Who? What? When? ...
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1. An SMVRR baseball team? SMVRR Softball Team c.1979. Players bottom to top, left to right: Darryl Thalman, Jesse Flores, ?, Alan Pacheco; Robert Vallejo, ?, ?, George Freitas, Johnny Aragon; remainder?
2. A sugar beet gondola gets a truck repair? Photo of a truck replacement. Note the Guadalupe water tower in the background and no damaged track beneath the car. Solid bearings would freeze under the right conditions. c.1982. Someone stole the journal brass out of 25-plus beet racks on a foggy night... When we went to pull them to Guadalupe the following morning, there was a lot of fire and smoke... I believe this was the last remnant with the wheelsets being changed on track 4 in the Guadalupe Yard.
3. An accident? Veggie trucks constantly try to beat trains at crossings. Note this guy got one heck of a headache (actually, that's not a hole in the truck's window, just dirty, but it's still a headache!). May be the Sinton Road crossing at the refinery. It's a bad one. Yup, a wreck......we hit a Fabco Truck with trailer loaded with broccoli at the farm crossing, where Betteravia Road turns into Simas Road.
4. Same accident, apparently? We picked broccoli out of No. 70 for about 3 months after that.
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We found these pictures at an antique store. If you've got any part of the story (who, what, when, where, why, how) that you would share with us, please send it to our
Webman. Please indicate the picture number to which you refer. Even a related story would be interesting. We've got more pictures, too, so stay tuned...
Text in italics was sent in by Hal Madson. Dave Jennings supplied text in dark red.
5. Lots of yellow at the enginehouse. Photo no doubt taken between beet rushes when they used only three units a day on two jobs. We would always see a bunch of them outside on our way to the pool for swimming class. Intense maintenance just before beets.
6. Sugar beet gondolas on the highlines. Looking from west to east, Track 5 (right) at the beet flumes.
7. A Southern Pacific passenger car. It reads "SP131 Sacramento" on the side below the windows. SP Business car. Brought them in every year for the "Produce Growers Golf Tournament". This was probably the last year, c1983-1984. The two onboard cooks made food that was the most tasteful I have ever eaten.
8. Another passenger car at the depot? This was a car, diner I think, purchased by Gilliland to house his train collection. He died and the car went to the Betteravia Historic Society. It was destroyed by a fire during some welding to repair something. Same car, "on spot".
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