Western Railroad Discussion > Trona repair equipment at Nichols' Crossing after the quake

Last I heard Trona Railway is out of service awaiting repairs to the soda plant in town.  I've not been able to find out just what is broken in the soda works, but it was clear last Wednesday that nothing was moving on the line except track repair equipment.
Pic. 1)  The little yard at Nichols is located a few miles southwest of The Pinnacles in Teagle Wash valley, which the railroad climbs beside until it comes to Garden City and the UP at Searles Junction.  As shown in this image, the tracks at Nichols are all plugged up with equipment of one sort or another.  The rail-running backhoe and ballast regulator on the left rest on the main line, there is a balast train on the siding, and two soda hoppers pushed off onto both legs of the government spur.
Pic 2)   Balast cars splice two Trona units in the siding at Nichols.
Pic 3)  The most interesting car in the group appears to be a special boxcar with doors on the A-End, used for shipping solid rocket motors for whatever they get used for at China Lake.  Perhaps air-to-air missles?  The A-end of the car is positioned beside a concrete loading dock that has an electrical ground stud with resistance to ground documented in stencil.
More to come.

 

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/19 02:15 by CimaScrambler.

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Pic 4)  This alighnemt of the ex-SP tunnel motor behind one of the soda hopper cars tickled my fancy.
Pic 5)  The track equipment is forward from the ballast train facing north toward Trona.  Crew transport car, ballast regulator, rail-running backhoe.
Pic 6) Another view of the track equipment.

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/19 20:27 by CimaScrambler.

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Pic 7)  The backhoe has flanged wheels on a bracket beneath the front bucket and rear of the big drive wheels.  Looks like the axle of the rear flanged set contacts the big rubber tires of the drive wheels, making the thing capable of moving under its own power.
Pic 8)   The crew car is pretty classic old-school railroading stuff.
Pic 9)  Two years ago, a bit of gritty desert railroading grinds by on a 105 degree F afternoon west of the Pinnacles.
That's what I saw.  Comments and corrections welcomed.
- Kit
 

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/19 20:33 by CimaScrambler.

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Hey Kit, considering everything, thanks for your efforts, great shots and neat to see Trona handle
things without calling in outside help. As for the 105, yah that's about the low down here.

Out

Since China Lake is a Navy facility, that DoD car might also be for loading surface (ship) to air missles for testing.
(former USN/DoD contractor, mostly undersea stuff - torpedoes, mines, sonar, etc.)

2-10-2

China Lake invented air to air missiles. They have a super museum on base featuring them!

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Questions: 
How much damage did the railroad have? What was it?
Was there any damage on the UP line to Searles?

CimaScrambler Wrote:
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> Last I heard Trona Railway is out of service
> awaiting repairs to the soda plant in town.  I've
> not been able to find out just what is broken in
> the soda works,

I am not surprised if all three plants are shut down. (Or is it considered all one big interconnected plant now?)

When I was used to drive for Leaseway Bulk Services (AKA at one point Bulk Material Inc.) I spent 24 hours there one time doing an intra-plant transfer and then at different times pulled about a dozen loads of there either going to P&G in Sacramento or Lever Brothers in South Gate. This would have been in the late 80's. At that time, a lot of the plant was well dated and I can easily see how a magnitude 7.1 earthquake could crack pipes and damage some framework. (BTW, it was 124 degrees 20 feet from the dryer drum at 3 AM on a hot August day.) 

As I've mentioned in posts past we did all the hydraulics for the Clarkson slurry valves when the plant was
still owned by Kerr-McGee. The extensive ground based piping network has very little allowance for lateral
movement save the unit distortion per length. It's not much of stretch to believe that a quake would cause
extensive damage.

Out

Was the generator still running on the DODX car?

Greg Ramsey
Las Vegas, NV

Great photos Kit, that DODX car sure is interesting. That must be quite the operation to load and unload.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

Pic 3 looks like my Lionel "missile car" from 1965!  Couldn't sell those today - as I recall, it was spring loaded and could shoot an actual projectile.

"You'll shoot yer eye out, kid..."

Guess we were just smarter then - didn't take a special warning label for us to realize you didn't put your face right over the darn thing before you shot it...

"You'll shoot yer eye out, kid..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good stuff from days gone by.

CimaScrambler Wrote:
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> Last I heard Trona Railway is out of service
> awaiting repairs to the soda plant in town.  I've
> not been able to find out just what is broken in
> the soda works, but it was clear last Wednesday
> that nothing was moving on the line except track
> repair equipment.
> Pic. 1)  The little yard at Nichols is located a
> few miles southwest of The Pinnacles in Teagle
> Wash valley, which the railroad climbs beside
> until it comes to Garden City and the UP at
> Searles Junction.  As shown in this image, the
> tracks at Nichols are all plugged up with
> equipment of one sort or another.  The
> rail-running backhoe and ballast regulator on the
> left rest on the main line, there is a balast
> train on the siding, and two soda hoppers pushed
> off onto both legs of the government spur.
> Pic 2)   Balast cars splice two Trona units in
> the siding at Nichols.
> Pic 3)  The most interesting car in the group
> appears to be a special boxcar with doors on the
> A-End, used for shipping solid rocket motors for
> whatever they get used for at China Lake. 
> Perhaps air-to-air missles?  The A-end of the car
> is positioned beside a concrete loading dock that
> has an electrical ground stud with resistance to
> ground documented in stencil.
> More to come.
>
>  Sorry for the late response to this excellent post, but after reading all the responses, studying the photos, and checking Google Maps, I think I've got a better picture now. When I saw the DODX boxcar, I assumed (and yes, I know what assume means) that the car was spotted on the China Lake NWS trackage (inside the base). But then I thought that "...those tracks on the base are very rarely used if at all." Then an epiphany struck me like a 2x4 to the head. How could there be rail service to China Lake NWS if the rails were removed following the 1980's tunnel fire at Searles Junction? SP removed the rails from Searles to Lone Pine(?) (and maybe the Navy Base) and truncated the line about 2 miles north of Searles Junction, which is now primarily for hopper car storage. So when you said "Government Spur," I thought it was on the China Lake NWS, not located near the Trona Pinnacles. Apparently, Government contractors or the US Navy unload the car at this spur, and truck the cargo to the base. Thank you.

Haven't been to Trona in longer than I can remember or probably want to. What happened to the nicely repainted ex-ATSF SD45-2's they had?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/19 13:50 by trackplanner.

Those were returned to the lessor several years ago. They were or are leased out to various railroads.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/19 19:41 by EricSP.

atsfm177 Wrote:
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> Was the generator still running on the DODX car?

No sound or vibrations noted near the car.  It made some very welcome shade, however!

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography