Western Railroad Discussion > Jack London: MRVSJ, Emeryville: ZG2OA

Visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area often ask where's a good place to catch freight train action. Oakland Jack London Square's street running is often mentioned, and while it's a great place to catch Amtrak California trains, catching a freight is sometimes a crap shoot.

There is one train that has been running more regularly through Jack London in the daytime now, the MRVSJ, Roseville to San Jose manifest. It used to avoid Jack London by running via Altamont Pass, but the job no longer has to set out cars in Stockton, so more often than not, it takes Cal-P (UP's Martinez Sub) which means street running through Jack London Square.

Couple of Sundays ago, I listened to both my scanner and railroadradio.net's West Sacramento feed to plan a timely intercept of two trains at Jack London Square. In the first clip is an Oakland-bound baretable train with DODX flats, led by solo GEVO UP 7453. I guessed incorrectly that this was the KMNOA.

Several minutes later, MRVSJ-21 showed up, second clip. The consist is interesting with a pair of SD59MXs plus an ex-CNW Dash 9. I used time lapse to fit the ~133 car monster MRVSJ to make the video fit within the 6 minute limit.

- UP 7453 pulling a baretable of mostly DODX flats.
- Pedestrian impatience shown in several flavors.
- Video of UP 7453 and MRVSJ, led by UP 9914.

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After catching the street running MRVSJ, I overheard a "(static)8085" talk to Dispatcher 62 on my scanner, and guessed correctly that it was a BNSF train near Stege heading into Port of Oakland. I took a quick look at the Port of Oakland, then drove over to Emeryville, hoping to catch this train. That's the first clip, but entire train is not shown.

FYI to the Bay Area visitors, Emeryville is probably a better location to catch freight action than Oakland Jack London Square.

I knew from listening to the West Sacramento radio feed earlier in the morning that a UP 2542 West that was coming down Donner, heading into Oakland. I was very confident this fit the running pattern of the hotshot ZG2OA, but I still had more than 2 hours before its arrival into Emeryville (based on my own calculations). To kill some time, I went on a Capitol Corridor/San Joaquin (yield price discount) joyride to Martinez and back.

After the joyride, the ZG2OA showed up and I got the entire short train at Emeryville, second clip. The engineer highballed the station host who was standing next to me, as she was the one waving to the crew to get him to toot the horn. I got a nice surprise besides the fresh 25xx GEVO with a pair of NS units in the consist, one a standard cab.

- Lagunitas "Undercover Investigation Shut-Down" Ale is now serving on the Capitol Corridor.
- Glimpse of the new BNSF/UP connector at Richmond while on the joyride.
- Video as described above.

That's all folks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/15 11:23 by cchan006.

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GOOD stuff...!! I really enjoyed the first video!!

to bad that train din't move.

Enjoyed your photos and videos. There were a lot of boxcars on the train thru JLS - I wonder where they were going to?

DFWJIM Wrote:
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> Enjoyed your photos and videos. There were a lot
> of boxcars on the train thru JLS - I wonder where
> they were going to?

Most of the boxcars go to Watsonville, where several locals take them to the industries. I've seen many go to Gilroy and Hollister. The others get set out in Newark, where local jobs can take them near and far, for example, along the ex-WP Oakland Sub. Here's a handful being switched at the nearby Albrae Industrial Lead:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3674532

MRVSJ usually has tank cars, reefers, and other cars for the Santa Cruz & Monterey Bay Railway owned by Iowa Pacific, which runs along the Pacific Ocean on the Santa Cruz branch.

mammothlacrosse Wrote:
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> to bad that train din't move.

Less than a minute after I got the pic, the train started moving with at least one guy who had to jump off. The smarter pedestrians who knew about the overhead walkway (where I was) was commenting to me on how "dumb and stupid" those folks were. I should have recorded that on my camcorder!

that would have been classic to see

Pedestrians On Flat Cars gave me the shivers.  Good grief! 

Why did the train stop?  Signal?  

Is UP 2542 a new Unit or a rebuilt and renumber unit?

I didn't know UP had any GE Units in the 2500s

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

Climbing over the next-to-last car instead of going around. Laziness and stupidity, a noble combination.

GP25 Wrote:
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> Is UP 2542 a new Unit or a rebuilt and renumber
> unit?
>
> I didn't know UP had any GE Units in the 2500s

its a new unit  ES44ACs

In the MRVSJ video, there were four yellow-wrapped PABCO wallboard loads in two cuts.  There is a PABCO gypsum board plant in Newark, so I'm surprised to see these loads headed to Newark, like hauling coals to Newcastle.  I suppose the Newark plant is behind and needs Nevada product to fill orders.

So the Nevada gypsum board would have gone Nevada Industrial Switch to Apex, LUM49 Hauler Job to Arden Yard, MSCWC to West Colton, an MWCRV/B/C/X to Roseville, MRVSJ to Bay Area, and final spot by a local.  If everything goes well, the wallboard could leave the plant on Wednesday and go thru JLS like this on Sunday, maybe spotted at the industry for Monday morning unloading.  Although the truck haul is only about 550 miles by highway, they use a few rail cars for what would take many expensive trucks.

​mapboy