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“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)

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.

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