Western Railroad Discussion > Beaumont Hill Helpers

Manned helpers have become rarer in this day and age of DPUs, so I was surprised to see a pair of "Triclops" (SD60Ms) help a westbound 1x1 autorack up and down Beaumont Hill when I visited SoCal last month. From radio chatter, it seems the helpers were put on at Indio, and they went all the way down to Loma Linda to help with the braking. The crew (and dispatcher) called themselves "Beaumont Helpers."

First clip in the video is somewhere between West Palm Springs and Cabazon, pair of SD60M helpers pushing behind the solo C44AC DPU of the autorack train.

I drove ahead to get the lead unit, a solo GEVO, and the second clip is at the crossing just west of the spur at Cabazon where I saw the rail grinder later. I edited out the middle of the train (all autorack loads) and transition the clip to the rear DPU and the helpers.

Third and final clip is at the hotbox detector east of Banning, where the grade still climbs going west, and I get the axle count of the train in my audio.

- The helpers are usually parked right under Beaumont Ave.
- Saw a Loram rail grinder at Cabazon during the trip.
- Video as described above.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/14 12:52 by cchan006.

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Haven't seen or heard about helpers there in years. One advantage with this pass is it's proximity to West Colton, where there is always help available if needed. Seeing them stationed on the pass again is interesting.

At least on my computer, the video freezes at :43, then plays again at 3:00.

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Haven't seen or heard about helpers there in
> years. One advantage with this pass is it's
> proximity to West Colton, where there is always
> help available if needed. Seeing them stationed
> on the pass again is interesting.
>
> At least on my computer, the video freezes at :43,
> then plays again at 3:00.

Yup, I copied the video from my Mac to my Windows XP Netbook PC before uploading, and the file got corrupted, so I will need to upload again. I took out my old DV-tape camcorder that I used between 2008-2010 to shoot this video, then used the footage to test the workflow on my old Mac using iMovie HD. Hate to say it, but Windows MovieMaker published around the same time (for XP and Vista) is easier to use.

Doesn't seem wise to put that much power on the rear ( or at least have it all on line ) and take the chance of disasterous compression forces.

Very cool! There's always been a pair of 60Ms stationed at Beaumont when I've been through, but it seems to be a rare case for them to actually be used. I've had a couple instances where I've seen westbounds stall at West Palm Springs and DS244 then ask other trains to "verify the helper power is at Beaumont" but didn't stick around long enough to see how things played out. Doesn't seem to be a regularly called job though, so not sure how they are even crewed or how often its planned ahead vs. used in an emergency.

rbmn5022 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Very cool! There's always been a pair of 60Ms
> stationed at Beaumont when I've been through, but
> it seems to be a rare case for them to actually be
> used. I've had a couple instances where I've seen
> westbounds stall at West Palm Springs and DS244
> then ask other trains to "verify the helper power
> is at Beaumont" but didn't stick around long
> enough to see how things played out. Doesn't seem
> to be a regularly called job though, so not sure
> how they are even crewed or how often its planned
> ahead vs. used in an emergency.

Dispatcher 54 was apparently aware the train was going to have trouble going up and down Beaumont Hill, so he was talking to the lead unit (UP 7882) quite often before and when it got to Indio (where the crew was instructed to "get some coffee"). I didn't know what it all meant until I saw the Triclops helpers on the train later.

I've seen quite a number of underpowered trains on the Sunset Route, and many of them don't get the helpers because some desk jockey decided that the train had plenty of power. I posted a video of one such eastbound on YouTube, and got some humorous comments, including one that declared UP stands for (U)nder(P)owered. :-)

Ah the standard undrpowered Mira Loma Autoracks