Western Railroad Discussion > What "Peak Season" Is All About

The UPS "Peak Season" is all about moving hot-shot UPS trains. Sometimes other traffic seems to take extra delays in order to clear a path for the shooters. Such was the case the other day at Java, CA along BNSF's Needles Subdivision, just west of Needles, CA.

TRAIN 1: An almost exclusively-UPS hotshot roars upgrade through Java with the Colorado River Valley in the background. This train was running left-handed up Main 2 to clip another westbound train at Ibis. The entire train is shown.

TRAIN 2: A little while later, four westbound trains were stopped on Main 1 between Needles and Ibis. The train that was clipped by the first hotshot was still at Ibis, and three more trains stacked-up behind it. The rear end of train 2 and head end of train 3 are visible while another hotshot shoots uphill through Java canyon on Main 2. The entire train is shown.

Thanks for watching!

-Tom

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Nice video!! Thanks for showing the whole trains....

Very nice video, Tom! I see you were able to find your way back to the spot where we met up with Cajon92's campsite back on 4/6/14 for train 1. How did you get to the vantage point for train 2?

George Cataulin
San Diego, CA
Left Coast Rail Videos

gjc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Very nice video, Tom! I see you were able to find
> your way back to the spot where we met up with
> Cajon92's campsite back on 4/6/14 for train 1. How
> did you get to the vantage point for train 2?

Thanks!

I just hiked in a little further, over the next hill or two.

Run all available power, No Throttle restrictions. Nice Stuff!

All the Z WSPNBY9's and 8's have 5 jacks up front instead of 4 for peak season. I don't know about the rest of the Z ALTNBY stuff.

PT

Awesome video. "Run it like you stole it!"

UPS is using a lot of Swift trailers for line haul. A huge fleet of Swift trailers at UPS Memphis hub.

gmojim

Very nice video, Tom. I really like that area around Klinefelter Canyon, looking forward to getting back out there.

~Ryan

gmojim Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> UPS is using a lot of Swift trailers for line
> haul. A huge fleet of Swift trailers at UPS
> Memphis hub.
>
> gmojim

Looks like they got some of UP's (or CSX) UMAX cans as well (there's one in the video).

AWESOME vids! Really appreciate you showing the whole train. There is so much more to a story when you see the manifest tagging along behind the power.
Lots of ex-BNSF 48' vans on the first train. I think those are the FSTZ's, or used to be at one time.
Also interesting to see UPS's operations during peak season. I bet some of my business's packages were on those trains heading to CA.

Nice videos, thanks for posting. The next time I'm out that way
I'm going to get you guys to show me that first spot. I'd really
like to get a shot there.

A question that occurred to me while watching these videos. Ramon
Rhodes said at the 2012 Temple convention of the Santa Fe Historical
Society, yeah I know that's not the full name, that UPS was trying
to stop leasing trailers, one of the reasons they went to containers.
Looking at these trains, it appears they have been able to accomplish
some of this. Does anyone have any better information?

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA