Western Railroad Discussion > Fun with Windmills on Beaumont Hill

Back in October of 2013, I made an impromptu visit to Southern California dictated by a last minute cheap air fare. I woke up on a Sunday morning and heard all sorts of radio chatter from Dispatcher 244. I deduced that there was a high/wide train forcing meets on Beaumont Hill. Railheads can quote the specific rules, but I believe one of the trains has to be stopped when meeting a high/wide train.

So I rushed out of the motel and headed east, and caught up to the windmill train near El Casco. With patched CNW C44AC second in consist, and a low numberboard C44AC leading, I figured this was a nice enough target to chase. The train stopped before the Hinda crossovers, and met a westbound manifest, first clip.

In the second clip, I recorded the sounds of the 16 cyl GE prime mover as the train accelerated out of Hinda.

I went to the Centennial Memorial Bridge next, third clip. You can see the toaster damage on the engineer's side of the long hood on the lead unit.

I drove ahead and found a pair of CSXs leading a westbound stacker, stopped near Banning. Fourth clip shows the meet with the front of the windmill train, and fifth clip shows the rear DPU.

At this point, I was tempted to finish the windmill train chase, and go for the CSX pool power. With angle of the sun still in morning light and coming from the east, I decided to have a little fun with the windmill train instead and continued toward Palm Springs.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/15 20:27 by cchan006.

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I drove along Railroad Ave. between Cabazon and West Palm Springs specifically to pace the windmill train, and got two meets recorded. In the beginning of sixth clip, you see the end of one westbound stacker, then you see the front of another one at the end, both trains stopped. You can clearly hear the dynamic brake fans from the C44ACs of the windmill train. You begin to see the Palm Springs windmills in this clip, too.

In the seventh clip, you see the train take the curve with the operating windmills in the background near Haugen-Lehmann Way exit off of I-10.

I made a high risk maneuver and took Hwy 111 to get photo #1, then tried to beat the train to the Amtrak Palm Springs Depot using local roads. Fortunately, the train was travelling slow enough that I had plenty of margin to record the eighth and final clip at the Palm Springs Depot.

Due to very high winds, I set up my video camera inside the car, and sat inside the car to record the clip and get some photos, #2 and #3.

That's all folks.

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I enjoyed the video!!

Hi,

In the video where the AC4400 starts off after the box car train goes by,
Was the second loco not on line, as it does not show any smoke from the stack??
and again when it goes buy the windmills in the paddock.
Great video BTW, love it starting off and getting into her work..
Thanks for sharing..

Cheers Brian in New Zealand..