1. Railfans gather as a westbound freight passes the Hiland station, an ex-caboose, on the Palmdale Cutoff. What's going on?
2. The freight departs. Not much of a photo since I forgot my "pole filter." But what caught my eye when I was looking for old photos to scan was the sixth car in the train - the six-dome tank car. I've got one of these unusual cars on my HO model railroad.
3. Now we see what attracted the railfans. These Seaboard Coast Line U-36Bs, spliced by a "More Axles for Tractive Effort" (MATE) road slug, had been the rear end helpers on the previous freight. SCL 1851, 3215 and 1855 tested on the SP for about two months in late 1977 and early 1978.
4. A dynamometer car, SP 137, trailed the SCL trio. [A similar photo that I took appeared on page 26 of the November, 1977 Pacific News.]
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