A Kodachrome Moment

Southern Pacific 8530, Dunsmuir California, April, 1991. Whenever I had to go down the I-5 from Portland to California for either business or pleasure, I deliberately planned to lay over at Rail Road Park in Dunsmuir. It was about half way to the Bay Area, and an excellent place to enjoy a cool one, watch some mountain railroading, whilst spending the night in either a boxcar or caboose, enjoying good food in a dinning car.

For gawds sake - what more could a person wish for?

My companion and I had enjoyed an old fashioned breakfast in the dining car at Rail Road Park, and had driven over to the station at Dunsmuir, arriving just in time to catch a northbound freighter, working the 1.3% grade up past the station, where a rolling crew change took place.

This place is so wonderfully accessable and accepting of rail buffs, as long as you keep out of the way. I think some of these crews checked their make-up before the rolling change took place!

The lead locomotive is a “Tunnel Motor,” dash -T. The locomotive is modified so that radiator-cooling air is moved to the walkway level, and the cooling fans themselves moved under the radiator cores, instead of on top. The tunnel motors were built to reduce shutdowns due to overheating whilst operating in tunnels in mountainous areas in the western United States.

The paint scheme, combining yellow, red and black, came to be called the Kodachrome paint scheme due to the color’s resemblance to those on the boxes that Kodak used to package its Kodachrome 35mm slide film, which was heavily used by rail fans of the time.

At the time of the merger denial between Southern Pacific and Santa Fe, approximately 306 ATSF locomotives, 4 ATSF cabooses, 10 ATSF slugs, 96 SP locomotives, and 1 SP caboose had been painted in this fashion. The two railroads made an effort to repaint locomotives in their standard paint schemes after the merger was denied.

Santa Fe repainted all Kodachrome’s still on roster by 1990, though some engines “escaped” - were sold, in this scheme!

Once the crew change is executed, the northbound crew has a grueling climb up through 2.1% at the Cantera Loop to Mt. Shasta.

After the ICC's merger denial, rail fans joked that SPSF really stood for "Shouldn't Paint So Fast!”

Railroad Stuff: Southern Pacific 8530, Built as General Motors SD40, 3,000 hp, December 1978. SN: 786174-32. Modified as SD40-T, April 13, 1991.

See Also: Google Railroading