Western Railroad Discussion > Trona Railway at Trona Pinnacles, CA

This is day three of a three day railfan trip on 5/18/15 around 6pm.  Video shot by Cajon92 using a Canon XHA1 HDV camcorder and edited by yours truely.
After watching the crew build their train at Searles to take back to Trona we made our way to the Trona Pinnacles. Now with X-SP SD40T-2 8541 (TRC 2005) leading the eastbound empties drift down grade and back into the Searles Valley taking in the late afternoon sunlight.

George Cataulin
San Diego, CA
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Excellent!

Now we just need to convince the Trona to paint their locomotives...

Great spot and video.
JB

Really enjoyed that video. I need to put Trona on my list of things to catch

PQM

PatternOfFailure Wrote:
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> Excellent!
>
> Now we just need to convince the Trona to paint
> their locomotives...

Yeah, In fresh gray and scarlet!!

Excellent George! I like your views of the trains moving through the landscape. Watching spinning axle bearings gets boring. Didn't Trona have solid red GE's with white lettering? C30-7's I think???

The Red U30Cs were Kaiser - not Trona.

NICE video!!

Great view, great video!   I've never hear of that area (Pinnacles).   It's pretty neat looking.  That's about as 'middle of nowhere' that one can get, it seems!

-Tom

The area at the Pinnacles was usedto fiilm Star Trek V and also some Battle Star Galactica TV and Lost in Space and The desert in Planet of the Apes , there are over 500 Calcium Carbonate spires in the area there is a sign off the hiway   178 to drive in to the railroad about 5 miles and the road at times can get rough, The Trona ran a work train for StarTrek to get film and props and equipment in and out each day of filiming on flat cars. This is BLM land and its part of the Mojave Desert Preserve and Trona's Owner the Soda ash and Borate and potash company feels as long as the engines run well paint does not matter, at one point when I was there we had 6 ex Santa Fe SD45's converted to SD40-2 units but we kept the larger radiators for the extra cooling they were painted            
with Dupont Imron  Santa Fe Warbonnet Red and Then ATSF Silver with white lettering and hand rails they were leased from Helm and are now part of the Helm HCLX lease fleet TRC 3001 to 3007

If you venture out to the area bring plenty of water and look out for rattle snakes along line the with a large colony of GREEN Mojaves's at Searles Station and the Tunnel at Searles. 

great video , thanks for posting.
                Mark Mauner

That was such an epic way to end our trip! Thanks for putting it together and sharing the video, George.

~Ryan

Nice perspective and great shooting, George and Ryan.  Thanks for posting.
Gary

Yes, thank you for sharing a cool video. And I agree about a new coat of grey and scarlet for those SD40Ts!

Posted from iPhone

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
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> The Red U30Cs were Kaiser - not Trona.  That's right, the old Eagle Mountain Railroad. That was almost 30 years ago.

Very impressive--great location.
Brian Stevens

Thanks for posting this compelling video; it really captures the vastness of the desert very well.

Don Bowen
Saint Helena, CA