Thanks!...all of you! you guys have given the research 'stamp' to what I've been finding among all the pics I've been searching... namely, cab-booster-cab lash-ups would have had different numbers (cab units)...especially in 1957, after the re-numbering.... To that end, I've re-numbered my 4 cab units...52-57-66-71...a fairly representative mix, IMO. believe it of not...the Micro-scale decal sheet for the PA's has GREAT info...if I had only opened them and read them earlier! AND the sources used by them reads like a 'who's who' of ATSF loco experts! "The Santa Fe Diesel-Vol 1"-by Priest "Santa Fe-1940-1971 in color, Vol 1"-by Stagner "Santa Fe-1940-1971 in color, Vol 2"-by stagner "Santa Fe-1940-1971 in color, Vol 3"-by stagner "Santa Fe-1940-1971 in color, Vol 4"-by Stagner "Santa Fe all the Way"-by Marvel "Santa Fe Trackside with Bill Gibson"-by Stagner "Santa Fe's Diesel Fleet"-by McMillan "Early Diesel Daze"-by McCall "Santa Fe's Diesel Fleet" by McMillan-'Warbonnet' magazine don't have any of these references...and need ALL of them! Thanks again, Bruce
I might have avoided 71 for three-unit sets, and instead have picked a number in the 74-78 range. But, you know, for 1957 I just don't think it matters much. Nice units. The closer you look, the better they look. And I don't know any higher praise than that.
Not sure where you are getting your information I'd appreciate your sharing that with me. My own experience with the Santa Fe, around the late 50's and early 60's there wasn't a quote set of passenger units or assigned sets as in a numbered sequence. The early FT's did come as sets but by the time you got to the F7's Santa Fe no longer ran them as designated sets. Not to say that didn't happen but if a A unit went down, it was pulled, another stuck in it's place. The PA's got the same treatment. The one thing Santa Fe didn't do was run the PA's with F types. Something to do with the gearing not being compatible. Reflecting back on the F7's you could find them running in whatever configuration it took to get the train down the tracks Ie., LCAA, LCLAA, LAAL,LlAAA, CALL (and that doesn't mean call me). I don't recall my family of rails ever referring to cabless unit as a B unit and was reprimanded when I did. Seriously.
Ah, but I have. Mostly Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail (or my imperfect memory of my studies of it) and Pinkepank's The Second Diesel Spotter's Guide. In Iron Horses, the splitting up of the FTs is chronicled in detail. The resultant A-B-A sets mostly worked my end of the road, and the A-B-B sets were combined into massive six unit, 300,000 lbs. tractive effort lashups for your end of the road. All of them were traded in by 1964. Yeah, the FTs seem never to have gotten nose m.u., but the rest sure did. And your family may have had a phobia of that, but ALCO, EMD, F-M and Baldwin all used the letter B in model numbers for boosters most of the time. As for turnouts vs. switches, well, there's also shunters vs. switchers. I blame Thomas the Tank Engine. It's the Second British Invasion!
