Greg Stadter

Greg Stadter, 73, was fortunate to have experienced a late childhood introduction to what would become a lifelong interest in "classical music" -- the haunting melodies of a Nathan M5R24 five-chime on Southern Pacific's Daylight ALCO PAs echoing across the hills as they passed by his open window late at night when he was a 12-year-old kid. The coincidence that two of his neighbors were railroad conductors -- one working on the Espee and the other for the SP&S -- who often took him along on their official travels over parallel sticks of steel, further served to enhance and solidify his interest in railroads and railroading at an early age. Greg was able to personally witness the end of the era of steam locomotive transportation, the beginning of the early diesel era and the subsequent evolution from more than 125 Class I U.S. railroads to fewer than a handful today.

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Bill Roberts

 

Hi! I'm Bill Roberts, and after retiring as a commercial artist and more recently a stationary operating engineer, my wife and I traded the San Gabriels for the Southern Rockies and moved to Northern New Mexico. Were both third generation Agelinos, and know that even though we left LA, LA never left us! I have great memories of growing up in the bason watching and photographing the Espee while establishing lifelong friendships amoung fans and rails. It's in this spirit that I respectfully submit this grouping of images under the banner "All the Chromes I Could Fit into an Hour!" should be a blast!

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Tom Gildersleeve

Tom Gildersleeve, a native of Santa Ana, CA has been photographing railroads exclusively in color for over 60 years.  His work has been extensively published in books, calendars, magazines, and on cards and video jackets. He is also known for his spectacular synchronized night shots of the Freedom Train taken in 1975/76, and for the slide sets he produced on railroads in the 1970s and 1980s.  He has coauthored one book on the Rio Grande narrow gauge and written a number of magazine articles.  He was the Hall of Fame recipient at Winterail for 2012 and was a 2014 recipient of the Fred A. and Jane R. Stindt photo award from the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society.  He served as a lieutenant in the Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from 1960 to1963, and during that time became one of the founding members of the Miami Valley Railfans.  He has a degree in civil engineering from Stanford University and worked for the California Department of Transportation for over 40 years before retiring in 2000.  He currently lives in Santa Clarita, CA with his wife of 50 years, Elizabeth.

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Glen Icanberry

Having lived near the Late Great Southern Pacific his entire life, an appreciation for the SP has continued to grow.

Growing up in Ventura, CA, early acquaintances were made with SP employees working the SP Coast Line.  In addition, Engineer Ted Valentine of the Ventura County Railway, and Engineer Ernie Nelson of the McCloud River Railroad furnished railroad tutelage and cab rides.  Although intending to go to work for the SP, upon graduation from California State University Fresno,  an interview with the Santa Fe, resulted in being hired only three days out of college.  Thus began a Santa Fe career working at Calwa Telegraph, (Fresno), crew clerk, car clerk and other clerical positions at Calwa, and extra board assignments as PBX/printer clerk in the Fresno Wire Chief's Office.  In 1984 Glen qualified as a train dispatcher, and worked the old Valley Division, (Barstow north to Richmond), from Fresno.  The Fresno Dispatchers' Office was closed in November of 1989, and transferred to the Regional Operations Center at San Bernardino, which combined the former Valley and Los Angeles Division dispatchers, into the Santa Fe's California Division. 

Railroad employment provided the means to assemble a slide collection now numbering about 40,000 slides.  Glen began his 35 mm photography in 1972, starting with Kodachrome II, then using Kodachrome 25, then Kodachrome 64, when Kodachrome 25 was discontinued.  A forced change to Fujichrome came in 2010, when Kodachrome 64 was discontinued along with all Kodachrome processing.  Photographic inspiration, and valued advice, came from Victor D. Neves, John Ford, Dave Busse, Phil D. Gosney,  Kyle Brehm, Jamie Schmidt, Brian Jennison, Ted Benson, Dick Dorn,  Dave Styffe, and a number of other talented railroad photographers.

Now retired, and living in Redlands, CA,  Glen is one of the founding directors of the San Bernardino History & Railroad Museum, contained in the historic Santa Fe San Bernardino Depot.   www.sbdepotmuseum.com  

Espee in Indio will be presenting Glen's 2006 Winterail show, about the Santa Fe in Southern California entitled, "The Kite Shaped Track,"  along with slides of selected SP subjects.

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Mike Jarel

Born and raised in Culver City, heart of the Pacific Electric Western District. Started with SP in March, 1978. Currently working the Oxnard local out of Oxnard, CA.

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Peter Baumhefner

Born and raised in Pasadena, California, one of Peter’s first memories was that of the Santa Fe Second District Local as viewed from his baby carriage in 1951! Peter first hired out with the Southern Pacific Railroad as a train order operator on the Los Angeles Division in the summer of 1967. Each fall he resigned to return to college and each summer he was re-employed as a train order operator through the summer of 1971. Upon graduation from UCLA in the spring of 1971, Peter elected to become a full time employee of SPRR as a train dispatcher. In June 1974, Peter was promoted to Assistant Trainmaster.

Peter left the SP in May 1985 to begin a career at American President Lines (APL). His operational leadership skills were utilized in the development of one of the nation’s most successful double stacked container intermodal networks, supporting the movement of over 1 million annual container movements between the West Coast and major interior business centers of the United States.

Upon the sale of APL’s Land Transport division to Pacer in 1999, Mr. Baumhefner was appointed Executive Vice President Operations for Pacer Stacktrain where he was responsible for all North American operations.

Peter retired from Pacer in July 2010 and is active in providing consulting expertise to the intermodal and rail environments. In addition to his business career summarized above, Peter is also active in a number of volunteer positions including the California Highway Patrol, financial coaching and local church councils.

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Bruce H. "Doc" Jones

Bruce was born October, 1946 in Pasadena and attended local schools. He remembers hearing the whistles of Santa Fe steam locomotives leaving the Pasadena station and thus considers himself a “lifelong railfan”. He met Pete Baumhefner  in 1961 while riding his bike down to the Pasadena Santa Fe depot to watch the passenger trains come and go and that’s when Bruce and Pete’s train-chasing “career” really began. During the summers of 1965-1968  Bruce worked as a train-order operator for SP on the Los Angeles Division which, for operators, extended from Yuma AZ to Santa Barbara CA and up the Valley Line to Saugus. In 1967 he got Pete his first job on the SP and Pete made a career out of it. Bruce went on to a 15 year career as a dentist in Pasadena (that's where the "Doc" comes from) and a 19 year second career as a police photographer and film lab technician for Pasadena Police Dept., retiring in 2009. He co-authored the book "Pacific Fruit Express" (1992-Signature Press) and has written several magazine articles for various publications. He has two grown sons and lives with his wife in their now “empty nest” in Sierra Madre CA. Bruce still owns and runs a family business and volunteers as a photographer and digital lab technician for Los Angeles County Fire Dept. Pete and Bruce are still chasing trains and just recently spent five days in Northern California doing what we do best - wasting our lives with trains.