Western Railroad Discussion > Overpowered UP Salad Shooter ~ Nampa Sub

My catch of the day was an overpowered EB Salad Shooter as it blasted through Robinson Road, a couple of miles east of the UP Nampa Idaho Yard.
With six motors and about twelve reefers, it got up to track speed very quickly.
It went by so fast that I had trouble getting my shots, which is why my 2nd shot is a little blurry, even at a 1/500 shutter speed.
I also didn't have time to pay attention to which engines were running.
This was possibly a repo power move, or perhaps the power will be needed if the reefers get added onto another EB train in Pocatello.
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I haven't seen one of these trains in awhile, but I thought they were running them midweek?
Phil

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The two head units are the power for the salad shooter.  The 4 units behind that are GE DPU's getting set out in Pocatello and placed onto a westbound grain or soda ash unit train as a mid train set.

repo = repossesion or repositioning ?

It's the heart of harvest season, and only 12 reefers?!?!  Rail service must not be a very attractive option any more.

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
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> repo = repossesion or repositioning ?

With the railroads it's always repositioning.

As I recall at the morning meetings they always called them "repo trains" not bare tables.
JB- Omaha

Thanks for clarifying, Mike.
I thought of you when I shot this train.
You were on the last salad shooter I caught a few months back east of Kuna.

Westbound are empties, eastbounds are combined/filled at Green River to go to CSX in Chicago.

They use to have longer dedicated trains but the contract was lost. Most other loads are sent on the respective "Q" trains east.

The dedicated one has a ZGRxxx symbol when rebuilt in Green River.

For repo trains, that's the short hand name for the computer, but R at the end of the symbol is for reposition. More commonly seen for empty autoracks, well cars, etc.

MW810 Wrote:
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> Westbound are empties, eastbounds are
> combined/filled at Green River to go to CSX in
> Chicago.
>
> They use to have longer dedicated trains but the
> contract was lost. Most other loads are sent on
> the respective "Q" trains east.
>
> The dedicated one has a ZGRxxx symbol when rebuilt
> in Green River.
>
> For repo trains, that's the short hand name for
> the computer, but R at the end of the symbol is
> for reposition. More commonly seen for empty
> autoracks, well cars, etc.   What   contract   is it that your  talking about?    Thanks.

Good catch. Yeah, this is occasionally a thing that happens now, I guess. I saw one a couple of weeks ago that had 6 locos and 8 cars. The back four engines came back west as a soda ash DPU set a couple of days later. 


> I haven't seen one of these trains in awhile, but
> I thought they were running them midweek?
> Phil

Weds and Fri EB as far as I know. The ones I've seen this year have been later in the day than they were previously -- crossing into Idaho around mid-afternoon rather than in the morning. Maybe why you aren't seeing them.

 However, a couple of weeks ago when I was over there I saw an EB out of Huntington early Sunday morning as well -- so I'm wondering if the schedule is a little looser now, or they're running an extra train every once in a while given the time of year, or something...

WBs are out of Nampa Weds and Sunday mornings as far as I know.