Craig's Railroad Pages: The late, great Southern Pacific

Photos taken along the Southern Pacific

Photos taken in the 1990's:
	4403 cools her heels at Black Butte, California in July 1995. SP had removed the Gyralights from most of its locomotives by this time, replacing them with amber flashing rooftop beacons. The Gyralights, gyrating headlights which had moving parts that moved the beam of the headlights in an oval pattern, had become a maintenance burden. The Federal Railroad Administration prohibited locomotives equipped with them from operating on the front of a train if the lights were defective. It was cheaper for the SP to just remove them than to keep them all in repair.


4427 and other SD9Es idle at Dunsmuir, California in April 1995. By now, the SD9Es were, for the most part, relegated to helper service and were beginning to be mothballed at Roseville. They were still good engines, an SP engineer told me, but their downfall was a brake valve for which parts were no longer available.

	4333 westbound at the west end of Black Butte along with the 4426 shepherds Yreka Western's Blue Goose steam locomotive #19 to Mt. Shasta.

The Blue Goose is going to spend a few days hauling a tourist train for the McCloud River Railroad. This was a precursor to the McCloud running trains with its own steam locomotive.