Fast Freight: Across the U.S. on Super C

The nation's railroads are for perennial labor disputes, failing passenger service and, in the case of giant Penn Central, spectacular bankruptcy. Yet the railroads have become increasingly good at moneymaking service, using new specialized and electronic gadgetry that would baffle Casey Jones. For a closeup view of modern railroading, Associate Keith Johnson rode cab and caboose on the world's fastest freight train, Santa Fe's premium-rate Super C, Chicago to Los Angeles. His log:

8:20 A.M., CHICAGO. "Highball, Gerty, all aboard," comes the word over the cab loudspeaker. Engineer eases the throttle open, and his huge diesel units, totaling more 10,000 h.p., growl into action. They are pulling nine cars, mostly mail loaded in truck trailers carried on 85-ft. flatcars. From the cab track seems too frail and narrow to support 1,500 tons of locomotive and load. After the train leaves the Corwith yards, the speedometer needle creeps up slowly through the flat, industrial along the Des Plaines River. Finally are thundering along at 79 m.p.h., the top speed allowed this train. There a loud beeping sound over Gerty's an Alertor, with sensors wired to cab controls, has detected that he not moved for some 20 seconds. This safety device will automatically the train if the engineer does respond.

10:30 A.M., CHILLICOTHE, ILL. The first of 17 crew changes between Chicago and Los Angeles. Gerty climbs down the side of the red, yellow and silver lead diesel unit; Engineer Bill Burk climbs up. Off again, then a stop for 20 minutes in Galesburg. A load of lumber on the local freight ahead of us has shifted dangerously, so that car must be set out on a siding. Though a fast train like Super C means less working time for the crews, Burk says he prefers handling a longer, heavier train: "It's the difference between a Sunday outing in the family sedan and driving a racing car. Here you've got a lot of power and you've got to keep the speed up."

The Super C sweeps along the Mississippi River at full speed, then slows to cross into Iowa over a combined highway-railroad bridge. At La Plata, Mo., after crossing to the eastward track to pass a slower freight also heading west, the engineer again opens the throttle fully. With so much power hauling a relatively light train, the Super C seems to reach top speed almost as fast as an automobile. The mileposts flash by, one every 45 seconds.

5 P.M., KANSAS CITY, MO. Long-haired young Brakeman George Ketner, sporting bell-bottomed jeans stenciled with (missing male symbol)and (missing female symbol) symbols, says he likes working the Super C: "All you have to do is get on at the beginning and get off at the end of the run." The train pulls out past the Santa Fe's year-old Argentine sorting yard, equipped with one IBM System 360 Model 30 and two Honeywell DDP-516 computers, which have speeded up car movements through the yard by about 50%. Two delegations of Japanese railroadmen have inspected the new yard, and one print of a Santa Fe film about Argentine even has a soundtrack in Japanese.

The Super C passes through blue-stem-grass country, where herds of beef cattle are fattened for slaughter. After a red sunset over the Kansas prairie, the engineer switches on the regular headlights and a rotating white Mars light, which cuts a circular cone through the dark. The shiny tops of the distant rails reflect the jewel-like green signals, a row of beckoning beacons in the night. Engineer O.K. Stewart remembers meeting a bobcat on the tracks one night. "Those old eyes were glowing as big as baseballs when we came around the curve," he says.

6:30 A.M., BELEN, N. MEX. The caboose is no Pullman car, but it is comfortable enough with folded-down seats to sleep on, a lavatory, a small refrigerator, a water cooler and an oil stove, which serves to heat the car and warm the breakfast coffee cake. The desert dawn is bright and clear; the sun backlights the Manzano Mountains to the east. The train climbs continually to the Continental Divide crossing at Gonzales. "Back in the days of hand-fired steam locomotives, we were real glad to get here," says Ray Derksen, acting train master at Gallup. Derksen points out a hotbox detector at trackside, an infrared gadget that spots defective wheel bearings; one installation can cost as much as $50,000, but a single derailment caused by a hot box can be much more expensive.

10:55 A.M., WINSLOW, ARIZ. A tear in the metal roof of the lead trailer has orsened, so in the 25 minutes we stop here, a maintenance crew makes a quick patch. From Winslow the line climbs again to its highest point at Riordan, the 7,313-ft. Arizona Divide. On a fast train like the Super C the crews get a full day's pay for as little as 2 1/2 hours on the railroad. The men lay over in Seligman; if they are not assigned a return run within 16 hours their pay starts again The pay is good: the average on the Albuquerque division is more than $12,000 a year, with senior engineers making $18,000 easily. Trainmaster E.L. Kidd notes that practically all of the men who run the Santa Fe come from railroading families.

3 P.M., NEEDLES, CALIF. From the River crossing, it is uphill across the Mojave Desert, hazy with heat, sand swirling beneath high purple mountains. We make a triple meet, going into a siding at 15 m.p.h. to pass a loaded 84-car coal train that is so heavy it must stick to the main line; at same time an eastward freight sweeps by on the descending grade. After Victorville it is a climb of 1,106 ft. in 19 miles to the summit of Cajon Pass, eerily shrouded in fog. We crawl along, watching for signals looming out of murk, then creep down the steep slope, air brakes hissing, to San Bernardino. Suddenly all is neon lights, freeways, gas stations and palm trees.

9:40 P.M., LOS ANGELES. We pull into the terminal at Hobart in southeastern Los Angeles, end of the 2,202-mile journey from Chicago. It has taken only 39 hours and 20 minutes, 40 minutes faster than scheduled -- a trip faster than that of the Super Chief, the Santa Fe's crack passenger train. Twelve minutes after we stop, the first trailer has already been unloaded by a giant yellow straddle crane and driven away.

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