April 14,1973 was a gray dismal day. Joe Collias and I were hunting for something to do and we saw an extra freight leaving Lindenwood with an A-B-B-A lash up. We ended up following the train all the way to Rolla. I was using my trusty Canon FT and had to shoot Tri-X 400 speed grainy film in order to get any pictures at all. Here are my meager efforts. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I shot pictures of diesels. Shows how desperate the times were way back in the '70s. I had already posted a shot of the wig-wag signal we found along the way on a previous post.
Ashamed!!! These are amazing I have seen the color version of the first photo in Frisco in Color. I liked the F-units and this shows some of them in there final working years. There is no reason to be ashamed of some good Frisco photo's. My only wishes for this to be 20 years ago and them to be black and yellow. Ship it on the Frisco!!! Murphy Jenkins
I doubt that I could make a trip using today's methods. Only engine I've run is 1522 and it was strictly stretch braking methods. Never did find the dynamic brake lever on her.
Thanks for those pictures. The A-B-B-A F-unit lash-ups were impressive in the early '70's. It was a treat when they rode by the house, because they were from an earlier time compared to the "more-up-to-date" SD-45's, U-25's and GP-35's. I swear there once was an A-B-B-B-A set that went by a couple times out of Lindenwood. Can someone confirm that?
Thanks for the photos, Don. Even if they are Dizmals, they are the history we love! FT, huh? Frisco never had any, but many of us camera bugs did! I even had an FX, or rather, dad did. Dan
Don Thanks for suffering the indignity of admitting you shot diesels -- this really is a nice set of photos. I'm curious, though -- "Tri-X 400 speed grainy film", how many pixels is that? Gordon
WindsorSpring - Yes, ABBBA, and longer, F-unit lashups were common on the Eastern Division. See my posting below for a pic from the Fall of 1966 in Rolla - that's wife Caroline standing there watching an ABBBBA set of mixed F-unit EMD's and repowered Alco's grind by eastbound on their way to Lindenwood. They were working hard here - it was a long train and was probably out of breath after climbing Rolla Hill coming up from Newburg. This was taken while standing in front of SLSF 1501, next to the park and Frisco Pond there. A few years earlier, while still a student at MSM, I saw an eastbound come by with about 12-15 mixed F-units in it. All but the first four or five of them were silent - no doubt on their way to EMD or to GE as trade-ins. That was quite a sight. http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?t=3353 Ken
Thanks, Ken for recalling the scene of the long string of F units (and re-build Alcos) you saw in Rolla in October 1966. That says much about eyesight and memory . The long strings I recall were right after I became Frisco's neighbor in October 1972. Don's pictures that started this thread had to be from that time. Strings began to appear and then, suddenly, they were gone. It seemed as if the company was "using up the F's" before trading them. Running them together probably served some practical purpose, but it certainly was excellent railfan theater, too. SL-SF showed some class by letting them run their last miles together the way they had begun service.
Long strings of F units...yesterdays "Gensets"? Glenn, in Tulsa (who would rather see one more b/y A-B-B-A lashup than a million billion "Gensets!)
1.) Refreshing... would love to see that today... 2.) lol ... 3.) Don, I'm glad you are secure enough in your "steam manly-ness" to post the diesel pics...
the first B unit is 138 the second has to be 132 or 135 and it looks like the A has a 3 in the number
The all the units in the picture were ones renovated in 1968. The A units were renumbered from 50xx to xx and were renumbered from 51xx to 1xx. The first B unit is clearly #138. The second has to be #132 or #135 but looks more like #132 than 135. It can't be #134 since it was retired by accident 2/10/1967. It can't be 133 or 137 - they were sold 11/1969 and 9/1969 respectively. It can't be 130, 131 or 139 - they were all sold 2/1971. The trailing A unit looks to me like it is #34. Niumbers 31, 33 and 34 were the only surviving 3x A units 4/14/73, and it looks like the leading edge of a 4 peaking out from the handrail.