Nostalgia & History > SP speeder & freight pass a wreck on the Cantara Loop-1982

Just adding a few final clips to my new DVD 'Forty Years of Freights in the West' and thought you might be interested in this rare footage of a SP speeder coming downgrade at the Cantara Loop ahead of a freight.  A derailment had occured sometime earlier and as you can see, rather than try to re-rail the cars, they cut them open to salvage the contents.  The Loop was one of my favorite locations in shooting sound movies back in the 80's.

Craig
http://www.mcmrailvideos.com/

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/16 13:29 by spdaylight.

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The cars are still laying there.

You may be able to find more info about the wreck in the discussion on one of PhBob's posts about the cars, or 'the wall'. I'm pretty sure one of the ex-SP guys posted the date.
...or wait for WAF to pitch in...

a little info here:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,167347,167370#msg-167370



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/16 17:55 by TCnR.

Either they had the decade wrong in the other thread or this is a different wreck. The car on the left is either a G-100-15 or G-100-17. Both of those classes were built in 1971.

I have a foggy memory about why the cars were left there. It *seems* to me I was told that the guy who owned the place on the inside of the long curve up the hill approaching Mott contracted with SP to remove the cars, but the thing fell apart when SP would not give him access from the right-of-way.

EO

After thinking about it, there's a set of cars a little to the south aligned straight up and down hill. I don't really remember the hopper cars but they look like they just laid over, maybe train dynamics.

The afore mentioned person who owns the inner area of Sawmill curve seems to have a reputation. At one time they had a large colelction of antique tractors and farm equipment in there, There's also a house and the property goes up for sale every few years. Ther general area is the old townsite of Mott, I've never been abel tofigure out exactly where it is although I've been told the exact twonsite was wiped out by I-5. an interesting factoid is that 'Old Stage Road' at one time was out near the edge of the ridge, remnants of the grade crossing can still be seen from the train. The new alignment follows closer to I-5, occasionally you can see the old road grade as you travel down the hill towards Dunsmuir.