santafe

Unbelievable shot. This guy was good, and man, did he get around!

The locomotive in this picture is number 5000, a 2-10-4 built in 1930 by Baldwin. It is now preserved in Amarillo, Texas. There's more information at the Wikipedia page about this locomotive.

Very interesting information! Thanks for your interest in the collection.

Yes, that's Madame Queen, an experimental 2-10-4 that gave rise to the 5001 class of 1938 and the 5011 class of 1944. The 5011 class were the last steam engines built for the Santa Fe and ran in helper service until 1957 in Abo Canyon, east of Belen. This passing siding is still protected by Automatic Block Signals using upper quadrant semaphores in this photo. Before WWII was over, heavy freight traffic caused this division to get Centralized Traffic Control with searchlight signals.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Railroad Semaphore Signals of the World, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

How sweet it is!

This EMD FT of Santa Fe's 100 class were the very first batch of road freight diesels delivered in 1941. AT&SF would eventually get 80 four unit sets of these first generation diesels and run them into the early to mid-1960's. During WWII these locos were used mainly from Winslow AZ to points west in order to reduce water consumption in the desert. They finished up their service in the less demanding Texas Gulf Coast where my grandfather was a Roadmaster in those days. Childhood memories! Notice the cream yellow color of what is now known as the "catwhisker" paint scheme. In the mid-1950's theis paint scheme was replaced by the "cigar band" scheme which had a darker chrome yellow. The Santa Fe really maintained their engines well including keeping them clean.

#103 shown here was part of the first four sets of FT engines that ATSF purchased from EMD (General Motors) in January 1941. Units #100-104 each consisted of a cab lead engine, two cabless boosters and a trailing cab unit (an "LABC" configuration). A total of 320 FT units were acquired by August 1945. These were used primarily in CA and AZ resulting in total dieselization of "through" freight trains (Winslow, San Bernardino, Bakersfield) when this great photo was taken. After the war, the #103 set was moved to the Argentine-Corwith freight pool on the Illinois-Missouri division of the ATSF (KC-Chicago). #103 lasted until 1960-61 when it was traded back to EMD for a new road switcher. The early nose paint scheme shown here only existed on the #100-104 units. The red striping and SF shield were replaced by the classis yellow "cigar-band" used on all later blue FT/F3/F7 and ATSF passenger engines. www.shorpy.com/node/1747

I do not recall these colors on the Santa Fe. Excellent photo, nonetheless and I like this early style of diesel.

In modern times, the line going south from Cadiz is now leased to the Arizona and California which operates out of Parker, Arizona. The line goes south to Rice, California then east to Parker. Corrections/updates from others are welcome.