This brought back some fine memories, I was born/raised in north central California, the Santa Clara valley to be specific. As a young tyke our family would go train spotting in the vicinity and it was something like 95% SP, 4% WP and 1% ATSF. To see a WP freight was a big deal; I didn't even know they had the stunning silver/orange paint scheme until they had gone out of business. In 1986 I was working at a shop that backed up to the SP mainline in San Jose and in the middle of a south-bound freight consist was a deadhead silver/orange GP-(something) going somewhere. First time since getting a drivers license that my interest in railroads was rekindled. Eventually starting a family of my own, on a HO layout (for the kids of course!) an early acquisition was a silver/orange WP locomotive. Now packed away in a box somewhere!
Same here. I grew up in San Jose and when I got my first car, I always seemed to end up at the SP's Santa Clara Yards. One day, I ventured out to Milpitas to find Perlman Green GP20s switching the yard there. I missed out on the orange and silver era.
Thanks for making the huge effort to post this. This brings back so many fond memories to this NorCal/Sacto native! I used to railfan the canyon regularly back in the 80's...definitely a favorite!
I got wonderful memories of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad growing up in South Carolina back in the 1960's near the main line between Charleston and Florence. Back then, the ACL ran drag freights or as the crews would call them, "clear the yard specials" and I vividly remember solid blocks of the F-Units with as many as 8 or more pulling those freights that seemed to last forever. They were in notch 8 and barely going 40 MPH, but the sounds of those EMD's howling is what I remember about them. Now, if I can only find a film here showing those ACL covered wagons in action like that again...
Beautiful footage! Really appreciate the work you’re doing to make this footage available for us to enjoy rather than it rotting away in some basement.
When I was a youngster growing up in San Leandro , Ca back in the late 60s I use to love to watch the GP7 in action, wearing that awesome Orange and Silver livery 😍 Those Geeps doing there thing switching , kicking cars in East Oakland , man the sound of that two stroke EMD 567 Prime Mover , incredible.
The Fremont Local used to go thru Hayward to San Leandro. GP7 #713 was one the the engines used and it's now at The Niles Canyon Railway in a Fresh Coat of Green and Orange
I used to walk through the Jeffery Shops Yard in Sacramento every day to go to school. One rainy day an engineer gave me a cab ride in an old EMD to the end of the yards. Never felt taller when my friends saw me stepping off that locomotive, waving and thanking the engineer for the ride. My best day ever as a kid.
Some interesting factoids about your added F-unit clips: Your first runby of 913-A was back when it was still solid orange -no later than mid-1977. It was rebuilt and repainted as just '913' in 1978. The clips were filmed at Fremont CA and show a setout being done. The same with the next clip showing 920-D. The 920-D was not one of the Fab Four. It was traded to G.E. after being wrecked on 11/7/1971 at Westwood (on the Highline). Anyway, it was cool seeing those units leading, especially the 920-D with its distinctive over-sized snow plow!
Wow! This is definitely a top 3 upload from you, and I have yet to view all of your uploads. The unique lashups, the Keddie Wye, and there's just something about that Western Pacific orange that draws me in. This is really good stuff!
@@KG-xt4oq Your comment was "This is really good stuff". I felt the same way. The original film was silent. The quality of the shots was such that I felt strongly motivated to add good sound to it. Understand?
Great video compilation. I understand that these were silent, but next time dub in the sounds of M5 horns. WP was a big user of those. Most of the F units used the single chime Leslies.
As best I can tell from the BN pool power in the Highline consists, the Feather River Canyon clips are probably are from 1971 and as late as mid 1974 - that was the last time I shot a former CB&Q SD45 in the white and green hockey puck scheme. The fact that no silver and orange appear fits with a mid or late 1970s for the clips
@@fmnut Got it. You did well in scoring those clips - and even better editing them into a film. I did something similar with Virgil Staff clips that I downloaded from TRAINORDERS. But I don't own rights to those films and thus will not upload. Thanks again ...
I was born in Sacramento in 1965 and lived in Roseville, Dunsmuir and Mt. Shasta city as we moved a lot. Seeing interesting locomotives and rolling stock was almost a daily occurrence and I look back knowing I was fortunate for the experience, especially when SP 4449 stopped in Dunsmuir when it pulled the Freedom Train. Of course this was way before the state was flooded with illegals so there wasn’t much car traffic compared to now.
