Western Railroad Discussion > UP intermodal EBD over WP/Arnold Loop

Hey, folks....

Report from Wendover saying "some intermodal eastbound came rolling through...." yesterday sometime (evening?). Guess was it was an 'KOAG2', or an 'IOASC'...? or? 

Anyone see this or hear the chatter to confirm? Since when is U.P. running any intermodal over Arnold Loop on the WP? Was there a derailment on the SP causeway or what? 

---Gerrypaul

Occassional intermodals running both directions on the old WP seem to be a thing now, since around the first of the year. I got surprised by an eastbound one just east of Tobar back in early January, surprised in that none of the signals I saw before encountering it indicated a train approaching. About a week later I saw from a distance a westbound stack train at Ruby. I’m not sure what’s up with them, but it seems to coincide with UP downgrading Roper yard and “PSR” implementation. Nice to see them after a 10 or so year absence.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Posted from iPhone

Sounds like they're starting to treat the Ex-WP as a third main. Use it when they need the capacity.

Hey, Jeff.....

Thank you for your heads-up on this issue! 
Do you please happen to have any idea on the symbols for any of these trains? 
The drift I am getting is that, long story short, Omaha has brought back to life the 'OASC' and that, perhaps to prevent congestion on the old SP route, is running it as an 'IOASC' and consistently on the WP. eastbound intermodal departures from Oakland seem now to be an 'OASC' and an 'OAG2'. 
I realize I can easily be mistaken on this, but the eastbound and westbound intermodals over the WP would help to fill out my trainwatching and what to expect. 
Do not worry about disappointing me if you don't know. My inference from your previous post was that you don't know (or you would have said?). 

Thanks, Gerrypaul

You’re welcome. Unfortunately I’m not always in a position to know the symbols, so I can’t be much help there.

What I can tell you from anecdotal observations is that traffic on the old WP is still very much hit or miss. Some days you might see 3-4 trains in daylight, other days none, and traffic is still primarily westbound. I’ve gone to SLC twice in the last week or so, one day (a Wednesday) we saw one eastbound coming off the Ola loop very late in the day- couldn’t tell what kind of consist due to light and distance- and then the other day (a Monday) we passed an eastbound Dirty Dirt train from San Francisco right where the tracks cross under 80 below Cliffside and then at least two westbounds on the salt flats, one grain and one coal. Incidentally most of the coal trains probably won’t last much longer, as NV Energy and Idaho Power are negotiating the shutdown of the Valmy power plant in the near term future- the plant is being life cycled soon, the only question is when- and Newmont’s TS plant at Dunphy keeps talking about going to natural gas from the Ruby Pipeline built a couple years ago not far to the north. The old WP could get a lot quieter when those go away.

And the main reason I could see right now from my outside casual observer post why UP might have congestion on the old SP is if train lengths are up enough that few to none of the sidings allow trains to pass anymore. This has been the reason why eastbounds have been few and far between on the WP.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Posted from iPhone

Should be the IOASC/IOADU pair running east on the Shafter Sub to SLC, with each train running three-times-weekly. The INPOA does work at the SLC so that would be the wb intermodal train on the line. No idea if the ISCOAs are now running in place of the IOGOAs, and I haven't been able to verify if the IOAG2/IG2OAs are running again or not; those trains would probably route ex-SP to Ogden as I doubt the trains would have any work at SLC. All of this subject to change, of course, with the ever-changing PSR plan now in effect on the UP.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/19 08:41 by critter.

The following are all the scheduled intermodals between Oakland / Lathrop and Utah:

IG2LT daily
INPOA daily 
IOADU Su, We, Fr
IOASC Tu, We, Th, Sa
ZG2OA Mo-Sa
ZLTG2 Tu-Sa
ZLTG2B daily 

INPOA, IOADU, and IOASC go via Salt Lake City.  The rest via the Causeway. 

Andrew

florida581 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The following are all the scheduled intermodals
> between Oakland / Lathrop and Utah:
>
> IG2LT daily
> INPOA daily 
> IOADU Su, We, Fr
> IOASC Tu, We, Th, Sa
> ZG2OA Mo-Sa
> ZLTG2 Tu-Sa
> ZLTG2B daily 
>
> INPOA, IOADU, and IOASC go via Salt Lake City.
>  The rest via the Causeway. 

Thanks for the clarification here. So the INPOAs are now picking up the empty boxes (at SLC) for forwarding to Oakland. And no IOAG2/IG2OA symbols like I've been told were back running.

Appreciate the update.

I believe you neglected to include the once per week (Sunday into Oak) : ZNPOA which is a very hot train with about half the consist being K Line (now ONE) container loads of frozen meat products. It can be identified by the red power units which supply the refrigeration to the nine product loaded containers on the five platform bathtub cars.BTW this business really taken off in the past few years.

kalthoff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe you neglected to include the once per
> week (Sunday into Oak) : ZNPOA which is a very hot
> train with about half the consist being K Line
> (now ONE) container loads of frozen meat products.

Yes, interesting to note the smaller number of K Line containers on the weekly ZNPOAs now, with more MOL/Cronos refrigerated boxes showing up on the trains in recent months. I can see where MOL would come into the mix, but had no idea Cronos was affiliated with ONE group.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/19 14:00 by critter.

kalthoff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe you neglected to include the once per week (Sunday into Oak) : ZNPOA which is a very hot
> train with about half the consist being K Line (now ONE) container loads of frozen meat products.
> It can be identified by the red power units which supply the refrigeration to the nine product
> loaded containers on the five platform bathtub cars.BTW this business really taken off in the
> past few years.

ZNPOA symbol is no longer used. Not sure how that traffic moves now, but it isn't on the ZNPOA.

ble692 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ZNPOA symbol is no longer used. Not sure how that
> traffic moves now, but it isn't on the ZNPOA.

Must be INPOA for Friday train as well.