I e-mailed a friend the picture and did a bit of research to find that the 5004 is a half century old, former SOU. Although probably rebuilt, it's amazing to think that this unit has been grinding it out in Class I railroad service for 50 years.
Looking at those switches leading off to the right. Hopefully it is just the lens making them look like and extreme drop, off an embankment!
They call that the Rosenberg Roller-coaster siding. They used to call these "Squash Shots" where you zoom in with a telephoto lens. The UP has double tracked the Sunset Route since that photo was taken over 12 years ago.
I was looking through some of my old pictures and was amazed to find two pictures of the same locomotive separated by 19 years and nearly 900 miles. The locomotive is C&NW E-8 No. 520. The color slide dates from 9/10/1995 on the Waccamaw Coast Line RR at Red Hill, SC, and the black and white from happier times hauling Chicago commuters, as shot from Barrington Tower on 5/19/1976. The Waccamaw Coast Line failed. A friend told me that the unit went to the torch.
I wonder why they felt they had to completely blank out the engine number windows. They weren't really hurting anything. The guy on the bike can make it if he has a genuine Schwinn Sting Ray. Doug
Today's northbound Silver Star/Silver Meteor (temporarily combined as a ridership experiment) ran seven hours late in daylight and as good fortune would have it, the train carried private car Chapel Hill, a former C&O business car. She was built as a private car in 1922 then acquired by the C&O in 1937. The current owner named the car for his alma mater, the U. of North Carolina. Here it is at Whitehead, SC. I should edit out that confounded cell tower ........
Here you go: It does look way better. Now if there was a way to morph that silver box ahead of it into something matching Chapel Hill...
It sure is neat to see cars like the C&O car still on the rails, minus the cell tower, of course. OK, or even WITH the cell tower. Doug
Caught an episode of Highway Patrol on TV this morning from 1958, Train Copter. There's some decent SP footage throughout, including A-B-A PA's and Black Widow Fs. Looks like the SP had some black PBs maybe (at 17:40)? Ends up that the episode is on YouTube. They mess with the video a bit so as to not infringe on ownership rights.
I believe one was painted in the "Halloween" scheme for a short time. However, more likely it was the Bloody Nose scheme of scarlet and dark gray that showed up looking black due to exposure of the movie film. The B units did not have any scarlet paint because they had no nose.
Kind of impresses as being a shoestring operation. Looks rusty, weedy. As though there was no money to spare for any upkeep?
It was long ago, but I seem to recall that they bet on dinner trains from Myrtle Beach which never took root. A portion of the line is back in operation today, owned by RJ Corman and freight only. A pork barrel project a decade (?) ago resulted in the lift bridge over the intracoastal waterway near Myrtle Beach being rebuilt, but it was never used and is again out of service. A recent news story reads that it might be reopened to run a tourist train, but it's just fantasy at this stage. The angled dotted line on the map below is the NC/SC state line.
I happened to tune in right when that scene was on and then, I wanted them to show the train in a similar scene again but they didn't. Thanks for the info. Doug
