A string of east bound reefers in 1908 at Altona, could be meat reefers coming out of Ottumwa or Omaha. Southern Iowa (Q territory) was also producing a lot of berries, grapes and similar produce before the depression. More likely the photo is a string of PFE reefers. I seem to recall that PFE had an icing dock at Pacific Jct on the Q. PFE was formed in Dec 1906 and began shipping in Oct 1907, the fall before this photo. A more remote possibility is lettuce or potatoes out of the San Luis valley of south central Colorado. This area was served mostly by ART, jointly owned by MoPac and Wabash, but the Q could have gotten some traffic. Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> On Behalf Of Louis Zadnichek via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 4:19 PM
To: cbq@groups.io
Subject: [CBQ] Burning Up The Ballast At Altona Group - The "flying" locomotive burning up the ballast at Altona, IL, in the attached image is a nearly new Class S-1 passenger 4-6-2 type. Note that it's powering an express train of refrigerator cars. No doubt the hottest train on the division that long ago day in 1908! May be the cars were loaded with apples from Washington State or some other very valuable perishable freight requiring passenger train speeds to get it to market in time. I don't think the cargo was silk as that was handled in baggage cars. Look closely and you can see the head brakeman standing-up on the tender facing backwards on the engineer's side to check his train for hot boxes or other problems. Plus, you can just barely see the elevated crossing guard shack at far left that has a bell. No doubt it's ringing loudly to warn of the fast approaching reefer express. An "exciting" action image, even some 112 years later. I imagine that the hogger had just about slung out the journal box oil on all the reefer trucks from the high speed run. This is the only photograph I've ever seen of a Class S-1 powering a reefer express. This image and nearly 27,500 others can now be found on the BRHS Website Members Only Section in the Flickr Section. Also just posted are a wide selection of 4960/5632 fan trip fliers from the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s. Have a look! - Louis _._,_._,_
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