Cadiz, California…where?

Back in the 1940 and 50s, railroads often ran special passenger trains for railroad fan groups and Railway Club of Southern California, Railroad Boosters and other groups frequently chartered trains that ran over interesting railroad routes.  One of the favorite features of a railroad fan trip was having the train stop at interesting locations for a “photo run by.” Passengers who wanted to take action movies and photos of the train could get off, the train would back up half mile or so, then come charging back past the photographers so that action shots and movies could be taken. Once past the photographers, the train would stop, back up, pick up the photographers, and then continue on to another interesting place to stop.  The Railway Club of Southern California had chartered a special train on one of the railroads and, after they had sold all the tickets for the trip, the railroad cancelled the train with very little notice.  Desperate for a train to take them some place— any place—the club approached Santa Fe and said, “we have this much money, how far can we go on June 5, 1949? The ever-friendly Santa Fe said, “Los Angeles to Cadiz and return to LA.” and that’s how I, along with my buddy Art, ended up going to Cadiz, California (pronounced Kay-deez). 

Where the hell is Cadiz and why, in God’s name, would over 300 people pay money to ride a train into the wilds of the great Mojave with a destination that’s only a tiny speck on the map of that huge desert?  Well, if you’re on an eastbound train east of Barstow and you want to go back to Los Angeles, you’ve got to turn that train around some place. Now, turning a 700 foot passenger train around is not quite as simple as turning your car around in front of your house; it takes a bit more space than that. Cadiz, the lonely speck on the map about 90 miles past Barstow along old Route 66, is the only place out in that great desert that has a wye (pronounced “Y”) track arrangement that can do that. And, that’s why tiny Cadiz became the destination for this special train.

At Cadiz, Art and I managed to con the Engineer into letting us ride the engine while they turned the train on the wye, an operation that took about 30 minutes but, once we had done that, the Conductor gave the “highball” to leave Cadiz before we could get from the engine back to the train so we were stuck on the engine, which was, damn sure, just OK with us! Naturally, I had to mention to the fireman that I did know a little bit about firing because of my occasional experience on the Elsie Turn and he said, “OK, let’s see what you learned,” and I ended up on the fireman’s seat on the 3748, not the fastest passenger engine on the Santa Fe but it had no trouble at all sustaining a respectable 70 to 75 MPH. Now came the surprising part of this cab ride. Once the fireman and engineer saw that I did know enough about firing an engine that I could—with quite a bit of coaching from the two of them—keep the steam and water up, the fireman told Art to lean out of the window behind me in the fireman’s seat while he climbed out on the running board in front of the cab to take a picture of us. So, holding onto the hand rail with one hand and my Ansco Shur Shot box camera, with the other, he took the picture of a lifetime of these two boys at a speed that I don’t want to even guess at. But, if you look at the blurred ground in the picture, we were 

moving right along. That’s how Santa Fe Engine 3748, a little seven car passenger train and tiny Cadiz station out on the Great Mojave Desert, created a special memory for me.

As I wrote earlier, I did go to work for Santa Fe after I turned eighteen in September, 1951. It was a lot easier to walk with confidence into that Santa Fe office asking for a job because of the engineers, firemen and brakemen and one special Trainmaster who encouraged this sixteen year old kid to follow his dream of working for the Santa Fe Railroad. And so, my Santa Fe adventure started.