Western Railroad Discussion > More Detours Threading the Bay Area Commute Traffic

The Coast Line has been getting a few West Colton - Roseville manifests every day. Seems like this is going to be the case at least through the weekend. I had a very busy day yesterday, but thanks to the gnarly tracking skills of JMF and CChan, I was able to estimate a 30 minute window where the RVWC would sneak through San Jose.

It is quite an interesting traffic puzzel when a through freight train needs to get from Oakland to San Jose at the peak of rush hour. I knew that the train had finished up it's crew change in Oakland around 3:30pm and was on the move South. The last known location was stopped in Fremont. I took the gamble that the dispatcher wanted to keep the train moving. The only problem was that it had a 40 minute window to swim against 2 ACE trains and one Capitol Corridor. I thought that it would play it safe by waiting for both ACE trains to pass Fremont.

I was wrong! Dispatcher 58 took the gamble and ran the RVWC right after the first ACE departed Fremont. DS58 would then hold the 2nd ACE at Santa Clara hoping that the manifest would make it onto the Santa Clara siding. DS58 also held the NB Capitol in San Jose until the freight made it through.

1. MRVWC taking the siding through College Park - You can see ACE train 8 getting the signal in the back ground
2. Heading towards the San Jose skyline with CMOF to the right
3. Caltrain express train hitting the gas out of San Jose

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You captured the smoky conditions well in the first one and an SJC approach as well as the trains in the third! Good work!

The 7691 met 537 at Coast, ran ahead of 538 and an ACE to Newark and met the MRVSJ at Albrae (I think), so the 58 dispatcher was busy yesterday.

Jim B

Does anyone else agree that the capacity shortage in the bay area is a bit ridiculous?  UP owns both the SP and the WP and they run far fewer trains than in the heyday of the former railroads.  Yet years ago they chose to close most of the WP down entirely in this area.  We have passenger and freight fighting for capacity when San Jose station could have been bypassed and the WP milpitas sub could have been connected directly to the coast sub below all of the passenger headache south of Tamien station.  Too late now, the NIMBY's would throw a fit if UP ever tried to revive the line (assuming they havn't completely sold the ROW altogether)  When its gone, its gone.  Consequently, our railroad system will never be able to expand capacity in California again. The right of ways will simply continue be underutilized and trucks will continue to dominate and destroy our highways. 

Great pictures though.  Its nice to see some real traffic on my old stomping ground.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/16 17:32 by HogheadMike.

HogheadMike Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone else agree that the capacity shortage
> in the bay area is a bit ridiculous?  UP owns
> both the SP and the WP and they run far fewer
> trains than in the heyday of the former
> railroads.  Yet years ago they chose to close
> most of the WP down entirely in this area.  We
> have passenger and freight fighting for capacity
> when San Jose station could have been bypassed and
> the WP milpitas sub could have been connected
> directly to the coast sub below all of the
> passenger headache south of Tamien station.  Too
> late now, the NIMBY's would throw a fit if UP ever
> tried to revive the line (assuming they havn't
> completely sold the ROW altogether)  When its
> gone, its gone.  Consequently, our railroad
> system will never be able to expand capacity in
> California again. The right of ways will simply
> continue be underutilized and trucks will continue
> to dominate and destroy our highways. 
>
> Great pictures though.  Its nice to see some real
> traffic on my old stomping ground.


I'll take a stab at the answer. The UP has all of the capacity they need to run their railroad. If the state wants to run more passenger trains, then (in the eyes of the UP) they can pay for improvements.


Great pictures from the OP! Between West Colton and Roseville, Q=south and M=north.

Nice catch! Gotta make sure you live up to your TO name (SCU and Foamer), right?

I was ready to head out in hopes of catching the UP 2663 after hearing IOTD chirps on my scanner, but stopped trying when I heard DS 58 answer ACE #8 about the color he got, "one taking the siding at (CP) Expressway" as I knew I'd miss it in the messy Silicon Valley commute traffic. Thanks for posting the photo of that train here instead.