From 11/16/1985 at Birmingham, AL, an Amtrak B-Unit with no roof details. This is/was part of the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum's collection before things were moved to Calera, AL. I have no idea what we're otherwise looking at here. The unit is stenciled KRHS 670. From the Katy Railroad Historical Society? And a MILW car to the left. It's not listed in their current collection. Such a strange sight in Alabama.
From 10/27/1989 at Montgomery, AL, AMTK F-40PH 272 is king for a day, all shined up and heading the first run of the new Gulf Breeze from Birmingham to Mobile. Ridership never amounted to much and the train was eliminated after 4-1/2 years.
Nothing like a locomotive looking brand new after about 10 years on the rails. Great picture, Dan. Doug Doug
I have just learned that it's one of several Amtrak E B Units that the ICG's Paducah shop rebuilt into steam generator cars. I never knew about these. Its history: Ex-UP 966B sold to Amtrak in September 1972 and retired on May 25 1974 Rebuilt by ICG-Paducah to Amtrak steam generator car 1920 in late 1975 Amtrak renumbered it to 670 in mid-1977 Amtrak sold it to the NRHS Heart of Dixie Chapter in May 1983 NRHS HoD Chapter sold it to UP in February 1995. Stored at Cheyenne as part of heritage fleet
Weren't those converted E8B units actually head-end-power generators for use with older steam-generator equipped locos and newer passenger cars which needed electric HEP? https://www.hebners.net/Amtrak/amtHEP.html
Sunset Limited at tower 17 in Rosenberg in 2001. Between the tower and the baggage car you can see the mast for "hooping" up the flimsy train orders. The engineer had just grabbed them seconds before the photo was taken.
This is one of "High Speeder" devices that is clipped to the mast to hold the flimsy train orders. The paper is rolled up and fastened to a loop of string that is looped over the ends of the spring loaded wands. The flimsy would be out of sight to the top of the photo. The engineer just puts his arm through the loop of string and pulls it off. The two wands spring open in go to a vertical position. This is the bracket on the mast that the wand assembly clips into,
There is a special knot tied where the orders are pinched, which allows the train crew to slip it quickly open to get reading their instructions. And right now I cannot remember how to tie it. Maybe because I am distracted by looking out the window, watching our first real snow of the season.
East bound Amtrak rolling into Essex, MT a few minutes ago... Yes, that is fresh snow from last night!
This morning's very late-running 92, the Silver Star at Pontiac, SC. One of those jump-out-of-the-car, run-like-heck and trip-the-shutter shots.