FL9

On a side note, after having emailed a copy Saturday’s photos of the “Warren R. Henry” to Patrick Henry Creative Promotions, yesterday I received a nice email in return from Greg Smith, the gentleman who was waving in the going-away shot.  The wonders of modern technology……

So 24 years into the past was not enough for you yesterday?  Well let’s use more of that technology and go back 34 years today to a family vacation in California when I was 17 years old.  We were escaping a Connecticut winter when I was granted some time trackside and caught this SP FP7A on the point of a westbound freight at Colton Tower about to leave for Los Angeles on February 22nd in 1972.

I still need to learn how to better use my scanner, as I have some darkening in the sky that I don’t see in the slide.  I could try to Photoshop it out, but I don’t have Leonard’s skills and it has been a long day.  Otherwise enjoy, as you surely won’t find this lashup again anywhere now.

The next day, February 23rd, found us eastbound across the desert with a stop at Mojave where I found a pair of SP SD45’s in near-perfect light.

The friendly crew climbed down to tell me they were waiting for the arrival of a northbound freight in order to shove it over Tehachapi Loop.    It was a whole different world railfanning back then with little of the tensions we face now.

Speaking of modern-day railfanning, the latest I have been told is the Star-Telegram article on BNSF’s Citizen’s for Rail Security program and railfans in general will run sometime this coming weekend.