Western Railroad Discussion > Twelve Hours Of Sunday Railfanning: Urban Oakland to Un

A rare day for two reasons. First it was perfectly clear and sunny this morning (as was yesterday) after rain was originally forecast for the weekend. With that original weather man forecast, I had planned to do absolutely nothing this gloomy weekend staying at home. This usually amounts to watching TV, sleeping, eating, laundry, sleeping some more, photo editing and maybe some workbench time with the models - maybe. Second reason this was a rare day is the simple fact that I NEVER manage to wake up to even see the sun rise. Work calls me in fairly late with a 9A clock-in time M-F. So unless it is some special RR move or an out of town railfan trip hit the road early deal, I enjoy sleeping in! Besides these two factors, it dawned as just another average day on the railroad today...

Last weekend I spent Friday through Sunday loading, unloading, setting up, working, breaking down, loading and unloading again all of the Winterail show equipment. Besides a few fold-up tables and chairs, all that audio, video and digital equipment along with the screen, the cords, you name it comes from right hwre in the East Bay courtesy of the Neves Residence and storage. So as the official boxvan driver to and from Winterail in Stockton, I was yet again teased (as in past years) with seeing the perfectly grassy green hills of Altamont Pass. From the highway, and at speed. So I made myself a promise to return on a nic day (when it wasn't snowing) to catch the green hills before they turn to the back-to-back seasonal shade of California Gold. Today became that promised day.

First stop was a "quick pass" through Oakland Jack London Square and CP Magnolia. Tried to catch and then follow an early morning outbound stack train destined for Niles Canyon, Altamont, Lathrop and beyond (Global II, IL). With only 3 miles to go to get there, I heard DS58 give her blessing to the outbound IOAG2 just on the move out of West Oakland. With no Amtraks anywhere on site on a sunday morning, this train boogied out of town and I managed to miss the first planned train subject of the day! Off to a great start. By chance, instead of the stacker at JLS, I happened to run into these two UP track maintenance guys who I though were at first rail welders. Turned out that one was griding away at a frog there at the CP King Street crossovers while the other guy was of course was ther as the important lookout man. In a ten minute span I counted lookout guy #2 yawning about three of so dozen times. Hmmm, not exactly the guy you wnt watching your back for those rogue runaway trains and what not. Must have been the end of a long graveyard shift.

Second photo taken after witnessing ten minutes of jaw-dropping, action filled rail grinding shows ten more minutes of sunrise light peaking over the Oakland Hills. Coming "around the corner" after the Cal-P rollover is the LRJ50, or the Benicia-Warm Springs empty auto rack forwarder shown headed south to Warm Springs. I think this train runs on an anytime schedule although it is more fequent in the wee AM hours or early morning. It is supposed to be a round tripper and often returns north to Benicia a light power. This shows a large rebalancing of empty autoracks going to the NUMMI plant suppliers at Warm Springs/Milpitas. Makes sense seeing Benicia now unloads/exports many vehicles bound for the Pacific. Best yet, patch job SD40M-2 UP 2752 (ex-SP 8676) was leeding south through Da Square at sunrise! Can never get tired of seeing those SP MK rebuilds, even with them being patched or repainted.


-Ryan aka "espeeboy"
on the ex-WP Oakland Sub MP11.2

---

---

---

after a semi-slow response time and much honking from the hogger, rail grinding dudes knew to retreat to the UP MOW truck. Street-running early in the morning is no fun - no pedestrians or vehicles to dodge plow through. FYI, the UP2752 is a little unique with it's full upper nose yellow patch. In the post-merger years, the former SP 8676 was one strange but unique nose job unit with cut and rewelded steel where the "SP" used to be. Compare to this SP 8676 MJ-style nosejob photo: http://ncespee.railfan.net/spsd40-2m/sp8676a.jpg . Last shot is about a couple minutes too soon before full frontal sun would have filled up that face of the 2752. Interesting how thanks to a building shadow the sun only illuminated that irregular superwide yellow nose patch...

---

---

---

we're obviously leaving Downtown Oakland southbound on the Niles Sub at East Oakland parallel to the I-880. That is the old WP ROW over to the left. Just recently, more billboards went up alongside the BART ROW fence on the right. The steel support columns are sticking out of the actual old WP roadbed so I guess UP is continuing to cash in on those mergers!

As a side note, I got in to my first fender bender three weeks ago in the no shoulder southbound fast lane to the far left. Yes, Pinky the Tundra is in need of minor cosmetic surgery...

---

---

---

last spot to shoot the 2752 finds us at San Lorenzo where the LRJ-50 is finally making trackspeed. Guess 76 empty autoracks with 6000 horses is a little work...

A hop skip and a jump gets me to Altamont to catch up with the IOAG2-19 stacker - the original target. Thanks goodness for the crazy coastline, Niles Centerville line, Niles Canyon and Livermore valley routing for these Lathrop bound stackers. Cutting across due east on I-580 got me back 30 or so minutes on this train. Had I arrived at the Greenville Trestle a few minutes earlier, I would have preferred to do some hiking for some elevation. Then again it is one nasty green mosh pit out there after last week's rains as well as having to fear the cowpies left out there from the hillside animal friend dwellers.

---

---

---

Great series of shots, Ryan. It was nice to see you in person although you were rather busy. Congrats again on the contest win.

the hills don't get any greener than this in California...

---

---

---

One train worth getting up for at dawn, Ryan, is the LRJ50 you caught. On duty at Benicia at 23:59(not sure if called everyday) heads for Warm Springs with some monster trains of empty racks. Also notorious for dying on the law on its return run. Gives an increasingly rare opportunity to catch older second generation power on big auto trains. Usually a pair of SD40-types but can also see 2-3 locally assigned geeps.

An 80+ car LRJ50 is seen in photo southbound behind the UP902-1524-2543 last fall at m.p. 25.5 next to South Hayward BART on the Niles Sub. Yes, there really is a hill here.

---

Great pictures, Ryan.

What's the background on the very first (teaser) photo of the thread on Altamont? The train with the patched SD40M-2 leading mostly covered hoppers. Would this be one of the bay area to Stockton manifests that uses Altamont these days?

Thanks,

Rich

more from the east side of Altamont Summit. Last two photos taken on the Tracy approach about to pass under I-580.

---

---

---

at Tracy, the panoramic descending shot into the Central Valley. The Eastbound IOAG2 is about to cross the California Aqueduct.

Another patch speed lettered SD40M-2, UP 2695 (ex-SP 8619) was leading the eastbound LRS90 on the return leg portion of the roundtrip Stockton-Warm Springs "local" hauler. Nice to finally see this in daylight. Shown crossing Altamont Pass Road just east of Altamont.

Gotta love the profile of those older wind turbines with their bolted support bases. The newer generation turbines with their welded steel pole support bases are still interesting but besides their larger size, don't have as much character as the older ones...

---

---

---