Nostalgia & History > SP Pepper Ave. 8-3-1990

I had read an article in Pacific RailNews about SP's ICTF at Carson, CA, and I made a trip down from Porterville to catch all the stack trains going in and out. I saw 2-3 trains so I decided to move on and drove up to West Colton where I "discovered" this neat bridge that took Pepper Ave. over the east end of the yard. LOTS of action here! Here are three shots from that day.

1. SD7 1534 is switching cars in the yard. Mainline tracks are at the right of this view.
2. B39-8 8019 departs westbound around the balloon track. 
3. SSW GP60 9653 is ready to head out on the Sunset Route with a stack train. The locomotive consist has just been turned around to put the 9653 on the point, crew didn't want that tunnel motor in the lead. Bad unit maybe. IIRC, all the units were on line, but with the state of repair of SP power at that time, they weren't going to take any chances, I guess.

Thanks for looking back with me,

Tom

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Great shots, Tom! 

You caught a little LA smog, too. 

Great shots Tom . First shot is of the Trim tower at Riverside Ave. Please post more if you have any!
Andy

Nice trio Tom, thanks for sharing.  The air quality in Carmel Valley (Sobranes Fire) right now rivals the above.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Railfan4Christ Wrote:
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. 
> 3. SSW GP60 9653 is ready to head out on the
> Sunset Route with a stack train. The locomotive
> consist has just been turned around to put the
> 9653 on the point, crew didn't want that tunnel
> motor in the lead. Bad unit maybe. IIRC, all the
> units were on line, but with the state of repair
> of SP power at that time, they weren't going to
> take any chances, I guess.
>
> Thanks for looking back with me,
>
> Tom  

August 3rd ... my guess is the crew wanted a better AC equipped unit especially running out in the dessert  ...nice photos 

Nice set of shots there.   Always get nervous when I see a string of empty flats at the front of a train, especially on a big curve.

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
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> Nice set of shots there.   Always get nervous
> when I see a string of empty flats at the front of
> a train, especially on a big curve.

Makes me nervous every time I go around the balloon. Especially with PTC, the balloon doesn't show up on the PTC screen and likes to put you in penalty if it doesn't "read" the signal at Pepper ave.-BMT