Shades of Virgil C. Staff - Brazilian Style

Those of us of a certain age, can remember ogling Mr. Staff's rail/cheescake photos in Railroad Magazine. So in that spirit please visit this Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/people/lbassetti

And for those completely uninterested in the female form, here is a link to L. Bassetti's ALL slideshow.

TrainWatchersJournal is now on Amazon's Kindle

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Espee AS616 5259 - Taylor Yard

The Bullring - Circa 1966

Downhill from LA's second Chinatown (the first was located on the site of LAUPT,) was Espee's Bullring Yard. This yard was also known as River Yard, and was also called "The Links," but I have heard that that term more correctly means the trackage along the river. For a similar view see this link on Bruce Petty's excellent Los Angeles River Railroads site.

East End City of Industry Yard - 1970

Three new SD45s make a switch move at the COI Yard. The Pomona Valley Inn has long since closed.

SP B-B Set - Taylor Yard - 1967

New Orleans and Environs - June 1985

Barge traffic is almost constant on the Mississippi.

Domino Sugar Refinery

The Chalmette-Lower Algiers Ferry. Chalmette Refining is in the backgound.

Now that is a freighter!

  

The Garden District

Street Name Tiles, Garden District

No visit is complete without a visit to the Vieux Carre

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An nice aerial view of Chalmette Refining from Google Maps. Scroll down to see the ferry landing. Follow the river back west, to see the Domino Sugar refinery.


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New Orleans Public Belt Roundhouse. More info.

Sunset Limited Detour - June 1985

Crossing the Rio Puerco near McCartys, New Mexico

I was at work, anticipating getting off a few hours early to board the Sunset Limited in Pomona, California. I received an outside call, and found myself talking to an Amtrak reservation agent. There had been a derailment on the SP near Tuscon, and the Sunset was being re-routed over the Santa Fe. Hmmmmmm! I informed my boss that I had to leave immediately and get into LAUPT. .....oh darn. This is not the way I had expected my All Aboard America great circle trip to begin. I got settled into my Heritage Fleet 10-6 (the thru LA - D.C. car) roomette, and then we sat on the platform, and sat some more.  Finally, we got out on to the Second District, about the time the Sunset would have made its station stop at Pomona. After Barstow, I decided to try and get some sleep. The Needles District trackage was surprisingly rough and we bounced all the way to Needles before I finally drifted off.  The next day broke, and we were just about exactly 12 hours off of the Southwest Chief schedule, so we were treated to Northern Arizona in daylight. Unfortunately the rare mileage portion of the detour was all made in darkness. We had pulled into Belen at dusk, and spent at least an hour there. I stayed awake until El Paso, and we negotiated some very back alley trackage to get onto the SP near the station. We were now 12 hours late, and again we would cover trackage in Texas, normally transited at night by the Sunset. I called my hotel in New Orleans to advise I would be checking in late.

Belen, New Mexico. An SP WB detour, probably an AVLAAT waits for a crew.

Pooches in Belen wait to retrace the route of Santa Fe RDC cars.

Cliff Siding - A Confection of Curvature

The legacy of William Hood lives on in his right of way across the southern spur of the Sierra Nevada.  Standing anywhere on the outside of a curve at Cliff always gave new meaning to the concept of lateral forces.  Underpowered Santa Fe eastbounds would often stall out here, especially trains with lots of TOFC flats.  Just too much energy was being transferred to the side of the rails, despite the flange oilers.

Some Santa Fe Goodies

La Junta, Colorado. November 1971. Note the sugar beets.

RS-1 2394 at the "B-Yard" in San Bernardino

Oceanside Local Power,  1970.

The original incarnation of the CF-7 at least had some appeal.

Oceanside, California.

A New Photo Rebus on Purrvasive Computing

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And on the Inside Rail - Its the Swiss !

I would love to hear from some of my European readers! Please use the comment feature, and let me know what you think of the blog. BTW, pending approval, TWJ will be available on Amazon's Kindle soon.

Nawlins 1985

Due to the Sunset Limited detour as recounted in a post above, I had to condense two days of sightseeing in New Orleans into one day. I certainly was not going to miss the streetcars.

Hike into Cliff

A couple of Canon bodies, a full range of focal lengths, and a tripod. Park the car at Bealville and hike into Cliff. These days I only photograph trains within a tight radius of the nearest Starbucks (for the free wifi of course!)

SP La Verne Turn

SP La Verne Turn at North Pomona, with the ATSF Second District in the background.   SP served some industrial parks in the area, and this was as far east as the train went.

Returning west in La Verne. In the background can be seen a control tower for the NHRA Pomona Dragstip.

At the site of the old depot. Further west at San Dimas, SP was still delivering  helium cars to a customer.

Link here to a Kansas Historical Foundation photo of helium cars.

The Chino Branch

SP Chino Local crossing over the Union Pacific main at Pomona, California.  The SP had about a 20 minute wait  to get the switches out of time.  

Crossing First Street and heading onto the branch.

Switching the team track. A lot of lumber products and sheet rock were unloaded here.

Crossing under  Hwy 60, the Pomona Fwy.

Downtown Chino, note the dairy feed mill on the left, a source of traffic.

Musical Interlude - Stevie Ray

Damn Helicopters! The only man to take blues guitar way past Hendrix.

Pacific Electric in Claremont

Just off of College Ave. in Claremont, California was a manufacturer of prefab roof beams for the housing industry.  SP was still serving this business (now gone,) in the early Eighties. By this time, the City of Claremont had succeeded in having the PE right of way through the downtown Village, removed. This right of way included a signal for the crossing of the Santa Fe's Second District. As seen in the first three photos below, the SP used a short portion of the  Santa Fe Second District to get back on to its own rails. More information can be found at: 
http://www.abandonedrails.com/City_of_Industry_to_San_Bernardino

SP local proceeds eastward on the Santa Fe's Second District near Indian Hill  Blvd.

Throwing the switch to get back on to the PE right of way.

It took a few switch moves to get the empties removed and the loads spotted.

This view of the caboose brought to you by deferred maintenance.

SP Redlands Branch

The SP Redlands job swings off of the alignment along California Street, after  leaving the mainline at Bryn Mawr.

Heading east along Citrus Ave.

The "Zanja" bridge near Texas St. and Redlands Blvd.

Crossing Redlands Blvd.

Downtown Redlands

This was a fun chase despite the rain. See this Abandoned Rails page for more info on this line. You can still see the right of way as it curves off of California St.  in the Google map below.

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