Western Railroad Discussion > Armor Yellow on the California Northern

I'll mention first that I trespassed at couple of locations. I did talk to the crew beforehand, so even though I didn't get explicit permission to trespass, they were aware of my plans to be at certain locations to chase the job.

I was given a heads up that a UP SD70M with a 5 chime horn was on the LRJ90, the Suisun Turn, which hauls freight between Roseville and the interchange with California Northern (CFNR) at the wye near the Suisun-Fairfield Amtrak station. After hauling the cars from Roseville, the LRJ90 takes the wye, and the UP crew leaves the entire train on California Northern's Schellville Sub, where the California Northern crew takes over and takes the train to Napa Jct., where Lombard Yard is. I believe this job is called the Fairfield Turn.

FYI, NWP (Northwestern Pacific) often goes to Lombard Yard to exchange cars with the CFNR. The SMART DMUs took this route (Roseville --> Suisun --> Lombard --> NWP).

I chased the job westward from Suisun to Napa Jct. (American Canyon) when I got a day off last Thursday. I chose this over the MWCRV detour that was heading up north on the Coast Line, as CFNR's Fairfield Turn was almost a slam dunk daytime run and I only needed to drive about an hour and half from home.

Here are the locations in the first video:

- Pennsylvania Ave. crossing, where the Fairfield Turn is switching cars. "Shave and a haircut" from the K5LLA horn.

- Cordelia Rd. crossing after doing work near Beck Ave. earlier. K5LLA sounds a bit fouled here.

- Cordelia Tunnel. The crew did some work at the wye leading to the Anheuser-Busch plant before this.

- Pacing the train near downtown Cordelia. Due to traffic, I was not going to beat the train to the other side of I-80, so I settled for this.
 
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I drove straight to Napa Jct. and wasted little time, since Schellville Sub's track speed is 25 mph, and I had to deal with stop signs and traffic lights in between after falling behind at downtown Cordelia.

I got in three clips at Napa Jct. and the entire train is shown in all the clips.

The Fairfield Turn takes the north leg of the wye in the first clip, heading NW toward NWP (Brazos). In the second clip, the train shoves the inbound cars via the south leg of the wye into Lombard Yard.

I drove around looking for a clean view of Lombard Yard while the crew was doing work, but due to construction, the only promising access (Napa Junction Rd.) was blocked. I headed to the north end of the wye to get the third clip, where the entire outbound cars are shown for the train heading back to Suisun.

That's it for the report.

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Nice videos. Really like to watch station switching work and nice to see the 9900s.
Brian Stevens

Check out Charles Smiley Videos "ESPEE HALL OF FAME" DVD, if you want to see some great switching in that whole region! 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/16 13:21 by spsniper.

That's a nice vieeo, Charlie!   Really appreciate you chasing
the train and posting your video here.  Nice to get to see a
local at work.  Love the"shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits" horn toots!

Nicely done, Charles! It was a pleasure seeing you, as always.