Aradara Express

The Great Divide on the Southern Pacific

While I posted what I *thought* was the Great Divide along the Southern Pacific Daylight Route before (here), this is the correct spot as per the USGS. This locale is to be found just east of the bridge at Exit 55 on I-10 between Lordsburg and Deming, New Mexico.

As stated in the earlier post: the highway department erected a sign announcing the Divide two miles east of this spot, and one can’t really notice this is the pass at all, as it’s super flat all around. Hence the need for a close read of a detailed USGS map.

Penn Central GP-9 at Hobart IN station May 1976 commuter train

Signage: Raton

This seems to be a thing out west—towns erecting lighted signs over their burgs, perhaps for PR reasons. I made it up to the Trinidad sign seven years ago, and wanted to do the same at Raton when I was passing through three years ago now.

Of course, for those of us with an interest in railroads, the word “Raton” carries with it a rich history. I’ll quote myself in an article I wrote in the journal Railroad History, number 221…

Moving south from Trinidad, located in the relatively new state of Colorado, and roughly following the Mountain Route of the Santa Fe Trail, the [Santa Fe] railroad first crawled its way up and over Raton Pass in 1878, supplanting a wagon toll road carved out by Richens Lacey “‘Uncle Dick” Wootton. It then ran down the other side of the pass to Willow Springs, later called Raton, New Mexico.

The pass for this original route of the Santa Fe turned out to be a challenging one due to a steep grade and tight curvature. It’s still in use—but barely, with but one Amtrak train each way per day.

Wisconsin Street Yard

Pictured here is what I assume to be the yard engine resting adjacent to the sanding tower. We, in the dark of night, are visiting Illinois Central's Wisconsin Street Yard in Indianapolis.

A friend of mine was researching ways to use multiple flash bulb pops to light things at night: this is a good example of a shot exposed using three separate flashes.

To do this we would have our cameras set up on tripods, side by side. I manned the cameras while he lit the subject. First, I would open the shutters and cover the lenses so that ambient light would not spoil things while Ron walked around to do the flashes. He would get in position and say "open." I would then uncover the lenses, he would pop the flash, and I'd cover the lenses once again till the next pop. When done I would close the shutters.

Even with this method you can see the green of a mercury-vapor street light distorting things over to the right side of the frame.

Black Hawk Apr. 74

The Dummy

The Original Auto-Train

This private company operated trains to Florida from 1971 to 1981. While forced to cease its services, the business model lives on in an Amtrak train with a similar name. Here we see a few images made at the northern terminus of their second route, which ran from Louisville southward (on the L&N) to the sunshine state.

The equipment of this railroad is interesting: they acquired and utilized a large batch of full-length dome cars from the Santa Fe, the road locomotives were new General Electric U36Bs with Blomberg trucks (to satisfy the SCL of their main route on the east coast), and in at least one case they converted a heavyweight baggage car to serve as a steam generation car.

While most of the big domes were eventually preserved, the one pictured above was involved in a wreck and later scrapped. The action shots come from Farmer’s Lane south of Louisville.

GG1 with a Light Train Given the direction of the lighting, this diminutive train (at Perryville, Maryland) is obviously northbound. Some knowledgeable folks on FB tell me this may have been the Washington section of the National Limited (which connected variously at Philadelphia or Harrisburg).