Hospitable Santa Fe

On October 28, 1961, the Santa Fe Railway held open house at Corwith Yard, Chicago, for all Chicago area railfans.

We were given an interesting brochure of descriptive material and were allowed to visit the Trainmaster's tower in the Terminal Office Building at the north end of the yard; inspect and photograph new freight equipment on display; inspect the diesel shop; take a ride through the yard on a train of gondola cars pulled by GP7 No. 2823; inspect and photograph piggyback facilities, the hump, and hump tower. After this we were returned to the Terminal Office Building for coffee and doughnuts.

The accompanying photo, which I took that day from inside the Trainmaster's tower, looking south over the yard, shows, in the lower foreground, the new freight equipment on display; beyond that, the string of gondola cars waiting for our inspection trip; and beyond that, diesel 337 ready to couple onto Advance 39. The tower operator is inquiring over the twoway radio, "Three thirty-seven, when are you going to tie onto your train?" To which 337 replies, "We are tying on!" and diesel 337 starts backing up to its train. Carl J. Bachmann. 4030 N. Plainfield Ave., Chicago 34, Ill.

The Old Woman's FT's

On page 10 of August 1961 TRAINS was a photograph of a number of former New York, Ontario & Western FT's on ErieLackawanna tracks in Jersey City.

Why hasn't some other road or roads acquired some or all of these? Could it be that the equipment trusts are trying to get back all the money they loaned on the units which might be nearly as much as the price of new modern power?

I have read that the NYO&W had paid in very little on the sales contracts and that the Federal Government had refused to allow repossession in an effort to keep the O&W from folding up.

Is the foregoing anywhere near the answer to my question?

M. W. Snow.

6 Mapleshade Ave., Falconer, N. Y.

[The former NYO&W units, according to Erie-Lackawanna, are the property of a private individual. His ownership includes 14 locomotives, 26 cabooses, 1 water heater tender, 21 hopper cars, and 6 gondolas. These are stored on 3000 feet of track at Croxton Yard which EL has leased to him. Delegations from Mexico and Cuba inspected the equipment some months ago but nothing has happened - R.E.

Pandora's box

You would no doubt be well advised to maintain the balanced content of TRAINS. I'm something of a modernist and would enjoy an all-diesel issue [page 50, November 1961 TRAINS] if it was well done, but I envision it as opening Pandora's box for you in the future. In horror, the traction fraternity, carrying "Ira Swett Forever" banners, will also demand equal representation, and we will have an allinterurban issue. Then you will get a

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Scenes included were made from the mid-1930's until the late 1950's. The film shows most of the L. & N.'s steam locomotive types in action from those of the early days of the century until the end of the era of steam.

Included are several different series of Consolidation-type locomotives; a number of the road's Pacifics, including individual locomotives that were streamlined late in the 1930's; switchers of the 0-6-0 and 0-8-0 varieties, Mikados in both freight and passenger service, and the L. & N.'s 400-series Mountain-type locomotives.

growl from the modern electric boosters that you have made electric railroading appear to be an obsolete concept. Stern letters from John W. Barriger and Dr. H. F. Brown will demand an all-rectifier issue. Before long we will have the allgas-electric issue, the all-soda-motor issue, and the all-horse-and-sail-propulsion issue.

No, better stick to presenting a little of everything. As to the all-steam issue, I think there is a sufficient weight of interest among your readers to justify it, and I, for one diesel lover, am quite willing to let the majority have this.

Jerry Pinkepank.

2200 S. Rundle, Lansing 10, Mich.

Is that X3950?

As usual, I enjoyed the latest issue December 1961- but what happened to the Union Pacific locomotive inside the front cover? Looks like something from "Alice Through the Looking Glass"!

Fred W. Cooper. "Forest Lea," Rollestone Rd., Fawley, Southampton, England.

The reluctant P5a

On October 2, 1961, I was in the Butler (Pa.) area and snapped the accompanying photo at Butler Junction on the Pennsylvania.

Since the 4400-series electrics have taken over freight duties, most of the P5a's are headed for the torch. This old baby (number unknown) gave the road foreman of engines gray hair before his time. It left the rails five times before I shot this picture, the center tire was cut off 4 inches above the rails, and still it gave the PRR a headache all the way to the torch. The reason it bent the rail: a track gang had transposed this rail two days before, and the P5a's 195

William Chaika.

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tons were just too much. The Butler Local tried unsuccessfully to pull the electric back onto the rails, but finally the hook was called.

Of course, this little mishap tied up the Pennsy's VO Tower interlocking plant and the Baltimore & Ohio's eastbound and westbound signals for about 12 hours. The Butler branch crosses the B&O at this point, and the PRR controls the B&O's signaling.

