Those SP Gyralights were very effective indeed. I once stood along the SP in Bakersfied, a few blocks south of Kern Junction (where the northbound Santa Fe line splits from the SP,) as I'd seen one of those pulsating lights approaching, slowly, but silently, from the haze. It took about five minutes to hear any sound at all, an air horn, and ten minutes until I distinguished normally-aspirated EMD 567's working. Fully fifteen minutes had passed until I saw the shape of two geeps, like these, loom out of the haze and roll past me with a work train, at about 25 miles per hour! Since the line is arrow straight once it exits Tehachapi Pass, I wondered if I'd seen that Gyralight since the train popped out of the Pass at Sandcut.
|
|