It’s driving me nuts – looks familiar but I cannot place it & Dad never wrote locations on slides.

Also – The RR archives doesn’t come up with this as a U class but there is a SD 40M-2 with that number….
What the heck is happening !
Desert run by in October of 1984
Not sure where but must be in Southern California – maybe towards Tehachapi, California .
I can almost smell the exhaust
A Caboose always humanizes these images for me.
After all a boxcar full of stuff doesn’t have a personality outside that of the logo, for me anyway.
Here we are in the Ozol, Ca area again with SSW Caboose 50
The interesting difference between the posting here at the RR archives is color and condition. Also notice the welded up windows. If I recall, Dad mentioned that the crews were getting shot at and the reduction of openings was for safety.
I wonder if anyone can confirm this ?
I also appreciate the D&H box car “snip” and of course SP 2626 that. according to teh RR Archive was revived by the UP in the 90s .
Ozol is a great name.
It’s 13 points in Scrabble. Its basically not there ( GOOGLE LINK ).
Wiki says it is a Defense Fuel Support Depot .
Ozol was a generic term around here for anything west of Martinez and east of C&H at Crockett.
Google machine says :
The EMD, Electro Motive Division, GP40P-2 is a type of four-axle, 3,000hp, diesel locomotive built specially for the Southern Pacific railroad in 1974.
It is a rare version of the GP40, with only three built (SP #3197–3199), but all remain on the Indiana Harbor Belt and Union Pacific railroads.
Although that was in 2013.
I do know that the single shot is very detailed and I quite like it.
This is a pair of shots that show just how clean this Alco S4 was in 1984 at the Museum.
The RR Archive has some 1474’s working days – =LINK=
Hi again, been a while.
We moved back home in April and I finally have time to post. We have been unpacking and remediating the mess left by the renters and making improvements and setting up the garage and offices and working from home and and and !
Strange how moving back to your childhood home can make you think.
For example, there are some taller trees here about and the road names are the same but they are not as ingrained as they were when they were on my paper route.
Occasionally I am struck by the same difference from 1974 to now. The bad memories are stifled and the good surface more often lately.
Interestingly, “my” office was my late brother’s bedroom and then mine in the early 2000s and Dad’s (Fred III)’s office after he retired.
In this same room these same slides were stored for years.
They were sorted and thinned – but not labeled ( Thanks Dad ! )
And now here I am sharing these same slides. Is it weird? Yeah, it is. But it’s sure nice to be home.
Many of the SP slides are in a foot locker – like an Army one – that I think was my Uncle’s from World War 2. Its stuffed with yellow boxes and therefore it’s a grab – bag to start posting from again.
Yes it’s a little blurry – I thought it was me but it is – still kinda neat and it “feels” fast.
Hope all are well
As I have said before, Dad’s favorite was the SP&S Railway.
After he retired he and Mom headed to his beloved Pacific Northwest and went looking for “signs of life”.
It seems that they found it
Sadly COLUMBIA seems to have lasted in place until 2006 according to the RRARCHIVE and Google Map.
Things change but the above still ranks as an “artsy fartsy” shot as Dad used to say.
Oakland passenger terminal in the 1970s
I didn’t adjust the colour and all that this week. There is something about admitting that May of 1971 was so long ago that its a little yellow.
Note the UP cat in the background with the kooky 1970’s typeface (font)
Alco made always bring a smile so it counts …-rob