Sponsored locally by the Pacific Railroad Society...this special rail enthusiast train, called the "Desert Scout", ran from LA to San Bernardino up through Cajon Pass to Barstow, Ca and back...it was a great trip...I am sure the cost would be prohibitive if they tried to duplicate something like it today...with renting all the Amtrak equipment...insurance costs etc.... Parked outside the old Harvey House at Barstow, CA ...and last, is a shot of our train heading down Cajon Pass...in the late afternoon...
Well if I had thought this out a bit better, I would have posted the next series of photos first...(hehe) At San Bernardino depot 11/03/1984 One of PSR's private cars... and finally heading up Cajon Pass...
Very nice shots! Reminds me of that week-long railfan trip I took though Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa back in May 1981. It was 6 months after the Frisco/BN merger, little over a year after the Rock Island shutdown, and Oelwein, IA was the site of a large parking lot of dead and stored locomotives (in the ex-Chicago Great Western yard), and C&NW was reworking the ex-Rock Island and ex-Frisco GP7s for service. Hmmm.........wonder how you transfer images from Kodachrome slides to uploadable images?(like, say, to a floppy disk, instead of slides to photos and scanning photos to my hard drive)
Very near your 2nd and 3rd photo, this took place in December 1991 and my wife and I were fortunate enough to ride, here to Bakersfield over the Tehachapi Loop.
Mike, It's a long story and maybe I should email you offline. The short version: 3751 was supposed to have completed restoration in time to make it to Railfair 91 in Sacramento. My wife bought tickets to ride there, unbeknown to me. The engine was not ready, but we drove to Sacramento from then home in Lancaster, and that's where I became a born again steam nut. The San Bernardino RR Historical Society, restorers of 3751, honored all ticket holders for the Railfair trip once the 3751 was ready to roll. That happened in December 91. We spent Christmas with one of our daughters in Kingman, AZ, visited sister engine 3759 in a park, then on the way home stopped in Barstow and boarded 3751. Great trip over the loop, overnight in Bfld, then returned the next day. This was wild, snow and blow in Tehachapi, engine cleaned years of diesel grunge out of tunnel 5, incredible experience. I have tried to participate in any outing the 3751 has had, and just missed the last one to San Bernardino, as we now live in Oregon. Now I know you are bored, but if you want more, let me know.
Mike, the trip was billed as the "California Limited," a re-creation of an old Santa Fe passenger run. They sold tickets for four segments, LA to Barstow, Barstow to Bakersfield, Bakersfield to Barstow and Barstow to LA. We rode the middle two. I remember standing alongside the tracks in Barstow awaiting the arrival of the 3751 the night before we were to ride. When the sun went down, I went back to the motel. She didn't get in till real late, and I filmed some stuff in darkness there at Barstow. There are several commercial videotapes available from the trip. One from Mark I Video, narrated by Jim Boyd, shows the exit from Tunnel 5 and the incredible amount of grundge pushed out by the "steam cleaner." The FP45's (I think) were pristeen in warbonnet colors until we went through that tunnel. Man, did they look like some SP units of the time when they came out. Heavy duty wash rack stuff in Barstow that night.
