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After a long week of work and classes, I was more than ready to hit the hill running again. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to stay on the east side of the basin that night. So, at eight in the morning, I headed out across town, expecting to make it to Cajon around my usual 10am. However, I should have known better - I-10 was at a dead standstill about halfway over. Fortunately when things ground to a halt I was fairly close to an exit and managed to get around the wreck on surface streets. Still, though, it cost me almost 45 minutes. My first stop actually wasn't Cajon itself, but the last exit on I-215 before it joins I-15 to head up the hill - Devore I believe is how it's marked. I'd never looked around here much, but I saw a few stacked containers sticking up above the trees and buildings, so I figured I'd give it a shot. What I found was a BNSF intermodal sitting stopped, waiting for the signal. (Photo #15) Shortly thereafter, one going up the hill appeared, clearing the line so that the 800 could again start moving towards LA. It didn't. At the time, this seemed slightly odd, but I was really more interested in the train going up the hill. So, off to the summit I went, since by the time I saw the north/east/upbound BNSF, I was already stuck on the wrong side of the tracks for lighting. Reaching Summit ahead of the train was really no problem - in fact, I'd made the traditional morning stop for something to drink and it still wasn't even in sight when I reached the summit. Again I found it a bit strange, but didn't really make anything of it until I heard the horns of something coming through the grade crossing at Summit. I'd just checked several minutes before to make sure Summit was clear, and it indeed was. So what kind of train is this that doesn't stop at top for a brake check / whatever? Only one answer, and it soon presented itself - Amtrak #3 (Photo #16), a very late westbound Chief, being that it was around 10:45 in the morning already. So that explains all the trains tied down for no apparent reason... As usual, anything and everything was backed up behind Amtrak. For any of you not familiar with western US railroading, if Amtrak comes through late, stick around, there's probably a pile of freights backed up in both directions. I'm not sure such applies here because of the double/triple track, but there did seem to be a significantly larger number of trains immediately following Amtrak than before it. Within the hour immediately following the Chief, six trains of various types passed the summit, whereas there were only three per hour for the two hours following that. (I know this because I decided to make a few notes on train type/time/flow while I was there - just to get a better understanding of how the hill works). As a rule-of-thumb I've noticed, though, traffic seems to slow about noon and then pick up again between 1 and 2 in the afternoon, and this day was no exception. The only thing I saw between 12:30 and 2 was a set of what appeared to be SP helpers being shuffled around on one of the short Summit sidings. It appeared that they were rearranging the units for one reason or another. However, they never started down the hill, so I figured I'd just take a nap and wait for the sounding of horns to wake me up. Of course, after reading the first two parts, you know that one of my best abilities is oversleeping, so this whole nap idea was pretty dumb. As it turns out, the horns that finally awakened me weren't those of the light SP power, but rather an eastbound that had come through. As I looked around, the SP power had already departed and was halfway down the visible grade. @#$%$@! But wait - something about those back two units doesn't look right... As usual, it was back down to what now seems my favorite grade crossing, and as usual, I found myself thinking about how sick I was of driving up and down this little twisty road. No problem, though, getting to the bottom ahead of them - they were taking it very slow downhill for some reason. While at the summit they were on the ex-ATSF doubletrack, when they did finally appear down where I now was, they were on the ex-SP main. This was more than a little shock to me, as I didn't realize that there was a crossover anywhere. Apparently there is, but I still am not sure exactly where it's located. As far as my earlier assertion that the back two units looked a little strange, I suppose anything that had the side of the cab ripped away would look a little strange! (Photo #17) 8588 and 8649 were definitely worse for wear, and a quick check of some past notes revealed that these were indeed the two units that were sitting off the track at Summit when I was last here in August. Needless to say, this was one of the more interesting events of the day, so I thought I'd follow it down to Devore and get a few more photos. Before even getting in the car, though, the crossing gates started coming down behind me, so I thought I'd wait and see what showed up. In seconds, a UP AC6000 appeared around the hill, followed by a 70 and some stacks. Figured one picture wouldn't hurt my time to Devore too much, and so I captured Photo #18, my second favorite UP photo of the trip, albeit a cliche "grade crossing wedgie". Now, finally, down to Devore to get a few more shots of the SPs. (Photos #19 / #20) In all honesty, the day was beginning to draw to a close - I only had about ninety minutes of light left, so I decided to take advantage the excellent light back at what's now "my favorite grade crossing". Because the canyon runs east-west at this point, and the mountains are quite a way to the west, light lingers here much longer than at other points in the valley. Within twenty minutes or so, I managed to catch three different trains - all BNSF. These became Photos #21 - 23. Shortly after these three and one last trip to the summit, I decided to call it a day and head back for LAX - after all, it was going to be a long drive through city traffic, and I was already tired again. Despite three good days on the Pass, I was ready to go home, and my railfanning desire quenched for a bit. (Not for long, though - as I write this, there are a pair of D&RGW tunnel motors headed for Denver I want to go after). As a last strange note, the flight out from LAX back to COS took me right over Cajon, so as a last thought I got a nice airborne view of the area I'd been covering for the last few days. Hope you've enjoyed this and I haven't bored you out of your mind, and if anyone who knows Cajon better than I do can fill in the name of the little road and some of the other locales, please email me and I'll append this story with a bit more useful information. Happy railfanning! |
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| Oh yes, one other thing
I should probably mention - all the images here are Copyright
2000 Nathan D. Holmes
(maverick@drgw.net) Note this doesn't mean you can't use them - In fact, I encourage people to use and enjoy them. I'm placing them under the same license as RailARC images. All images were taken with an Olympus C-3000 camera, a beautiful piece of machinery. |
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