Western Railroad Discussion > KG1LA missed once again

Rolled through Ontario at 5:10 a.m. through the morning darkness again. Guess I will need to head up to Vegas next time to guarantee a shot at it. Passing City OF Industry.

Come on up! Always welcome here in Vegas.

Since the last time I worked this subdivision (over 15 years ago) the SP was still the SP and the UP only had one way into town, and since I rarely get trackside these days, can someone tell me what the normal route into L.A. would be for this train? Once through Pomona, would it come down the original UP L.A. Sub or run down the former SP? I set out to go look for it this morning then realized I have no idea which piece of track it would be on once west of Pomona. I was in Rose Hills at 6:15AM and waited until 7:30 but I never saw it. Not sure if I just missed it or if it went in on the former SP. Thx.

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Since the last time I worked this subdivision
> (over 15 years ago) the SP was still the SP and
> the UP only had one way into town, and since I
> rarely get trackside these days, can someone tell
> me what the normal route into L.A. would be for
> this train? Once through Pomona, would it come
> down the original UP L.A. Sub or run down the
> former SP? I set out to go look for it this
> morning then realized I have no idea which piece
> of track it would be on once west of Pomona. I was
> in Rose Hills at 6:15AM and waited until 7:30 but
> I never saw it. Not sure if I just missed it or if
> it went in on the former SP. Thx.

Hi, Mike. Since it had a City of Industry set out it went down the Alhambra (SP side) sub. all the way to the Shops, then down the L.A. River into the back way (Alfalfa) of the yard. Normally trains take the Alhambra sub. from West Colton to Pomona and cross over to the L.A. sub and either terminate at East Yard or head for the "ditch" and to ICTF or the harbor depending on their final destination. The best time to catch these monster KG1's is after the C of I setout as the setout has been taking several hours (due to the train not being blocked properly), which ends up puting the train in daylight hours.-BMT

Thanks Brian. I sort of suspected there was a CofI set-out with that 30 minute window in the line-up but not being too familiar with the ops around these parts nowadays I didn't know if these WB stack trains actually performed any work enroute.

Back in the day, as I'm sure you'll recall, you couldn't make any money on a stack train since there was never any work along the way. The whole advantage of getting stuck with one was that you would usually get home in a hurry and collect a day's pay for a 4 or 5 hour trip. I guess those days are over. I imagine it's probably worse now. You probably still don't make any money on these things but you have work enroute, you have a full "day" to do it, and fewer people to do the work. Are there any real shooters left in and out of L.A.?

Take care.

Mike

I got some great sunny shots of it departing City of Industry, around 7:00 am. Watched it roll through the Valley Blvd / California Ave crossing. Will post when my Kodachrome gets processed.

-John

Oh sure, rub it in! ;)

Can't wait to see the shots.

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Are there any real shooters left in and out of
> L.A.?
>
> Take care.
>
> Mike

Actually there's more now than ever. Any of the Z trains are usually short trips, either in or out of East yard, C of I or the Shops (LATC). There's no Z trains currently running in or out of ICTF only I and K trains. All of the Yermo bound trains out of the Basin go straight to Colton where a Colton crew takes it to Yermo. The UP and BLET have been having ongoing talks about a Vegas run-through agreement, but it hasn't made much progress (the UP wants the crews to go on duty at Vegas and run to West Colton which would pretty much eliminate Yermo as a crew change point). All the other Z trains go onto the Santa Fe at West Riverside and crew change at Mount Vernon via the connector at (Santa Fe) West Colton although rumors about the L.A. to Yuma run-throughs being put back on are always around.-BMT

P.S. There's only a handfull of double stacks that set out enroute, most run straight through.

So there's no L.A. or ICTF to Yermo one-crew trains any more? All get re-crewed at Colton (or Mount Vernon)? Hmm, interesting. I remember the old L.A. to Vegas pools. Long run. I can't see it working now if traffic even picks up a little.

Good to hear there are still plenty of shooters. It's always good to catch one when you need to get home for something! ;)

Mike