Re: NNG: Fillmore & Western in Good Weather & Lousy . . .

This is not the first time that bridge has been washed out -

. . . although I don't remember how long it's been since the last time.

Here is leased 2-8-0 #51 crossing the bridge in the early days of the Fillmore & Western, roughly 30 years ago when the F7s were still wearing their Maryland Midland colors.  It looks like the steamer is wearing a pair of American flags on her smokebox in addition to the 'Extra' flags on her pilot, so this is might be the Fourth-of-July Special in 1993:


A quick search failed to turn up the negative, so the above was scanned from an old 3½×5 print.  Fillmore has grown a bit since the photo was taken, but mostly to the south and east; the hills seen in the background are to the northwest of town, and haven't changed much in well over 100 years except that avocados have re­placed more of the lemon and orange trees.

While searching for the negative to get a sharper scan of the above photo I came across a roll shot in mid-February, 1994, when the F&W ran a chartered special to celebrate the opening of the Cool Carriers warehouse in Port Hueneme (Why-Knee-Me).  The train, with its one-of-a-kind 'Cool Carriers' refrigerator, got thoroughly washed by a downpour earlier in the day.  It's seen here on tracks of the Ventura County Railway, which connects the harbor and the navy base in Port Hueneme to the S.P. (now U.P.) in Oxnard:


VERY unlikely to be allowed by the U.P. today, the Special ran on the main line from the wye in Montalvo to the VCRy connection in Oxnard . . .

- El Abuelo Histœrico, Greengo y Curmudgeoño de los Locomoturas Viejos y Verdes,
aka Der Grossväterlich DünkelOlivGrünDampfKesselMantelLiebHabender

p.s.  I would have posted the second one on Scott's 'Lousy Weather' thread (that he blamed on me, sort of), but refrained from doing so on account of his "no dis­easels" request.  Bosco, Otis and I have been putting up with lousy weather for nearly two weeks, and none of us wants to go for a walk in the park right now, so spending time in front of an old but warm NIKON 9000 scanner and an even older version of Photoshop Elements seems like a good way to spend a rainy day.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2023 12:31PM by Russo Loco.