Bala de Plata

When I originally posted this picture some years ago both on my website and on railpix, I described it as a "Galloping Banana", a tongue in cheek name (with apologies to the RGS) a few of us adopted when we saw these cars on the Ferrocarril de El Salvador back in the 70's.

I recently got the following email from El Salvador:

"Re: Photo [www.railpictures.net]

"In one of the pictures you showed a car that you called 'Banana' that was not the real name, the real name was 'Bala de Plata' 'Silver Bullet'
My father was the chief mechanic of the railroad garage, he used to give maintenance of all the vehicles of the 'Ferrocarriles Del Salvador' 'FES' back in the late sixties, and the balas de plata used to have Mercury V-8 engines.I have an old picture of my dad leaning outside in the front bumper of one of those cars.I would love to share that picture .Thank you.

"Willie Iraheta"

I am more than happy to make this correction to the caption of the picture. One of the great things about posting pix is occasionally hearing from folks who have a personal connection with the machines pictured. After all, machines are machines and it is the people connected to them who are really important.

JBWX