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Re: Can someone over 50 tell me what this is
Author: Ted Benson
Date: 10-17-2015 - 01:03
Ooops…
After 40 years of daily photo-journalism, one of the basics of reported completely escaped me in the previous post: the all-important "when" of the story.
I went to work for my father at the Ford dealership in the fall of 1962. The Saturday job lasted throughout my high school years, plus a significant portion of two successive years attending Modesto Junior College. My Ford service concluded in the summer of 1968, not quite three years before Dad retired (he went to work for Gordon Wight in 1946 and retired on the Friday before Amtrak in April 1971.)
Most Saturdays during the mid-Sixties saw 12-14 Espee freights a day (including two sections of the Starpacer, locals and the Modesto switcher), along with both Daylights. The variety of motive power, especially during the heyday of the diesel-hydraulics, was unsurpassed. "Three KM" days were common; during one nine-hour period, five separate KMs passed. SP's Alco DH-640s were regular visitors as well. Needless to say, it was a thrill seeing all three Alcohaulics roll through (along with a dynamometer car) shortly after their arrival on the railroad.
If I'd only known then what I know now!
TB
After 40 years of daily photo-journalism, one of the basics of reported completely escaped me in the previous post: the all-important "when" of the story.
I went to work for my father at the Ford dealership in the fall of 1962. The Saturday job lasted throughout my high school years, plus a significant portion of two successive years attending Modesto Junior College. My Ford service concluded in the summer of 1968, not quite three years before Dad retired (he went to work for Gordon Wight in 1946 and retired on the Friday before Amtrak in April 1971.)
Most Saturdays during the mid-Sixties saw 12-14 Espee freights a day (including two sections of the Starpacer, locals and the Modesto switcher), along with both Daylights. The variety of motive power, especially during the heyday of the diesel-hydraulics, was unsurpassed. "Three KM" days were common; during one nine-hour period, five separate KMs passed. SP's Alco DH-640s were regular visitors as well. Needless to say, it was a thrill seeing all three Alcohaulics roll through (along with a dynamometer car) shortly after their arrival on the railroad.
If I'd only known then what I know now!
TB
