Oakridge Oregon 1994 - SP Twilight Years

Waiting for the helper to cut in, Oakridge, Oregon

The last years of the SP were painful for this trainwatcher. Yes the railroad still exsited, but things have not been the same since the aborted SPSF merger. The locomotive fleet was victim to many aesthetic degradations; removal of Gyralites, Santa Fe and then Rio Grande style number boards, gumball flashers, and then there was the water based paint peeler era with the ugly beige undercoat showing through.....sigh! The speed lettering era was somewhat of a reprieve, they did look pretty sharp. The above train illustrates another downward trend. Lumber traffic is down sharply, and this lumber train can make it all the way to Oakridge before getting the helper cut in. In the "good old days," monster lumber drags would get the helper cut in as far east as Judkins.