put a little Santa Fe in your day...

3463 leads some refrigerator cars and boxcars past the freight yard.

Erik, I always marvel at your photographs.

I acquired the items from the niece of the gentleman in the photo.  Second from the right.  His name was Harley Conaway.

That photo must have been taken in 1949.

• Engine 36 was built in February, 1949, ATSF's last F3.
• It does not yet have cab mirrors applied.
• The train crew is still wearing the pill box caps instead of the military style.
• The fellow in the full coveralls and necktie is probably the Road Foreman of Engines.

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'!

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.

Photo's of Santa Fe F-units back-to-back in daily service seem pretty much non-existent.  Usually they show up with one or more B-units or as an A-B set.  I stumbled across this rare photo of two post-1972 yellow warbonnet F's back-to-back:

Rusty

Hey guys. Here is my new Lionel Santa Fe F3ABBA mixing it up with the PRR and UP..

In my world, anything goes.

Donald

Bought these post war Santa Fe F3 units about a year ago. I think there around 1952-53 

3rail 2 posted:

Hey guys. Here is my new Lionel Santa Fe F3ABBA mixing it up with the PRR and UP..

In my world, anything goes.

Donald

And that's the way it should be!

SantaFeJim posted:

3rail 2 posted:

Hey guys. Here is my new Lionel Santa Fe F3ABBA mixing it up with the PRR and UP..

In my world, anything goes.

Donald

And that's the way it should be!

Very well said my friend 

lee

Taken on the way to work this morning. 

briansilvermustang posted:

 

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

Steve

For those of you that wondered if Lionel's new plated F3 was accurate, here is a photo of the prototype to compare.

Same road number, 22

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.

marker posted:

Looks like the Fairbanks-Morse H12-44TS switcher is passing over a low rail joint on the Engineer's side.  

This is a great thread, I love the Sante Fe War Bonnet Diesels the Best Of all.

Thx Brian.  

The Golden State, Chief, and Super Chief waiting to depart Union Station.

Thanks for answering Brian. I just saw that. Good answer.

marker posted:

For those of you that wondered if Lionel's new plated F3 was accurate, here is a photo of the prototype to compare.

Same road number, 22

Some fine looking power there Marker, appears to be the first section of The Chief with a strong 14 car consist. 

Marx scale passenger set - ATSF diesels in 8 scales Z to G - Prewar AF caboose, modified - The Scrapper.

A Sante Fe box car on my layout.

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.

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.

Was watching a Jerry Lewis movie from 1954 "Living It Up" Good shot of the Super Chief at speed at the beginning of movie(1:28) then after that there is steam loco then SF freight scheme. I did not watch the movie to end so there may be more shots.

LIving It Up

My favorite Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe:

Warbonnets 

Northern action.

A little Santa Fe in N scale

Rusty

briansilvermustang posted:

 

Looks like Union Station in Kansas City.

Nice pic Brian

Here is one for Number 90.

This Clyde Stickley photo appeared on Facebook several months back.  Clyde edited and captioned the photo thusly, "AT&SF engineer R. Q. (Roy) Biggers on 200 class engine. 1960s. Roy loved to tell tall tales. This was one of his favorite sayings."