Apr 4, 2018

The age of the famous flat faced Behemoths!

 
Once upon a time when steam engines ran backwards to go forwards such a thing
happened on a small railroad called the Southern Pacific. Here we have 2 of these
creatures lining up for another adventure on the Evergreen Railroad. Larry
Sorenson owns them both.
 
They ran backwards because the SP had things like tunnels and snowsheds in the Cascade and Sierra
Mountains where smoke could make train crews very unhealthy with the smoke coming at them,
especially if the train stalled in the middle of their journey. Many men fell until they figured this out.
Say, is that Jack in the background?
 
Diesels did not smoke as much as steam engines and they lived happily ever after on most railroads.
This F unit set is a Union Pacific train owned by member Burt Whitney.
 
I tried to photograph Greg Mercier's beautiful SP&S wreck crane and all sorts of lighting efforts were
tried to show the detail.
 
This time I caught it in good light to show all the monkey motion that these creatures had to lift things
off the ground.
 
Greg also had a beautiful SP&S 4-6-6-4 Challenger with a long string of ice reefers with a lonely Baldwin
diesel going the other way with a short way freight. Both types of power visited Spokane in their day.

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