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In reality there is nothing too scary about these pictures except for the amount of hair I have lost since I took these two shots 30 years ago today.  October 31st back in 1976 turned out to be the date for the last run on Santa Fe’s Ringling Branch west out of Ardmore, Oklahoma and David Eads from Oklahoma City and I were on hand to photograph the occasion.  AT&SF GP7 #2842 left Ardmore that morning as a caboose hop to pick up the last cars on the line at Ringling and Healdton prior to the abandonment and scrapping of the line.

When the train arrived in Ringling early that afternoon, the crew agreed to pull on down to the depot for a final shot before picking up the last car in town.  Here is something you won’t find again today either; an almost full crew consisting of an engineer, two brakemen, and a conductor.  All this young bunch is missing is a fireman.

I pulled back for one more shot including the depot, and then too soon this last rail photo opportunity in Ringling for all time was over.

What had started life as the Oklahoma & New Mexico Railroad in the early 1900’s was soon to be as dead and buried as any ghost on Halloween.  I’m just glad David and I were present to record it’s final moments on film.

A long day equals two slide scans for tonight, so we will probably resume the Montana trip account on Wednesday.  I reached into the yellow Kodak time machine box, and drew out these two views from when I lived in Enid, OK in th early 1980’s.  Shortly after the BN’s merger with the Frisco, on 02/22/81 I am standing just east of the AT&SF Red Rock Sub crossing at Black Bear, OK a few miles north of Perry as the 638 train from Enid to Tulsa is passing by.  Two SD45’s and a B30-7 still in their Frisco paint with BN stencils and numbers are rumbling over the diamond protected by a semaphore signal visible over the third unit.

Our second glimpse into the past slightly over a year later on 05/29/82 finds us just west of Perry, OK on the ex-Frisco Avard Sub as a local freight is crossing a small wooden trestle.  The town’s grain elevator is visible above the trees as a GP38-2 and GP40-2 with four cars ahead of two cabooses accelerate the train out of town on its way to tie up in Enid.

I have a pair of special slides already picked out that I took on Halloween day 30 years ago for tomorrow, so stay tuned.

After we pulled out of St. Louis on Amtrak 22, I had the camera ready as we passed various yards on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.  Just short of a place called WR Tower, we passed two CSX ES44DC’s on a northbound freight.

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I remembered bedding down in the top bunk after leaving Little Rock after midnight, and the next thing I knew Judy was telling me she could see the MIssissippi River out the window.  I looked down and all I could see was trees, but then I realized she meant out the sleeping car’s corridor window on the other side of the train.  I climbed down to pull the door curtain aside, and sure enough she was right.

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