Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Also among the photos I scanned yesterday are two that Lisa took from a visit to the Santa Fe Southern Railroad. This time it was when she was driving through Lamy sometime in the 1990s. (She cannot recall exactly when these were taken, and there's nothing else with the photos that would help us tie it down.) She didn't ride the train this time, but she happened to be in Lamy when the SFSR train came down from Santa Fe.

( Same Locomotive, Different Year )

I hope that the new SFSR manages to get rolling with GRRM's backing and that they can make a going concern out of it. I'd like to ride it again, possibly connecting to it from Albuquerque on the Rail Runner.

The Santa Fe "Warbonnet" livery was arguably one of the best locomotive paint scheme and possibly one of the most immediately recognizable, thanks to it being applied to many model train "starter" sets. When the Santa Fe reintroduced it to their freight locomotives in the 1980s, it was welcomed by those of us who like good-looking trains. It has been 25 years since Burlington Northern and Santa Fe merged to form BNSF, and over the years, locomotives in the "Warbonnet" have become more and more rare, as they vanish under a sea of orange and green BNSF colors.

( A Rare Survivor -- Just Barely )

There won't be many more times to spot a Warbonnet, save in some museums like the California State Railroad Museum, which has an F7A-B set (originally 35A-C, now 347C-B) in the classic colors. For several years, we had some former mainline Santa Fe 4-axle units demoted to local service working the "Little BN" job, but of late BNSF has been inflicting larger 6-axle units we call "thumpers" for the noise they make when idling overnight.

This morning we were quite late leaving Albuquerque because Lisa and I met for breakfast with her friend slymongoose and her partner, Groot. We had a fine leisurely breakfast at the Gold Street Cafe and Lisa and her friend caught up on old times. Lisa was very happy. Then we headed up to Santa Fe to deal with the family business, which went well, but took some time. (Still much less than if we'd had to send papers back and forth between Santa Fe and Fernley.) After the business, we briefly strolled around the plaza outside of the Palace of the Governors before working our way out of Santa Fe. We stopped at Whole Foods Market and had lunch there (our first lunch not on the run for several days), then refueled the van. As we were leaving, we got to see the RailRunner train coming in to Santa Fe through a horribly complicated grade crossing (the rail line diagonally traverses a major intersection). Unfortunately, the camera was not handy. Indeed, we took no photos at all today.

We left Santa Fe about three hours behind our projected schedule, and never made up any of that time. We headed south on US-285 through Cline's Corners and Vaughn. The territory here is about 150 miles of rolling hills, gently descending several thousand feet over that distance. There wasn't really a whole lot to look at, and we took turns driving and keeping each other awake. It was interesting seeing antelope interspersed with the herds of cattle along the highway, though.

When we got to Roswell, we initially went to the wrong hotel, and it wasn't until I was coming up to the counter that I realized we were at the Holiday Inn, not the Express a couple of miles south. We continued on, arriving about 9 PM. Upgrade-fu strikes strongly, as we've been upgraded to a full suite with a full kitchen with two-burner stove, dishwasher, full-size fridge, and assorted kitchen utensils. (It's larger than the apartment I rented in San Jose for a year.) Had we known that was going to happen, we might have done more than buy lunch meat for sandwiches in the room. OTOH, the hotel has only wireless internet instead of wired (another reason I'm glad we took no photos), and the layout is somewhat wasteful. Still, it's nice to be treated as a special customer.

Today's travel: 275 miles (1295 since Fernley, versus 1249 projected by the scheduling software; of course we never travel exactly the way the scheduler thinks we should travel.)

Tomorrow is a (relatively) short leg, going on to Fort Stockton, Texas, so that Lisa has some time to take me to the Roswell Museum for my birthday tomorrow. My thanks to everyone who has sent me good wishes. As usual, I'm too busy with Worldcon or travel for my birthday, but I do appreciate the nice messages.