Western Railroad Discussion > Random Roseville

Couple of Sundays ago, jmf1910 and I decided to take advantage of Amtrak Capitol Corridor's 50% weekend discount fares, and went to Roseville.

UP Omaha Dispatcher 57 was nervous about a UP 7700 South "short on time," so we walked over to the Rainbow Bridge along the Valley Sub to find out what it was. We were surprised to see a loaded 2x2 coal train come our way, first clip. Seems whenever jmf1910 and I visit Roseville, we see daylight coal trains. How odd!

We knew UP 7729 West was coming down The Hill (Donner), and was most likely the Super Duper Hotshot ZG2OA. We got a nice surprise, UP 1996, althought it was buried 4th in consist. That's the second clip, and the entire train is shown, since it's short enough.

Westbound Roper (MRORV) had cruised into Roseville Yard earlier while we were eating lunch at the Pacific St. Cafe. It had a Pumpkin Pool Power in the form of BNSF ES44C4 7164 (not leading). We caught the power moving from the yard to "The House" and that's the third clip.

There was a work window between Roseville and Rocklin most of the day, and we caught the work gang returning to the yard once they were done. I had always wanted to record video of a Port-a-Potty on rails, and finally got my chance, fourth clip.

We caught the UP 7908 East on Main 1 next, what I originally thought could have been the KLTG2X based on its running time, but I believe it was the ZLTG2X, since it had 6 engines, 4 in the front and 2 as rear DPUs. Edited out and not shown in the video, but there were about half a dozen pigs in the middle of the train. Right behind it on Main 2 was a 2x1x2 ballast train, also heading east up The Hill. All this is in the fifth clip.

When the lighting got good, my favorite Sunday westbound showed up, ZNPOA led by dirty Donner GEVO UP 5276. It also had a rear 52xx GEVO DPU, edited out and not shown. Seems the train ran with only SD70Ms east of Sparks. I noticed that there has been a notable increase in the number of 53' boxes on this train, at the front of the train ahead of the trademark white K-Line reefer boxes. That's the sixth and final clip.

- More surprises: Low nose KYLE Geep.
- "Big Hoggin'"
- Video as described above.

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- Even more surprises: UP 7400 with a lady hostler protecting the shove.
- UP 7400 was the "shop switcher" for the day.
- Exposed long hood of one of the GEVOs being moved around.

Jmf1910 should have more photos of that day. We saw few more trains than what I had mentioned above.

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Roseville always presents a surprise, from "Big Hoggin'" to heritage units! I especially like the video clip in which the ballast train sneaks up behind the Z.

Tor in Eugene

Excellent video.......great photos......thanks for shsring ......well done.

Rather appropriate having a female helping hostle the SGK Komen locomotive around the property. Nice catch.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

What I want to know is how on earth you have any clue as to each train's symbol? Short of hacking UP's system I have never understood how any of you guys know what a particular train's symbol is ...

CrudPunko Wrote:
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> What I want to know is how on earth you have any
> clue as to each train's symbol? Short of hacking
> UP's system I have never understood how any of you
> guys know what a particular train's symbol is ...

There are people who can provide accurate info regarding symbols of a train, and I thank them for the assistance, although I rarely ask for such information. Let's just say that it's a privilege which shouldn't be abused.

I actually try to figure out the train symbols the old fashioned way, which is to guess the running pattern of a certain train, then look at the type of cars being pulled. Sometimes, I have access to the destination of a train, which for me is the clincher. Crews and dispatchers will often reveal the symbol and/or the destination over the radio, too.

Videographers like us have the advantage over photogs, because we can record the whole train, then review them later for comparison. Because of that, I can often tell the difference between QPDRV, QHKRV, QPWRV, the inbound manifests out of Oregon into Roseville.

CrudPunko Wrote:
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> What I want to know is how on earth you have any
> clue as to each train's symbol? Short of hacking
> UP's system I have never understood how any of you
> guys know what a particular train's symbol is ...


Crawl out from under that rock, bro... people who work for Class I RR are privy to that sort of info. Crews check lineup; Trainmasters, Yardmasters, Roadforemen, Dispatchers... its all about who you know.