Elderly Locomotive In Retirement

This switcher or short-haul locomotive from a regional Nevada line

is of post-WWII vintage, being a diesel, but still old enough to end

up in a Virginia City, Nevada railroad museum. Your ratings and

critiques are invited and most welcome. (If you rate harshly or

very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help improve my

photography.) Thanks! Enjoy! John

By the use of a very wide angle lens and a low point of view, I was able to turn the rectalinear lines of the side of this diesel locomotive somewhat into the more dynamic form of a triangle, for a much more aggressive look at a static piece of metal, just sitting there under the cold fall sun.

 

Likewise, the colors here are in large patches of blue, yellow (and a bit of green), which helps hold this subject together in my view.

 

John

Very nice, John. They keep this one clean. It's hard to find trains and locomotives that will lend themselves to photography today because they're always so dirty. I keep trying, though. Great photo. Best Regards.

A clean locomotive is a locomotive that's 'not working' and not earning money. Such is the case for this old 'switcher' or short-line hauler (it's not built for over-the-road, long-haul use, I can attest.)

 

I have much experience with railroads over a long lifetime, part of which was spent traveling around the country on railroad passes, from 'milk trains' to fancy 'domeliners' from the far-ago days of the 'Union Stations' and 'Red Cap' service, until the railroads, eyeing the more profitable freight service, simply placed their rudest conductors and brakemen on the passenger trains in an effort literally to drive the passengers/customers away so the profitless passenger trains (which had priority over use of the tracks and moved at great speed with great disruption to the freight traffic) would no longer impede the profitable freight trains.

 

The public always wondered how the railroads could tolerate having such rude employees and such 'incompetents', and the word was slyly breathed that it was because of 'unions', but the real reason was railroad profit motive (greed).

 

In much of the United States, outside of the transcontinental main lines, most of the tracks are one track both ways and overtaking trains and oncoming trains had to shunt to 'sidings' where they might stay for 10 minutes to several hours as overtaking trains such as passenger trains and oncoming trains (also including passenger trains) would have priority over the freight trains.

 

And a freight train in the Western United States might be 50 to over 100 cars (wagons) long, with millions of dollars in merchandise.

 

The passenger traffic revenue was pitifully small compared to the revenue generated by that freight, even though freight traffic revenue also was very low (compared to trucks, say), so, railroads being economic entities, simply did everything they could to shut down passenger service.

 

They were prevented outright by the Interstate Commerce Commission from abandoning their passenger routes, which they would have liked to do, because that was against US (federal) law, (but if they could show dwindling ridership and continual and mounting losses . . . . well . . . . and that's where the rude, gruff conductors came in and not-on-time service. All designed to drive away the passengers and cause the ICC to allow the railroad to let the railroad abandon passenger service, bit by bit.

 

Then came AmTrack, which barely putters along, in a perpetual business 'wheelchair' kept alive only by subsidies and fond memories of something that the railroads tried to kill. (and ideas of urban planners with visions of a Europe-like America criss-crossed by high-speed trains, but ignoring that population densities in most of America will not support such rail service (and much of the necessary track has been torn up and depots abandoned.

 

thanks for the compliment on the photo Barry (commentary from me is something you are not required to read -- just another subject on which I have greater than ordinary knowledge due to special circumstances.)

 

John (looking back, sometimes wistfully and sometimes not)

 

My grandfather worked for the Maine Central Railroad in Maine as a postman. He used to ride the postal car from Portland to Eastport and sort the mail. He carried a gun, and was considered a law enforcement officer as well. I can still see him in the front room of the house practicing throwing address cards into a large, slotted box on the wall. They had to pass tests on how fast they could do that. He could wrap a package with one hand, and could break the wrapping twine (before the days of packaging tape) with one finger - and that was that big ole brown twine.

 

I rode the last passenger train service in Washington County Maine in about 1955 when I was six years old because my grandfather wanted me to have the experience. I can remember we used to go and wait for him at the train station and watch the big, black locomotive pull in. It was a steam engine. So I've always been interested in trains.

 

There is an engine much like the one in this photo that still makes a short tourist run in French Lick, Indiana, pulling a couple of passenger cars for a few miles and pointing out the "items of interest," such as the "house that used to be a barn."

 

Thanks for offering me the opportunity to reminisce. Trains are so generic these days - no character - like most other things.

 

Best Regards,

Barry

The last passenger service in 1955 -- well that's a long time ago -- about a half century ago. Where I lived, I still had decades of domeliner and 'milk train' service to go before the local and national lines eventually shed their responsibilities for passenger service to AmTrack.

 

I remember the old 'mail cars' with the sorters on board; Lionel made toy train cars that did such things, and I saw them in person -- those folks worked all night as the trains moved southward from Portland through Oregon on the 'milk run', stopping in almost every community.

 

If you look in my Early B&W folder, you'll see a double murderer, Leonard Fristoe, being led back to prison after 46 years free as an escapee. He was convicted of double murder during a **train robbery** in the '20s, for which he soon escaped, living a life of freedom until a relative turned him in as an old man. No wonder your relative wore a gun.

 

Thanks for the reminiscence.

 

John