Western Railroad Discussion > Question for UP fans.......

Which route would the "Hot" freights, and all other trains take to Chicago from LA...? LA through to El Paso or, up to Salt Lake City. Thanks for all replies.

I lived in Tucson for seven years. Seemed like a lot of Chicago-bound traffic--including Z trains--passed through there, which at El Paso would take the Cotton Rock to KC, thence to Chicago. Some LA-Chicago traffic does take the SLC routing, in part to keep congestion down on the Sunset.

By the way, most if not all of the Sunset from Tucson to El Paso will be double-tracked by the end of this year, something the old LA&SL doesn't have.

--Schmo

Most LA to Chicago and beyond intermodal traffic moves via Salt Lake. In 2005 when the line through Meadow Valley Wash north of Las Vegas washed out, UP embargoed traffic despite having the option of routing on the Cotton Rock. I recall UP said how the UP/SP merger would allow alternative routings when they asked customers to support the merger. BTW, I am not a fan of UP.

maxl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So is UP planning on doing Donner after?

For what purpose?

schmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I lived in Tucson for seven years. Seemed like a
> lot of Chicago-bound traffic--including Z
> trains--passed through there, which at El Paso
> would take the Cotton Rock to KC, thence to
> Chicago. Some LA-Chicago traffic does take the SLC
> routing, in part to keep congestion down on the
> Sunset.

At this time (it's been this way since around 2004), no Z train is running between Chicago and LA via the Sunset/Golden State routing but rather via the Overland/LA&SL routing (e.g. ZG3CI). Keep in mind that with the exception of one pair of intermodal trains (ICIBP/IBPCI) between Chicago-LA, all other traffic between these points is running via the Overland/LA&SL routing.

>
> By the way, most if not all of the Sunset from
> Tucson to El Paso will be double-tracked by the
> end of this year, something the old LA&SL doesn't
> have.

Uh yes, but that is not a good comparison since the Sunset route is more comparable to the Overland route which for Chicago-LA traffic is entirely double/triple tracked from Salt Lake to Chicago. If you're going to compare routes you should compare the LA&SL route with the Golden State route. For example, the entire Golden State route between El Paso and Topeka (roughly 870 miles) is SINGLE track. In comparison, it's roughly only 620 miles between Salt Lake and Daggett on the LA&SL route (most is single track). In addition some traffic peals off at Lynndyl UT so UP really only has around 500 miles of single track on the LA&SL route to deal with versus the roughly 870 miles on the Golden State route.

Once UP builds the new yard west of El Paso and finishes the connector at Edelstein, then I would guess UP will attempt to even out traffic flows between the Golden State route and the LA&SL route. The key word here is even out traffic, since it has been UP's plan for some time to utilize these single track routes in tandem with the Global I/II traffic remaining on the Overland/LA&SL routing while it's been talked about that Global III traffic would be moved to the Golden State/Sunset routing.

>
> --Schmo