ABOVE: With the distinctive flared radiators bringing up the rear, a Southern Pacific SD45 shoved the caboose of a manifest up Cajon Pass on February 18, 1984, about a mile below Canyon siding.
LEFT: In the Drawbar Flats
area of Cajon Pass, an eastbound Santa Fe climbed the North Track on February 18, 1984, powered by an SD40-2 and U36C bracketing the pair of cab-less SD45B’s that had been outshopped from San Bernardino just two months earlier.
ning to appear routinely on freight trains running to and from Barstow. During overhaul at San Berdoo, SD45s 5581 and 5523 had their cabs removed but kept their flared radiator housings, hitting the road as SD45B’s 5501 and 5502. During their first few months of service, the cab-less boosters were typ- ically seen coupled between two con- ventional SD45s in A-B-B-A formation, but over time they wound up in mixed
consists and went their separate ways. The year’s biggest diesel develop-
ment, literally, was UP’s decision to re- activate more than two dozen of its twin-engined DDA40X’s to help out during a system-wide traffic surge that was expected to peak during mid-1984. Most of these monster units had been stored since 1981 at Yermo, Calif., in the dry air of the Mojave Desert. That three-year absence may as well have
been 30 for young guys like me who barely managed to shoot any of the Centennials in action when we were growing up. After barnstorming UP’s ex-Western Pacific route into northern California and its Los Angeles & Salt Lake route into southern California throughout most of 1984, the DDA40X fleet faded into history once again. Not all of 1984’s rail happenings were plain to see out on the high iron of SoCal, or anywhere else for that mat- ter. In late March, holding company Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corp. (which had formed just the previous Decem- ber) announced it was filing an applica- tion with the
Interstate Commerce
Commission for the purpose of merging the two railroads. Never mind that the intended name for the new carrier would be Southern Pacific & Santa Fe, opposite of the parent corporation. In
31
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66