When growning up along the Q in Riverside in the late 30's and '40s, I
became very familiar with virtually all of the motive power common to the
line east of Aurora (or at least east of Eola). Pacifics, Hudsons,
Northerns, and Mikados made up just about all of it. No small locomotives.
No 2-10-4s. Occasionally, I might see a switcher coming through on a
transfer or light move, but that was about it.
A spectacular exception, and then only on rare occasions, was to see a
4-8-2, and when I did see one it was always on the head end of a mail or
mail and express train that would come through Riverside east bound in the
mid afternoon or so. The occasion was so rare that in retrospect, I suspect
that these trains might have been extras (do I remember white flags? Even
if I understood in those days what the white flags meant (I did not, I
don't recall them), It could also have been running as First # ____, or as
Second #____ (I do not have contemporary timetables available at the
moment). What *was* memorable was that these locomotives were truly swift,
and the speed at which it brought its train down the center main was with
no less panache, drama, or sheer energy than any Hudson or Northern.
Does anyone on the list have knowledge of the assignments of these
locomotives in that part of the system in those years, and more
specifically, why they were so rarely seen in Chicago?
Denny
Denny S. Anspach, MD
Sacramento, CA
|