El Gringo Wrote:
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> Bob2 does money just grow on trees or is this even
> viable.
>
> Also, we do need a SP christmas story. Maybe
> something with an SW1500 or SD9

ACE's plans to run up the Valley to Chico by rebuilding part of the SN mainline are probably more likely to happen before you will get there on the UP... One or two extensions of the Capitols might be possible, but really would not be optimal, for the kind of all day "frequency" of services that would be needed to generate optimal ridership for that corridor.

I'd prefer to tell stories about SD-7's...

Christmas's at the Shops SP would cancel most jobs toward the end of my career, as no outbound trains were set, and just have one job with a pair of SW-1500's to reduce arriving trains. A slow day with good overtime...

Best part of Christmas on the old SP for many years was taking the Christmas trees to 8th Street with an SW 1500 in the early evening down Alamdea Street, with all of the families with kinds buying wholesale trees...

The best Christmas Eve party was my final Christmas on the SP, while running a switcher with my crew, fondly referred to as the redneck, the dago, and the yid, on the daylight "mill job" out of the Shops... We would work a LAHOT, or some other train in the morning, and then go over to switch the old mill around 11 am, stopping at Sam's stand (at the old BullRing/Links there on North Spring) for coffee usually. We would often take a cut of empty pigs over, or bring a cut of empty pigs back to the Shops, as the bullring was still used for pig storage then.

On Christmas eve the SP Signal Maintainers shop had a big Christmas party at the Bullring/Links (located down where the Dash bus yard is under the Chinatown Gold Line Station on North Spring/Alamdea today)on the lead to the old mill. We switched the mill on Christmas eve, and gave all of the Signal maintainer's kids rides on the pair of SW 1500 engines, up and down the lead, and had great food brought in by all of the families...

You can't do fun things like that on the RR anymore...

Merry Christmas....