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SP SD45 on the Siskiyou Line—34 years ago!

On May 5, 1990, I spent the morning following Southern Pacific’s timetable westward MERV-M (Medford, Oregon to Roseville-Manifest) on the sinuous and steeply graded Siskiyou Line. This was led by SP SD45E 7504, which retained its 3,600 hp 20-645E3 diesel engine.

I made this photo at Ager (railroad timetable west of Hornbrook, California) on the run toward Black Butte. At the time SP was operating 7,500 ton trains on this amazing stretch of railroad.

Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron about 9:25am.

I made dozens of photos on that beautiful May morning. Most remain unlabled, although I have all my notes from that day. I was delighted to have an SP unit with its oscillating lights in the lead. Since at that time SP was actively removing the oscillating lights from its locomotives.

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Southern Pacific at Troy, California—July 1991.

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I’d left San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning and drove to the Sierra.

In the early hours of July 14, 1991, an SP eastward freight ascending Donner Pass had stalled near Alta. This resulted in a pair of following eastward freights being held; one at Colfax and one near Alta.

This was the second of two following freights, which developed its own difficulties at Gold Run when the train went into ‘emergency’.

I made the most of SP’s difficult time, by photographing the procession of trains at various points on The Hill (as Donner was known).

As the summer sun approached midday, I drove to Troy, where I’d previously scoped out this high vantage point with a commanding vista.

My project for the day was to find ways of suitably using the harsh high light in the Sierra, conditions that had been vexing me.

This was among my more successful images. Working with my old Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron, I exposed Ilford FP4 that I later processed using Edwal FG7 developer. At the back was a two unit helper. The sounds of EMD 645 diesels toiling in ‘Run-8’ (full throttle) was impressive and not soon forgotten.

Many of my other images from the day were exposed on Kodachrome 25, some using a circular polarizing filter as a means to mitigate the effects of Sierra high light. I’ll save those for another day.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!

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