Western Railroad Discussion > While you slept...

The UP 6936 laid over at Bloomington, TX after bringing the SAVBL inspection train.
In a few hours, 6:00 AM, it will depart for the Rio Grande Valley, then head up to
San Antonio.

Hopefully our Central and North Texas correspondents will pick up the chase.

After 12 hours fooling with this train,I'm too tired to mess with my shots from the
chase, but I couldn't wait to see how the night shots turned out...

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...someting oddly similar happened in the Northern Sierra Mountains of California! Except it took form as the reincarnation of the classic UP Fast-40 powere lash-up!


Nice lighting/night shooting T-Bob! So what kind of lighting did you use? I mean, the Big Jack isn't lit up all pretty like that from the surrounding lighting is it?

In a similar night shot angle up at Portola, CA 5 months ago I caught the 6936 big guy as well. The difference with my night in the Sierra at the FRRS museum was the small after-hours problem of no form of artificial lighting at all (well later in the night FlashbulbRamos came to the rescue). So the attached shot is nothing but the rising 3/4 full moonlight about 15 minutes after it crested the thick shadowed treeline.


Long live the shiny paint, super light reflecting Big Jack!


-Ryan M. Martin aka "espeeboy"
on the ex-SP Martinez sub MP6.2

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Neat to see the motion of the earth under the stars from the time exposure.

espeeboy Wrote:
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> Nice lighting/night shooting T-Bob! So what kind
> of lighting did you use? I mean, the Big Jack
> isn't lit up all pretty like that from the
> surrounding lighting is it?

Shot #3 was illuminated by a NB freight, but the others were lighted
by our *favorite* light source, sodium arc lamps. The Horra!
Especially for JPEG shooters like myself...

The only saving grace was that one of the yard office parking lot fixtures
had been replaced with a lamp that appeared to be a fluorescent, so that
helped a bit.

Settings were 20 seconds @ f13 with 200 ISO on the 5D.

PS- I wanted to do some longer exposures where the stars would burn in,
but the UP kept screwing up my shots by running trains!

great pictures.

Nice shots guys.

Kent in Carmel Valley

Splendid shots of 98+ ft. EMD DDA40X UP 6936, showing off the longest diesel-electric design ever built with its 8,230 gallon, 30-ton fuel tank. First pose is a strikingly beautiful night pose and the third shot shows off some great details of the nose.

Please help me to verify some info. on UP 6936:

1. Of the 47 of these built, is this the last operating DDA40X on the UPRR? I can only account for 2 that were scrapped due to rail accidents. About a dozen have been donated to museums. What's become of the rest of them?

2. Is this unit still rated at 6,600 hp, achieved from two 16-645E3A turbocharged 3,300 hp prime movers, or have there been modifications to it?

3. Is it true that the DDA40X was the first diesel-electric to load-test itself, using its dynamic braking resistors as an electrical load?

4. Is this prototype wide cab unique to this unit or is it identical to the FP45 comfort cab?

5. Is UP 6936 one of those few DDA40X's that were outfitted with air raid sirens?

ThanX!!!

Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS

fredkharrison Wrote:
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>
> 2. Is this unit still rated at 6,600 hp, achieved
> from two 16-645E3A turbocharged 3,300 hp prime
> movers, or have there been modifications to it?
>

Consider this rumor.

I had a UP guy once tell me that the two engines got enough 645F series parts (GP50/SD50) in them to move them to 3500HP to 3600HP per block. VERY UNOFFICAL mind you. But it makes sense. The engine gets a lot of TLC and upgrading the blocks with superior F series parts makes sense. He estimated the output from both at just under 7000HP from on board unoffical estimating.

I do know that UP went thru the trouble to replace the original traction motors with new D77s, requiring truck modifications. So F series engine parts fits.

indyspy Wrote:

I had a UP guy once tell me that the two engines got enough 645F series parts (GP50/SD50) in them to move them to 3500HP to 3600HP per block. VERY UNOFFICAL mind you. But it makes sense. The engine gets a lot of TLC and upgrading the blocks with superior F series parts makes sense. He estimated the output from both at just under 7000HP from on board unoffical estimating.

I do know that UP went thru the trouble to replace the original traction motors with new D77s, requiring truck modifications. So F series engine parts fits.

Reply: ThanX! LOL--It's very interesting, UNOFFICIALLY, mind you, to learn this.

Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS