Western Railroad Discussion > Wild Day on the Needles Subdivision

Been in the process of getting out to the Needles Subdivision a few times to collect shots of areas I've yet to take photos of for an upcoming project I've been working on for a little bit now. Yesterday started out slow, with my dad and I camping out around Klondike waiting for a very late Amtrak Southwest Chief that was clogging up at least 20 westbounds between Barstow and Winslow, which made for a sparse morning (with hardly any eastbound traffic, also an anomaly), but an extremely busy afternoon. Not too much else to say so let's get to the photos.

-One of our goals for the day was the reverse curves between West Siberia and Klondike, with this time of year being prime for catching westbound traffic on the fill that snakes across the valley floor on the approach to East Ash Hill. Shortly after sunrise, BNSF 5950 and two other GE's haul a westbound intermodal up the stiff grade.
​-About an hour later, Amtrak 14 and 3 bring the westbound Southwest Chief through the same location. After Amtrak passed, the dispatcher began lining trains out of Needles and a flood of westbounds approached out position.
-Running shortly behind Amtrak was another westbound intermodal behind BNSF 7951 and company. The clouds in the background were a portent of things to come, the weather was erratic during our trip out there.

​-Zach

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-About an hour later and after a trip to Bagdad that yielded nothing remarkable enough to post, another westbound with a cut of bulkhead flats up front charges up the grade to Ash Hill behind 5 GE's and a Yellowbonnet GP60.
-After running to Ludlow to get some cold drinks, we set up at an overlook about 2 rail miles west of town. A westbound I believe off the Arizona and California heads up the grade to Pisgah behind a pair of GEVO's, with a cut of general freight up front and a long string of empty JB Hunt containers behind it.
-A wider shot of the same train. The clouds are really starting to build in at this point.

-Zach

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-ATCS was a huge help on this day. We had coverage down to Siberia and were able to see another set of westbounds approaching the split at East Siberia, so we stuck around for another westbound, this time a loaded grain train with a 600-class Warbonnet second out.
-The next westbound was just approaching Amboy, so we had the opportunity to rush down to Klondike and catch the BNSF 8115, either another train off of the A&C or a PSR train with a cut of UPS traffic up front and manifest traffic on the rear, heading up the grade. There were a lot of these two-unit wonders on this trip.
-About a half hour later, another westbound behind a phase 2 ES44DC heads up past the intermediate signal at MP 681.2

-Zach

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-The trains just kept on coming. The second that the previous manifest cleared, yet another 2 unit westbound came up around a stalled westbound at East Siberia with an NS SD70ACe second out. The PTC poll from the previous shot is behind the cab of the 4277.
-Not 15 minutes later, another westbound intermodal heads up through Klondike behind a standard set of GE power.
-A wider shot of the same train.

-Zach

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-We figured it would be easier to drop down to East Siberia than go up through Ash Hill, so we pushed eastwards to basically where we started the morning, only on the west side of the tracks. Another westbound intermodal with a CREX ES44AC third out charges upgrade.
-A few minutes later, another phase 2 ES44DC heads up an UPS train at the same location.
-Moving futher down, I wanted to get on the inside of the curve at the fill to capture both the distant mountains and clouds and to emphasize the radius of the curve that westbounds were tackling. Yet another westbound was approaching East Siberia (the flood was far from subsiding at this point) and we were treated to a colorful port train.

-Zach

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-We had been monitoring another pair of westbounds after the port train had cleared, one was sitting in the siding at Amboy waiting for a few westbounds to pass it while another was absolutely rocketing up the subdivision towards Ash Hill. Turns out the latter was light power (which we saw at Trojan and elected not to photograph) but the other was this SD70ACe-lead autorack train, which we caught at Trojan. The top of Amboy Crater can be seen peeking out to the right of the motive power.
-The train got hit by another siding, this time Ash Hill. We raced up to get it as the sun began to dip below the clouds and it passed under the signal bridge just a few minutes before the sun died.
-Not a minute later, the reason for it being put in the siding came up almost immediately afterwards, this westbound intermodal.

-Zach

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-At this point I didn't honestly realize I had shot over 800 pictures and ran out of card space the second a perfect last-night shot with a westbound came. A consolation came with the westbound rounding the curve at West Ash Hill with the mountains towards Crucero standing in stark relief in the background.
-A few minutes later, an eastbound grain train, one of the first eastbounds of the afternoon after the Cadiz Turn came through an hour earlier, heads upgrade with a Ferromex SD70ACe second out.
-With the grain train curving into Ash Hill, the westbound autorack train begins its descent into Ludlow after leaving the siding.

-Zach

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-And finally, another eastbound passes the rear of the autorack with another 600-class Warbonnet second out, with the clouds and I-40 forming a beautiful background.

Overall a pretty mixed day, I'm not 100% happy with my photos but I'm always striving to do better, so I hope that y'all enjoy them! I have finals at my college for the next two weeks but I'll definitely be going out again after they finish up.

-Zach

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Quite an aray of very nice shots.  The desert looks nice and good looking trains.
Brian Stevens 

Very impressive series...  Thanks for sharing!

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

Really NICE series!

Larry

Great actions shots!
GK

Awesome series!

Excellent shots. Seeing intermodal trains with UPS and two engines sure is strange. Empty repo moves maybe?

inCHI Wrote:
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> Excellent shots. Seeing intermodal trains with UPS
> and two engines sure is strange. Empty repo moves
> maybe?

Yeah, repo moves would make sense for the JB Hunt move that I caught at Ludlow (I'm pretty sure that that one was off of the A&C from Phoenix, as the timing and train composition made it seem so) but the other one is honestly a mystery to me as to its origin. It was empty as well but the freight looked nothing like what I've grown accustomed to seeing coming out of Cadiz.

-Zach

Great shots!

Splendid photographs. Good luck with your finals!

Steve Andrews
Ames, IA

Nice shots!! Always like the Blue and Yellow units in mainline freights. Probably to be set out in Barstow. Looked like a busy afternoon.

SantaFeRuss

Great stuff..!!  Thanks for posting.

Extraordinary set of images !!!     Thanks for sharing your quality images.  --Kelly