“White Train” possibly designated “AT&SF Extra 6379 East”

 

These slides were made late on a day in July 1981 by Stephen M. Reeves from Wichita Falls, Texas. The location is recalled as Hoover, Texas.  A recent conversation in November 2023 suggested the location might well be Cuyler, Texas. (webmaster note: I believe this is Hoover, not Cuyler.  The prime evidence is the hill in the background. There are no hills at Cuyler, and no grade-crossing gates, only a simple crossbuck. If the train is eastbound, the “town” of Hoover is to the left.)

 

The camera was a Nikon F2 with a 50mm lens. These unedited images are scans of original Kodak slides (Ektachrome 200?).  The scanner was a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED. (webmaster note: the images were converted from TIF to JPG files and color adjusted with Adobe Photoshop to remove the blue tint found in aged Ektachrome slides)

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This is an interesting gallery of the White train, late in the history of shipping nuclear weapons by rail.  The lead locomotive is Santa Fe 6379, a two-year-old General Electric B23-7 built in 1979 followed by an EMD diesel, possibly a GP-40. Note that there are no typical guard escort cars (with their distinctive cupola for guards). The train’s consist is composed of TSSX G-20 followed by what may be a power buffer car, then what appears to be 13 cargo cars, TSSX G-31 (probably a 40’ former kitchen car), and Santa Fe CE-1 caboose 999201. The trains dispatched to/from the Pantex Plant typically utilized an 80-foot coach (USAX G-20, G-23 and/or G-24) on one end of the train, typically a former converted hospital car, and a 40-foot coach (USAX G-30 or G-31) on the opposite end of the train, typically a former Troop Kitchen car. At some date the USAX marking was replaced with TSSX. This paragraph was added from information found in the Amarillo Railroad Museum files.