William Chaika. 3410 E. Stag Dr., R. 5, Gibsonia, Pa.

Some more on semantics

Your remarks about semantics in "Second Section" of December 1961 TRAINS

UPON the occasion of re

calling Wisconsin's 32nd Division to active duty, there was a large troop train movement out to Fort Lewis, Wash. One of these main trains hit a truck and derailed, and though no servicemen were seriously hurt, four porters and a Pullman conductor lost their lives when the ends of two cars telescoped. According to our local paper, the soldiers took up a collection of approximately $200 for the truck driver's widow. This struck us as incongruous as well as symptomatic of the times in which we live. For that matter, the whole transport dilemma in the U. S. stems in large measure from unethical as well as illogical treatment of the rails. TRAINS, for one, doesn't intend to play possum, whether the injustice occurs at a grade crossing or in a Senate bill. Another reason why we call TRAINS the magazine of railroading.

[page 56] suggest another angle that might be worth exploring. Here is language used in a newspaper story about a freight derailment:

The line... consists of twin-lane track.

... A burned-out bearing on the undercarriage of the 30th car.

The derailment ripped up 1800 feet of the twin-lane track.

A later story announced that "one lane had been reopened for travel."

Rapid-transit lines fare no better. In reporting efforts to make an emergency stop of a four-car train of conventional M.U. subway equipment, one paper asserted that the motorman "wrenched the gear lever into reverse and pressed down hard on the brake."

If the press is beginning to report railroad stories in terms of highways and motor vehicles, we may see some real howlers before long.

Southworth Lancaster.

7 Waterhouse St., Cambridge 38, Mass.

TF in lowa

On a trip to Boone, Ia., October 7, 1961, I ran across a post mortem to the announcement in October 1961 TRAINS [page 15] concerning the abandonment of the Tallulah Falls Railway. TF 502 was newly arrived in the Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern yards, and the other TF engine, renumbered FtDDM&S 407, was in the shops. I suppose the 502 will become 408. Also in evidence was the new paint scheme which duplicates that in use by the Des Moines & Central Iowa - orange and cream.

Don E. Christensen.

620 N. 12th St., Clinton, Ia.

KM questions

A question on the KM's which were reported in the October 1961 TRAINS: How could they be tested on Austrian rails when they obviously were built for the much wider American gauge? Were narrow axles inserted just for testing purposes? This is hard to believe.

On page 47 a measured tractive effort of 80,000 pounds is mentioned. That is only 40 tons; it should probably read

800,000 pounds, unless I misunderstand something.

H. Landauer.

3316 San Pedro St., Tampa 9, Fla.

[Austria, in common with most of Western Europe and the British Isles, employs the same 4-foot 81⁄2-inch gauge we have in the U. S. Tractive effort is the horizontal pull of a locomotive. Inasmuch as approximately 1/300th of a car's weight is required in terms of pull to overcome its weight, what appears to be a relatively small T.E. number of pounds is sufficient to haul a train. -R.E.

Comments on Cascade

D. W. McLaughlin's fine illuminating article on the Cascade Tunnel [November and December 1961 TRAINS] and the long hassle the Great Northern has had with it up to date was one of the best to appear in your magazine.

Best of all was the author's detailed description of the efforts of the late Graham McNamee, top-flight announcer of the radio industry, to keep interest at a high pitch while waiting anxiously for the Oriental Limited to emerge through the paper covering [page 29, December TRAINS]. Fresh from the microphone triumph of announcing the second Dempsey-Tunney fight in Chicago, September 22, 1927, and covering football games later in the same autumn, this trying situation was a new one for him. "Due to matters beyond our control" must have entered his mind several times, but his dignity dictated otherwise. "Vesti la Giubba," as Pagliaccio sings "The Show Must Go On" - and it did finally. Never in the history of railroading did a train look more beautiful!

James Theodore Hatfield. 728 N. Prospect, Kansas City 20, Mo.

A captious old-timer must suggest to author D. W. McLaughlin that the distinguished engineer Stevens did not "push the Panama Canal through to completion" [page 23, November TRAINS]. Mr. Stevens succeeded John F. Wallace as chief engineer June 30, 1905, and resigned

red as the train entered each block, then turned to her husband and exclaimed, "We have the most marvelous engineer on this train. He's able to make every light just before it turns red."

Which reminds me that I've done a bit of dome riding recently on journeys to and from Colorado - and it's as much fun as ever. Searchlight signals, for instance. Ever notice how they seem to swim hazily into focus because of the heat waves from the diesel stacks? Or how the red indication bobs about a bit before assuming a steady beam (apparently because the lens-holder bounces a bit before settling down)? I admire to watch the fireman look back on the curves to see if his train is running "all black," and to be startled once again by Rio Grande's Gore Canyon (and wonder anew why the photographers don't exploit it more), and to ponder what we'll overtake between Aurora and Chicago as the DS gives us the center iron.

