From Flimsies, I learned that Southern Pacific 4-6-2 2472 was pulling a special passenger train, whose consist was mainly of Rio Grande Ski Train equipment, as well as dome cars "Silver Lariat" and "Columbia River", on a two-day trip from San Jose to San Luis Obispo, then would travel to Los Angeles the next day. This movement was to put the steam engine in position to lead the Earth Train from Los Angeles north up the Coast line a few days later. The Earth Train was a project of the Gateway Pacific Foundation located in California and its slogans were "Youth to Youth: A Ten-Year Global Campaign", "Youth Creating Tomorrow Today" and "Community Service for the Environment". Coca-Cola and Hyatt Hotels and Resorts were the corporate sponsors. 200 young people from all over the world were on board, learning about the environment so they could help others learn how to protect it.
The Earth Train then ran from Los Angeles to Washington DC, via Oakland, Denver, Chicago and New York, all pulled by diesel locomotives.
Southern Pacific 2472 HistoryThe Golden Gate Railroad Museum began in 1975 as Project 2472, a group of volunteers formed to restore the former Southern Pacific 4-6-2 2472. It had been donated to the San Mateo County Fairgrounds and left sitting for more than 29 years. The locomotive was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works and delivered to Southern Pacific as a member of the "P-8" class in 1921. It was specifically designed to haul passenger trains on the Overland Route between Sparks, Nevada and Ogden, Utah. On the Pacific Limited and the Overland Limited trains, it averaged more than 10,000 miles a month. As newer power in the form of the MT Class 4-82 Mountains were purchased, the Pacifics were reassigned to California and used on secondary trains.
In the 1940s, many of the P8 Class of engines moved to the Peninsula Commute service between San Francisco and San Jose. In the 1950s, all the P8 locomotives were scrapped except for two — 2467 in Harrison Park, Oakland and 2472 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. 2472 was moved from San Mateo in 1990 to a newly-acquired restoration faculty at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The restoration was completed in time for the 2472 to participate in Railfair '91 held at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, where it was joined by many other locomotives from around the country. 2472 operated many mainline excursions in the 1990's including trips to Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Watsonville (doubleheaded with Southern Pacific 4449), Sacramento, Tracy and many trips on the San JoseSan Francisco line.
As Flimsies provided the schedule, my long-time friend Jeff Hartmann and I drove to Santa Barbara, but stopped by the Ventura County Railroad in Oxnard to photograph S-6 7, ex. Ventury County 1251, exx. Southern Pacific 1251, nee Southern Pacific 1084, built by American Locomotive Company in 1956. We drove north on Highway 101 through Santa Barbara as I was looking for a vantage point that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. As we reached Tajiguas, I spotted the first photo location on the southbound side of the highway and made a U-turn then hiked down the hill to the tracks.
As we waited, Amtrak's Coast Starlight came by en route to Seattle. On my scanner, we heard that the Coast Starlight was going to meet Southern Pacific 2472 at Gaviota so knew it would be only be a few more minutes.
We heard a whistle then off in the distance, we watched Southern Pacific 2472 steam into view before steaming by us. Back to the car and knowing that the steam engine would be taking on water, as well as passengers, in Santa Barbara we made our way to my next planned photo location at Rincon Point, parked and started to walk towards the track to a hill that overlooked both the tracks and ocean. We made it to the hill and were joined by several other photographers but then a California Highway Patrol car drove by on the highway and down along the tracks below us and told us we could not take pictures from here. I told him that we were waiting for a steam train and he did not believe me until Southern Pacific 2472 blew his whistle for Carpinteria. He asked what that sound was and received a chorus of "steam train" so he came up the hill to join us and apologized afterwards for not believing us.
Southern Pacific 2472 at Rincon Point. We followed the train to Ventura where we overtook it and taking no chances, we took the cutoff to California Highway 118 to reach the overlook of the Chatsworth Rocks.
First a southbound San Diegan came through followed shortly thereafter by Southern Pacific 2472.
We then drove to Main Street in Los Angeles for a final pair of approach and departure pictures of the excursion train and returned home to Santa Ana.
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