It was a sunny day at OERM, I felt like goofing-off, and my camera was in the car. I walked “out back” and randomly photographed what I encountered. Here is some of what resulted from my trip into the past.
THIS LITTLE WORKHORSE IS REFFERED TO AS THE “HONORARY STEAM LOCOMOTIVE” AT OERM
WHO KNOWS, IT MAY RUN AGAIN SOMEDAY
TEXTURE IS WHAT PHOTOGRAPHER CRAVES; THIS RELIC HAS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR ME!
I recently was browsing images in my archive of photographs I’ve taken over the years. Just for the hell-of-it, I selected and edited the images below. No story is told by the images shown, except, I had a great time making them.
Click on any image to enlarge.
The UPRR main line to Las Vegas, and points east, crosses the San Gabriel River west of Beverly and circles around to the north of Rose Hills on its way to Riverside Junction. The branch line to Los Nietos yard begins here and heads south. This has been a favorite spot of mine for about fifty years and I have witnessed many changes here.
Today I spent a couple of hours there with my K20D Pentax and 300 mm lens and here are some of the images.
Click on any image to enlarge.
Many years ago, I attempted night photography at the SPRR Taylor yard. I was dissatisfied with the images and I set them aside because, in those days, there was no practical way to improve them. All that has changed. I scanned the slides and post processed the images. The results are shown below. You may find them interesting.
Click on any image to enlarge.
I am a long time UPRR oriented “foamer”, but I cannot resist the appeal of the “Warbonnet”.
These images were made at the AT&SF Redondo roundhouse, located in Los Angeles, California, on a Winter’s Sunday about 1968. The roundhouse is long gone; the 3751 lives nearby.
Click on any image to enlarge.
I made these images in 1963, or shortly after, in the East Los Angeles UPRR yard. The different heralds, on the sides of new cars of the same build lot based on the car numbers shown in the images, caught my eye.
I wondered then, as now, what the story was. Since my “expertise” on UPRR freight cars is sadly deficient in the period after 1930, I never did find out. I am still not motivated to flush out the story, but, I am curious about what happened. Perhaps one of the fine freight car historians “out there” will take pity on me and relate to me the answer to my fifty year old mystery.
Click on either image to enlarge.
I photographed this SPRR switching yard, located in the small town of Los Nietos, California, fifty years ago. I still live nearby and recently, as I scanned the B&W negatives from that time in my life, I became curious about the yard as it exists today. I visited the yard with the intent to photograph the changes from fifty years ago and the effects of the absorption of the SPRR by the UPRR. The images below are the result and they reveal the many changes over the past fifty years.
Look at the major changes in the areas outside the yard. Notice the trees, farm house, outbuildings, and oil-well derricks. In one of the images, a Ford pickup truck can be seen on Los Nietos road, crossing the drainage ditch by the adjacent trestle. The trestle, drainage ditch,and the pickup are long gone, but the road still dips a little. To this 82 year old man, the place where I grew up exists only in photographs and my tattered memory. My world has faded away as “progress” marches forward. I sometimes wonder if we are better off now.
There is one thing that has not changed. The railroad employees are just as friendly now as then. All one needs to find this out is to respect the railroad craftsmanship of the employees and the property of their employers.
Click any image to enlarge.
Click on any image to enlarge.
The Cheyenne images were obtained on a Sunday afternoon. We were staying at a motel nearby and I decided to walk over to the engine terminal and look around. I did not see even one UPRR employee; I apparently was the only person there. It was somewhat erie.
We had stopped at Laramie on the way to Cheyenne and I made these images of the roundhouse area from the pedestrian overpass. It was a sad sight to behold.
As I sit here, musing over my feelings of sadness upon witnessing the demolition of the UPRR Laramie steam engine servicing facilities, I am amazed at the present day, modern, railroad the Union Pacific has become. I suppose this is, in part, due to my age, which has allowed me to experience both the old and new UPRR railroads. I sometimes feel fortunate to have seen the old and the new, then I remember I won’t see as much of the future as I would like. Well, that’s life.
The Old Machinist
Many UPRR depot buildings and freight facilities were “re-purposed” when the railroad no longer had a need for them. In some instances, the “no longer needed” infrastructure has become famous and useful in the new role. An example is the brewery in the former Cheyenne, Wyoming depot. A less common use was the fate of the UPRR freight station located in Lakewood, Cal. The images below have the details.
The building has been demolished since the images were made by the author over ten years ago. However, the small yard is still receiving shipments of construction materials and christmas trees. At night, I can hear the mournful honk of the diesel’s horn. I must say, I prefer the sounds produced by the six chime SPRR whistle recently used on our 2-6-2 Prairie locomotive at the Orange Empire Railway Museum.
Here is a link to more about the six chime whistle:
https://pixorails.com/2014/10/19/a-6-chime-sprr-whistle-at-work/
What is now a branch line ending at Lakewood, used to be the SP,LA&SL line to Long Beach and the harbour.
click on any image to enlarge.
TOWNSIDE IS EYE-CATCHING, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!
TRACKSIDE
NO DOUBT ABOUT THE FORMER OWNER
DETAIL IMAGE FOR MODELERS
THE PLATFORM END
TOWNSIDE IS EYE-CATCHING, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!
The SPRR bought diesel – hydraulic locomotives from a West German locomotive builder as an experiment. The concept of using diesel engines, as the primary power source for railroad locomotives, was relatively new in 1964 when compared to steam engines. The dominant use of the diesel engines in USA railroad locomotives was, and still is, an indirect drive design. The diesel engine drives an electric generator and the current produced is directed to axle motors to produce the tractive force of the locomotive. There is no direct mechanical connection between the diesel engine and the axles of the locomotive.
The West German Company, Krause – Maffi, followed the direct drive concept, in that the diesel engine of the locomotive was connected directly to the locomotive axles by a hydraulic transmission. I assume the SPRR decided to give the direct drive locomotive concept a try in the USA to create a realistic basis for comparison of the two concepts. How did the comparison work out? There are no direct drive locomotives in mainline service on railroads in the USA today.
The images below were made in Taylor Yard, located in the City of Los Angeles, about 1964.
Click on any image to enlarge – enjoy.
PIXORAILS 