A dome is the best-riding, quietest, and finest train-watching spot on any train anywhere. And that, I suppose, is the least controversial sentence we've run in TRAINS for years.

There are no domes in Mexico, but there is virtually everything else that the most exacting train-watcher might ask, judging by my NdeM experiences there last October. No. 128, the 12:07 p.m. train out of Mexico City for Ozumba on the narrow-gauge Puente de Ixtla branch, was powered by the 185, a glossy black Baldwin 4-6-0 whose commanding whistle threatened to overtax the boiler as we struggled across summits at a walk. We had six cars; add one more and we would have doubled at least three hills en route.

Now, the ride in all of Mexico, so they say, is the onetime independent Mexicano (now NdeM) between Veracruz and Mexico City, 268 miles. It is more. It is a first-rate spectacle which takes a back seat to no other mountain railroad in my experience. To keep the time with just eight cars out of Orizaba west on day train 52 we required 6700 h.p.: an EMD F9 cab-and-booster team on the head end, and an Alco A-B helper behind the open observation car. At the outset the grade is 3.5 per cent, then it briefly eases to 2.1 and then up you go on successively steeper gradients of 4.1, 4.5, and finally 4.7 per cent (with short 300-to500-foot pitches exceeding 5 per cent) for a distance of approximately 20 miles. The ascent equals our steepest grade Southern Railway's 4.7 per cent Saluda Hill in the Blue Ridge - except that it's longer. The town of Orizaba recedes to half-dollar size on the valley floor below; alarm bells betraying hot engines and/or motors begin ringing in both road and helper units; and just as one assumes the summit must be here, the rails coil through the tightest of curves and spiral on up at 4.7 to there. It's marvelous and if you'd like to sample some pork chops Mexican style (with onions, tomatoes, and peppers) during the 2-hour 12minute climb to Esperanza, why, the National Railways of Mexico will be happy to provide those, too.

It's as splendid as our Mexicano re

port by Messrs. De Golyer and Kistler in May 1961 TRAINS indicated. Just ask me. Better yet, ask my wife. She'd never stood on an observation platform face to face with the flat nose of a wide-open Alco making just 20 mph.

But then, how many have?

In case you might be interested:

¶Subscribers received their index to Volume 21 of TRAINS (November 1960October 1961) in the last issue. If you'd like to have a copy, just send us a stamped, self-addressed business-size envelope.

Since the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie gathered the Wisconsin Central and the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic into its fold and condensed its name to its old nickname, management has been calling the road the New Soo. Details are available in a folder from Wallace W. Abbey, Director of Public Relations, Soo Line, Minneapolis 40, Minn. A post card will do the trick.

¶Miami Railroad Historical Society Inc., Box 8033, Coral Gables 46, Fla. - the group that operates that ex-FEC 4-6-2, the Presidential private car Ferdinand Magellan, and other equipment on week ends offers six color post cards of its rolling stock for 50 cents.

¶Neatest tie bars and chains, cuff links, brooches, bracelets, and so forth, we've seen of late carry an excellent reproduction of Denver & Rio Grande No. 1, the narrow-gauge Baldwin 2-4-0 of 1871 which weighed just 121⁄2 tons. Quality is high, prices are more than reasonable and proceeds go to a D&RGW veterans' organization of employees with 20 or more years seniority. The man to write is Guy E. Lockhart, 3817 Osceola St., Denver 12, Colo.

Once again the Talyllyn Railway, Britain's revived and nonprofit 2-footer, has its annual illustrated calendar ready. For the 1962 edition send 50 cents to R. K. Cope, "Brynglas," Beckman Road, Pedmore, Stourbridge, Worcestershire, England.

The group of A.A.R. and other American railroad officials who toured Russia in June 1960 have compiled their observations in an illustrated hard-bound 342page book: Railroads of the U.S.S.R. The price is $10 and the supply is very limited. Write C. D. Buford, Vice-President, Association of American Railroads, Transportation Bldg., Washington 6, D. C.

If you're lukewarm about diesels, meet Mrs. Annabelle Cooper, 70, of Battle Creek, Mich., who recently retired after 43 years of service with the Grand Trunk Western - as an overhead crane operator. She began work in manpower-short 1918 to support her family, made an estimated 1 million lifts with her 160-ton crane without an injury or an accident. She could have retired at age 65 but stayed on the job, passing an annual physical to qualify. In fact, Annie Cooper says she could still pass a physical but the climate inside the shop is beginning to bother her. When steam engines filled the bay, she recalls, they gave off enough warmth to keep her comfortable. However, the diesels arrive coated with ice and snow, Continued on page 58