Western Railroad Discussion > Route 66/Tehachapi Tour 2006

When some people go to the beach, they bring a little home in their shoes...I did the same thing with Tehachapi, thought it was my shoes, pants, and the inside and outside of my Nissan Sentra.

A friend of mine (Pat Lorenz) decided that we would "hit the dusty trail" and head north and west towards Route 66, while he would turn away at Ludlow, I would keep going, to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Bakersfield, and railfan Tehachapi.

First some shots in the Kingman Area...

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from Kingman, we headed west towards Topock and camped near the bridge, and caught a few trains there. These included some night shots at the bridge and along the line.

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The next morning we crossed the Colorado (I pronouce it "Call-a-rada", which still irks my ex-girlfriend) and shot eastbound trains heading eastbound back into Arizona.

From there we hit Ibis, Goffs, Essex, and Amboy on our drive towards Ash Hill. We arived at Ash Hill towards the later part of the day and caught some very good lighting for the time of the day.

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The first shot was towards the end of the day on the west slope of Ash Hill. From here we backtracked down Route 66 to the lower horseshoe and camped inside the lower horseshoe and again, tried more night photography.

The trains, I can sleep though those being so close to the tracks, the killer was having to survive the sudden 40+ mph winds that arose suddenly at about 0100 hrs, nearly knocking down our tents.

When the sun arose, the wind had died off, but was still blowing, luckily we caught a westbound climbing up hill, with the moon setting behind it as the sun was rising. Getting out was harder as my Sentra became stuck in the sand, and Pat's SUV's tire was punctured by sagebrush (or some other plant).

Pat had to head home, so I soldiered on towards Tehachapi alone, when I got to the loop, traffic was stopped for over four hours as track work was being done, the last photo is my first ever train at the loop.

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Thursday, I headed back up the mountain from my relative's home, and shots some more

-Burton's Cuvre

-Allard

-Helper Set going away at Bealville

After that last shot, the lighting began to fade quickly as moisture and clouds began to block out the sun.

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cool shots show us more Richard

Friday, overcast in the valley, but sunny up on the pass, to bad there were no trains. After just idiling around, the trains finally began to move, but only after the weather had become worse. The first one is at the Loop, in the rain, but the train did have mid train and rear helpers (or DPU's...I still call them helpers). Again I shot from tunnel 2, and finally caught the train again as it entered Bena at last light.

I hoped you enjoyed my little trip, I sure I did, I nearly destroyed my Sentra, but it was worth it.

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I wondered where Pat had disappeared to.
Windle

Excellent work. I espcially like the very second shot with BNSF 4504 leading. Can you fill us in exactly where that was taken and how to get there?

Kim

Liking that Blue sky in pic 3 !!!!


TCS - all good.

You sure got your KICKs! Looks like a BNSF Calander to me. Great stuff

KimHeusel Wrote:
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> Excellent work. I espcially like the very second
> shot with BNSF 4504 leading. Can you fill us in
> exactly where that was taken and how to get
> there?
>
> Kim


That was just north of Kingman between it and Hackberry, where Route 66 and the railroad begin to turn from northeast to east going eastbound.

I love that 3RD shot on your 2ND set of pics! Nice! Can't get better than that!

Yeah, that's one of my favorites...of course, for most of these I got that bloody "bad motive" at a certain web site.

Nice nice NICE! I love seeing shots from old personal stomping grounds. I don't think there's a single inch of the 3759 I haven't crawled all over. I love those Santa Fe 3751 class engines.

Great shots! Thanks.

Z

ahh 3751, the first "superpower" steamer I ever saw under steam, and unless you count 4960 (I dont really think so), the only one that I have seen in steam....Oh I wish I had something like my D70 then...

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Great shots, thanks for posting! We must have passed each other...had a gray Explorer with CA plates. Did you stay around for the "rain the code out" event on Saturday?
Geo & Kathy

I do remeber seeing you...you were parked on the MOW shelf right above Caliente, I was up on the hillside when ya'll walked down from tunnel number 1...while I was up on the hillside above the tracks, I drive a 97 Nissan Sentra that's tan/silverish with AZ plates and stickers that include "Liberal Hunting Permit" "Cumbres and Toltec" plus the CSA and AZ flags on the back window.

and a photo from where I think we met...

EDIT: I dont know what "Rain the Code Out" is...

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RIGHT!
We both agreed the direction of trains was confusing. My mental compass always plays tricks on me there. Nice shot! We checked that spot out on our way to Tunnel 1.
By "rain the code out", I mean that on Saturday, the rain caused the CTC code lines to go out and every train had to get permission from the dispatcher to pass the interlocking or control signals. This brought the pace to a crawl and LOTS of trains went on the Hours of Service Law. The Renzenberger vans were everywhere that day!
Of our four days on the hill, Thurs and Sun were the best for weather but Saturday was certainly interesting!
Geo & Kathy

I would have loved to stay an extra day, but I had to get back to Tucson as I had to go back to delivering pizza on Sunday...had that Sentra up to 80...and nearly destroyed it!!!


Anyway, which do ya'll prefer better? the originals which used the white balance settings straight from the camera, or ones processed in RAWShooter Essencials to make it look more of a natural color (i.e. with out the orange street lights)

William Diehl
SouthWestRails.com

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