Air Force 1605 was kept clean both inside (above) and out (left). No- tice the piles of supplies to the right of the loco and behind it. The crane is being used to load equipment on a flatbed truck (below).


ward bases started to change. The con- clusion of the Cold War, with the col- lapse of both the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, ended a major threat to U.S. national security. A mounting fed- eral budget deficit and a desire to redi- rect federal spending into domestic programs reinforced arguments favor- ing cuts in national defense spending. As a consequence in the late 1980’s into the mid-1990’s, military base clos- ings began. The list targeted eighty-six


bases for closure, including McClellan AFB, five for partial closure, and fifty- four for realignment. Today, the seven-mile long Sacra-


mento Valley Railroad industrial park switching line is part of the Florida- based Patriot Rail group’s holdings, ac- quired in March 2008. The railroad currently operates two GP15-1 locomo- tives and employees a staff of four. The two McClellan AFB locos, USAF No. 1240, a GE 44-tonner built in 1953,


and GE 80-tonner No. 1605, were pur- chased by the California State Rail- road Museum in 1993. The 44-tonner was repainted in Sacramento Southern livery, while the 1605 has been painted for Operation Lifesaver and is on dis- play in Truckee, California. Whether one were to choose to model the McClellen facility as an air force base or an industrial park, such a facil- ity could bring a lot of traffic to your railroad.


RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN


51


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