"Phobia" are you calling my family a bunch of MR's. (ahh Model Railroaders) Grin! No phobia, just Rail Lingog (ahh lingo) and what's proper with the Rails of the time. No challenge to your word intended nor any offense meant. I do look forward to your input. I need a good laugh...now I realize that wasn't nice... but consider us even. COL There is one correction I need to make and you are right. Hey, you are right! I hate it when you are right. The designation was LABC, any time I use a LAAC it shoud read LABC... it's what we railfans and modelers call an ABBA arrangement. Sorry about that. I'l blame it on the edit feature not remaining on long enough. GRRRRRR! For Santa Fe railfans and modelers the B became a fairly significant way and means to understand what was meant by a cabless unit following in behind a cab unit. Santa Fe on the other hand used it to describe the second cabless unit in the consist. What gets perplexing is how do you describe an ABBBBB set. Can't say I know. Here we go... LABBAAB...maybe not. You are right again. Gosh, and you know how I feel about that. Grin. Other locomotive companies did use the B designation. The real odd ball here is Santa Fe who choose to call them something different. Sigh! Cinthia Priest, comes the closest to reflecting the vernacular of the Rails in her books documenting the Santa Fe. She actually turned to the Rails of the Santa Fe and spent hours interviewing them to learn about the foibles, oddities, anomalies and hard core facts. I appreciate her work above all others and would highly recommend that all reading, add her works to your library. The railroad books we have today, have for the most part been written by RailFans who use their own vernacular and seldom does their writings reflect that of the Rails. The facts can be some what distorted based on the authors own observations and perspective...which at times can be suspect. Like you I enjoy reading the Iron Horse but I see a number of areas where I wish the author had used the vernacular of the rails. Instead he uses railfan jargon. That's ok! Sort of. I would agree it makes it easier for the majority of non-rails to understand what's meant and to communicate with each other. Don't mind me if I crimace when I hear it. Grin! Oh those darn switches. If you really want to stir-up the hornets nest just throw that into a discussion and watch the fur fly. Thanks for the come back.
IHOTSFT is still by far the most complete work on the subject, especially on steam locomotives. First published in 1965, Worley had access to many of the original records but also input from so many folks knowledgeable in such information. Yeah, back then the Southwest Railroad Historical Society, who published the work, was mostly railfans who used their own jargon but I am just so grateful that all this information was compiled and put into one source.
Indeed. Wonderful resource. There's one pic which still sticks in my mind. A photo taken in Arkansas City, Kansas in 1880 of a train which looks like it's in India--people on the pilot, running boards, roofs, and hanging on the sides of the car. Worsley says in the caption that big things are obviously afoot, but alas we don't know their import. I say Worsley should have asked an Oklahoman--that's the only pic I know of which shows one of the famous Land Runs in progress. Great book. About the only area where I take exception with his great work on that one is in the Berkshire chapter, where he implies that the Santa Fe 4101 Class was something other than superpower because they didn't have the mallet-hinged frames. But you compare them to the ex-BM power, which he clearly considers superpower, and you see the solid frame Baldwins have more weight on drivers, more tractive effort and less of a tendency to derail when backing through switches. And since he admits they all wound up oil burners anyway, why would they need the big ashpan? But hey. At least he gave me enough information to argue intelligently when I decided he was wrong. So I still have to give him his due! Yeah, by the 'sixties the whole thing was awfully silly. But, you know, at least the Santa Fe mostly kept the streamliners and the roadswitchers separated--mostly--unlike many another road that mixed them indiscriminately. I do appreciate that, for no logical reason...
And that is the whole summation...of it. Nice visiting with you all. Let's do it again soon. Before I go one last hoorah: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=8714 http://www.railpixs.com/atsf2/atsf2.html Just in case you missed it...here's a real monkey wrench: http://www.railpixs.com/atsf2/ATSF2579_nearTempleTx_Nov76.jpg And this will make any die hard, loyal, faithfull to Santa Fe prototype operations flinch: http://www.railpixs.com/atsf2/ATSF275_SommervilleTx_Dec76.jpg Now tell me that didn't happen. Grin! Enjoy!
Wow, photos from many of my old railfan haunts. Eagle Lake, Bellville, Cameron, Alvin, the HB&T shops in Houston, Temple, Sealy, Rosenberg and all the places they sent worn out F units to die before they ran them through the CF-7 program at Cleburne.
Pretty cool stuff...eh? Russell, Is it possible those are your photos? San Bernardino shops, Cajon Pass and Barstows own diesel shop saw some of these latter day die-hards. Here is another example of what we've been talking about. Read down through the locomotive lash-ups Ie., LAAC, LBAC and note the numbers making up a lash-up of F7's, : http://www.qstation.org/40_Years_Ago/ Who said they didn't pull freight: http://www.qstation.org/40_Years_Ago/00722_2-35_330L-4_Hutch_6-18-67.jpg Never say never. Interesting to say the least. Have fun!
