Tony Johnson Wrote:
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> Many years ago I remember Topper talking about
> running this train from Ferrum to the Kaiser mill.
> Back in the seventies (I think) Kaiser was using
> Baldwins and so was SP. They were extremely heavy
> trains and it seemed the SP dispatchers seldom
> gave the ore trains much preference over other
> trains.
>
> When the empties returned to Eagle Mountain SP put
> all the Baldwins (both SP and Kaiser's) on the
> head end of the train. Being equipped with
> pneumatic mu's contols he doubted that any Baldwin
> past the third unit ever receieved the throttle
> commands from the lead unit because of air leaks.
> I think I got that right.

Just for the sake of clarity, the Baldwins were only used on the Eagle Mountain Railroad, not on the SP. More than just three units could be successfully M.U.ed. Pneumatic air loss issues typically didn't start til there were about six units, and there were never that many.

I seem to recall Tony printed some of Topper's stories about the ore trains in either Flimsies or SP Review.