Anticipation. Union Pacific Extra 844 East

Waiting for Extra 844 East to arrive. Enthusiasts jocking for the best photo spot. You hear the chirping of crickets and grasshoppers in the fields near the tracks. A jack rabbit scurries past. A bee sweeps the air around you: you wave it off. Someone appears casually walking along the tracks ... if Extra 844 East appears now, your photo will be totally ruined with this person there. You hear the scanner go off. It's 5 minutes away ... sigh of relief.  Can this person hear all the grumbling photographers muttering under their collective breath, "Get out of the way!". Somehow our collective prayers are answered, and they duck out of the way into a thicket, just in time for us to hear the deep bellow of the whistle announcing the coming of Extra 844 East. Two long whistle blasts, followed by one short one, and finally one really long one. It must be at a grade crossing. Not far away now. Your hands get sweaty. You double check your camera settings:  shutter speed - check,  aperature -  check, depth of field -  check. Thinking now about the best moments to release the shutter. Steady now. Your heart is starting to race. Smoke on the horizon. Hear the reciprocating chug-chug-chug-chug becoming louder as Extra 844 East grinds it's way up a grade. Then it suddenly appears in your camera's field of vision: Extra 844 East. Click. Hear again the melodic deep whistle blow. Click. Swoosh. You pivot your position catching the train going by at speed. Click. A sea of yellow with the singing steel wheels on steel rails. Click. Then as suddenly as it appeared, it's gone. You hear the wailing of the whistle echoing into the distace. The chorus of crickets and grasshoppers starts up again as though they didn't miss a beat. Everyone smiling. Ah, can I experience that again?

Below, the animated sequence of photographs: UP Extra 844 East taken by Matthew in Niles Canyon California for your enjoyment.



Pike-Size Passenger Trains to Model: Southern Pacific’s “The Coast Mail” No. 71 - 72

Here’s a picture of a real Southern Pacific Coast Mail setup from my collection along with Mike Madonna’s fine model. It’s Southern Pacific Train No. 71 in 1953 with a number of Wheels of Time Harriman baggage-express cars and a Harriman coach in the consist. Thanks Mike for sharing these pictures of your beautiful model. 

Southern Pacific Steam Action!

Here are some photos I took of Southern Pacific No. 2472 and 2467 Class P-8 Pacific locomotives double-heading at Hunter’s Point Naval Ship Yard in February of 2003. These photos remind me of the reciprocating noise of steam hissing from the exhaust, the deep melodic whistle, and the tar-like smell of the exhaust as the train went by. It's easy to imagine that we're back when Espee ran steam. How about a P-8 in N-scale? Any takers?

In the picture below, I am in the cab of SP 2472 with a friendly ex-SP engineer. This gentleman, whose name, unfortunately, I have forgotten, showed my friends and I how to operate the State Belt ALCo 2-2 switch engine (a story told in the "About Us" section of wheelsotime.com).

Below is the Engineer’s view of backing down to couple with SP No. 2467 and "subs".

Walschaert valve gear in action ....

I stitched the following photo together since I didn’t have a wide enough lens. This is SP 2467 winding down the last hour of steam before the FRA boiler time is expired. I Remember when SP 2467 and train use to be displayed in a park in Oakland's Chinatown: my parents use to allow my brother and I to climb around on it. Today, this train is on long term loan to the California State Railroad Museum where you can't climb on it, but you can see it. Sister SP 2472 is still in operation and can be seen today at the new Golden Gate RR museum.

From Inspiration to Finished Product

This is my photo, from a foggy morning in 1986, of Southern Pacific's GP9 “Torpedo”, no. 3195, pulling a matching set of Caltrain painted bilevel commute cars arriving at the Burlingame station on Train No. 30. This line runs between San Francisco and San Jose, California. 

And this is the plastic-injection cavity mold for Wheels of Time’s version of this commute coach. From time to time people ask about the tooling for our products. This is one example: a cavity mold for the roof and undercarriage of Southern Pacific's bilevel gallery coach. 

And, finally, the finished product. Wheels of Time's Southern Pacific bilevel Commute Coach.

Chesapeake & Ohio 70-ft Arched Roof Baggage-Express Car

C&O baggage-express Car No. 314 next to former Reading T-1 "American Freedom Train" steam locomotive, at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum. These cars (this one in C&O For Progress paint scheme) were built by Pullman Mfg. Co. in 1929. See Wheels of Time item #s 200, 201, 202TS for the N-Scale version.