Nope. None of them are my photos. I wish. Unfortunatly all my photos from those day were lost. However I still have my memories. Like I said, the Santa Fe sent all their old tired Fs down this way to run out their final miles before they were run through the CF7 program. I heard that they broke down so often that they would stick a bunch of extras in a consist to insure a few would still be running by the time they got to their destination. They would just string a whole bunch together in no particular order as long as there was a cab in front, they were good to go.
Nobody I know. The 324? 325? Class were dual service locomotives with 'compromise' 85 mph gearing. They were often used as 'protection' power, idling their days away in major yards keeping up to operating temperature and waiting to take over for whatever remaining steamer or diesel lashup--freight or passenger--broke down on the way to them. Global warming, anyone? No wonder Oklahoma hardly has any oil left.
Good to have some qualified.... Santa Fe rail fans on board here at TB. You know there are RailFans and there are Rail Fans. There are model railroaders and there are railroad modelers. Acptulsa, keep bringing your observations here. I take it, you are from Tulsa, OK? Russell, we got's us another Santa Fe rail jock. Good discussion.
I'LL SAY!... all the info you guys have delivered has been completely helpful to say the least! LOVE those pics from Belleville!...I moved to Texas, via New Orleans, Mobile, Houma, Morgan City, Orange (CA), Tehran (Iran), Edinburgh, Stavanger (Norway), to attend college at U of H in 1976, my brother-in-law and his family moved to Sealy, then Belleville that year...I had always been a closet railfan (since riding the Sunset Limited as a small child...), I even found a pic I took on an old instamatic of an Amtrak train in Santa Ana, CA back in 1972!...so I remember driving to Belleville COUNTLESS times, watching the Katy green and yellow along the way, then The Santa Fe Blue and Yellow up Hwy 36... I even remember running to the little Katy yard in Houston just inside the loop and snapping pics of SP Gp's...(sadly all those pics lost in Katrina!) In the late 90's, there was a CF7 working a cement plant just north of New Braunfels, off of the Katy...still in Santa Fe blue and yellow...wonder if it's still there... the only pics we could get were from outside of the gate...if I remember correctly, the guard on duty was a pretty rough, 'gender-ly challenged' woman, who was not about to be 'sweet-talked' into allowing me access for photos...! I remember another one working one of the massive grain elevators in Saginaw as well... needless to say, all of you have helped my modelling considerably... now...if I could only get some REAL good pics of the area underneath the grills on F7A and F7B units! Sincerely, Bruce
Thanks, Barstow. Yup, in Tulsa, and just old enough to remember Chico on the billboard at the station downtown, before the Santa Fe pulled out... Don't know if I can help with that, but if you look long enough, and especially if you look at early units from other roads, which did not retrofit their F-3s with Farr Air grills the way the Santa Fe did, you can get a better look through the 'chicken wire'. Also, though the FTs were not identical, they wore their 'chicken wire' to the end, and were similar enough that a photo of one might answer whatever your question is.
Does this help? Regarding FT's. http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/sfa18.jpg My error, we are looking for F7's: http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/sfa50.jpg http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/sfa49.jpg
I sware I don't like the time allowed to edit. I respectfully request of these fine AD types here on TB they reconsider and allow us more time. It takes longer then the time allowed to research resources and transfer the information to TB. Here is one more example of a F7: http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/sfl22.jpg Here is one more resource you may find helpful. http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/sfp.html
Yep... I've got those pics and site bookmarked...I've referenced lots of pics similar to that first F7...that's about as clear as any that I have...much better shots of FT's and F3's, but, those were completely different from any of the F7's... Have some beautiful pics of the Dallas/Frisco museum painting their F9 in ATSF warbonnet... (BEFORE adding the grills!)...but don't know if the F9 openings are the same as the F7...? Thanks, Bruce
I opened a new thread on this one... http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...carbody-openings&p=828671&posted=1#post828671
