Western Railroad Discussion > Rail-Ex Delano Calif

Another one of those I have been trying to shoot for many a year now. Along CA 99 at Delano is the large Rail- Ex facility. Lots of reefer cars usually can be seen while passing here. Have seen the ex UP SW10M a few times while here, but never close enough to get a shot. Solved that this morning. Saw the unit out on the tracks by the UP and pulled over the shoulder and grabbed this shot of it. NREX SW10M 1284 is seen here shoving back into the plant. How many trains does UP get out of here now a days? The past 2 days, those being Sat & Sun, nothing was out "front" here along 99. Today there was this. Thanks for looking. Ben

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When I was out there last month, all of the signage had been change to Cold Connect. I did not see anything that said RailEx.

UP bought them out last January,
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

The have 5 day a week service out of Delano now. Departures are scheduled for 09:00 Tuesday-Saturday.

ns2557 Wrote:
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> Another one of those I have been trying to shoot
> for many a year now. Along CA 99 at Delano is the
> large Rail- Ex facility. Lots of reefer cars
> usually can be seen while passing here. Have seen
> the ex UP SW10M a few times while here, but never
> close enough to get a shot. Solved that this
> morning. Saw the unit out on the tracks by the UP
> and pulled over the shoulder and grabbed this shot
> of it.

Another railfan with "car trouble"!  Lucky you, I passed there 10 or 15 times when it was Railex and never saw that unit out on the Hwy. 99 side.

mapboy

You can usually see it from the road that runs along the north side of the property. Unfortunately there is no way to photograph it without stopping in the street, jumping the curb, or being a passenger.

For those who might be interested, here is some history of this unit.

Built in April 1953 as UP SW9 1832; rebuilt to UP SW10 1221 in May 1981; retired by UP in July 1998; sold to Connell Finance; leased to CP in October 1999, renumbered to CP 1284; lease canceled due to reliability problems; sold to National Rail Equipment (NREX), renumbered as NREX 1284.

I don't have any information about its movements as NREX.

Don Strack

Here it is 3/12/14. Crew spotted it for me before going to work.

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mapboy Wrote:
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> ns2557 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Another one of those I have been trying to
> shoot
> > for many a year now. Along CA 99 at Delano is
> the
> > large Rail- Ex facility. Lots of reefer cars
> > usually can be seen while passing here. Have
> seen
> > the ex UP SW10M a few times while here, but
> never
> > close enough to get a shot. Solved that this
> > morning. Saw the unit out on the tracks by the
> UP
> > and pulled over the shoulder and grabbed this
> shot
> > of it.
>
> Another railfan with "car trouble"!  Lucky you, I
> passed there 10 or 15 times when it was Railex and
> never saw that unit out on the Hwy. 99 side.
>
> mapboy

In Ben's case, he pulled over his Semi...

UP had a ton of these older reefers parked in the Newark, CA yard behind our truck yard.  They're all gone now--maybe they've gone to Delano.

If they're doing 5x / week service now, how big are the trains--what are the average car counts?  Are the cars set out and picked up, or is their "departure" still a dedicated unit train?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/17 08:34 by coach.

coach Wrote:
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> UP had a ton of these older reefers parked in the
> Newark, CA yard behind our truck yard.  They're
> all gone now--maybe they've gone to Delano.
>
> If they're doing 5x / week service now, how big
> are the trains--what are the average car counts?
>  Are the cars set out and picked up, or is their
> "departure" still a dedicated unit train?

Here's a couple of back lit, shady looks at Saturday's 11/11/2017 ZDLSP.

1) From tunnel 29 on Donner Pass
2) Carpenter Road, Colfax CA


Mark
Sparks, NV

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Trains are not big as the pictures above showed. The train is a unit train only between Delano and Sparks (in both directions). Symbols are ZDLSPP from Delano-Sparks and ZSPDLP from Sparks-Delano. In Sparks the eastbound cars are added to the KOAG2 for further movement east. Westbound cars are moving on the ZG2LT which sets them out at Sparks, and from Sparks they move to Delano on the ZSPDLP. This change has also resulted in the trains between Delano and Sparks now mostly running with pairs of grimy Sierra dupes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/17 11:24 by ble692.

ble692 Wrote:
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> Trains are not big as the pictures above showed.
> The train is a unit train only between Delano and
> Sparks (in both directions). Symbols are ZDLSPP
> from Delano-Sparks and ZSPDLP from Sparks-Delano.
> In Sparks the eastbound cars are added to the
> KOAG2 for further movement east. Westbound cars
> are moving on the ZG2LT which sets them out at
> Sparks, and from Sparks they move to Delano on the
> ZSPDLP. This change has also resulted in the
> trains between Delano and Sparks now mostly
> running with pairs of grimy Sierra dupes.

The train was five times larger the next morning after adding it to the "Sparks Fill". I wasn't able to see how many cars ended up on the KOAG2 when it headed east.

Mark
Sparks, NV

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In this thread about Donner symbol changes-
<https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4410899,4410948#msg-4410948&gt;
I reported on two early train lengths:
"On Friday, 11/3/17, at 1002 north of Goshen in the San Joaquin Valley, I saw 10 (should be empty) reefers southbound with 1x1 power, should be the ZSPDLP mentioned in the thread.  Shortly at 1008, south of Goshen, I saw 10 reefers northbound with one unit, should be the ZDLSPP."

The KOAG2 at Sparks on Friday the 10th (KOAG2-09?) picked up about 40 reefers and box cars.  That includes reefers off the ZDLSPP and canned goods, wine, reefers of cheese and more off a Roseville manifest.

mapboy