 4th train ride. Lots more to come.  My mates on my shift thought I was crackers but it just seemed  logical to me.  I've never been afraid of solo travel.  Wait till we get to 2005.

 

I'm glad that the photos are being enjoyed.

 

Jamie

[mdvle]

4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Then our train arrived from Denver with 596 leading.  The whole train was still made up of so called heritage equipment that Amtrak bought from the freight railroads, when it was formed in 1971.

 

The first Superliners wouldn't arrive for another year.

 

While railfans and model railroaders like the variety of what we now call heritage equipment, particularly the early "rainbow era" of Amtrak of many different paint schemes, it was really a tough time for Amtrak operationally.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

53 minutes ago, mdvle said:

... it was really a tough time for Amtrak operationally.

 

When isn't it a tough time for Amtrak...

 

Lovely travelogue Jamie, for me the classic era - late 70s to late 90s.  

 

I was lucky to be able to do a serious amount of railfanning in the early 2000s - to 2015, but the mega-mergers had started the decline in my interests. and the current scene has almost no interest for me anymore.  We must be close to the end-game merger wise now.