The Train I See Every Decade

Active steam trains seem to be more and more of a dying breed, year by year. There are a few superstars left that take regular excursions, like the Union Pacific Big Boy #4014 (recently restored and on a limited tour in September and October of 2019), the Nevada Northern #40, the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge, and the Virginia and Truckee #29 and The McCloud #18 on the V&T Railway in Carson City, Nevada. OK, there are a few! ….and this list is oriented to the West areas of the U.S. Other steam engines have been retired from excursion service and are now in museums, like the Blue Goose train in Yreka, California.

Older diesel trains from the 1950s-era have been restored in some areas, operating on local branch lines like the restored Pennsylvania Railroad F-unit (Stourbridge Line Train Excursions), one of my favorites as my Dad had an HO-scale model of that train that ran around the tree at Christmas time.

So seeing the Santa Fe #3751 engine was a special treat. This engine completed a first modern restoration in 1991, after sitting idle for 38 years in a San Bernardino park, and it began occasional excursions after that. I first saw the engine near the completion of that restoration, on a field trip with an Environmental Design College class from Cal Poly Pomona.

Many years later, in 2006, a friend and co-worker of mine and I had heard about an excursion of the 3751 between Los Angeles and San Diego on the weekend, and we felt that we had to go to see it track-side and take some photos.

Shooting a train excursion from the side of a mainline can lead to dynamic situations. The route that year was the former Santa Fe mainline from Los Angeles to San Diego (this train heading south towards San Diego) , now owned by the Metrolink commuter railroad. That is a busy corridor, with Metrolink, Amtrak, and freight train operations (although most freights operate at night now due to heavy passenger train demands).

So I am setting up the crux of the story here, by talking about the high number of passenger train movements. The Amtrak Surfliner trains provide daily and fairly frequent (every couple of hours) service between Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego. A few trains per day head farther north to San Luis Obispo and the Central Coast.

So there is a gap in the photos here! As we saw 3751 get closer and closer, we also saw an Amtrak Surfliner train approaching in the opposite direction. As the trains got closer, we realized the meet point would be close…but didn’t realize until close to the event that it would be right in front of us, blocking the view. Sneaky trick, Amtrak!

So it was otherwise a great experience, seeing that living and breathing steam train coming down the mainline. Got great shots, I think, during the approach and departure. The interfering Amtrak train is not shown here, as the Santa Fe engine was what we came for.

The 3751 is currently off the mainlines, for its required 15-year overall, located at the Amtrak facilities in Los Angeles, at Redondo Junction south of Union Station. I recently took a visit there during an event organized by the Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation. That will be the subject of a future post here.