Western Railroad Discussion > Cima Hill and Kelso

In traveling from Las Vegas to the LA basin this past week, I detoured off I-15 to check out UP's Cima Subdivision. I caught up to a westbound coal loads working its way downgrade between Cima and Kelso. Even though the short 80 car train would have fit at any siding, the dispatcher decided to let the train decend the entire Cima Hill and roll into the long siding at Kelso to meet 3 eastbounds.

In shots 1-3. the train is passing thru Hayden, with a diverging approach signal at West Hayden announcing the upcoming siding at Kelso. In the distance in shot 3 you can see the headlight of the first eastbound approaching in the distance.

Kyle Rasmussen
Centerville, UT

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The depot at Kelso is now a museum and there is a nice area to walk around with discriptions of the town's railroad history. In picture 4 the DPU of the first eastbound intermodal is passing the depot, shoving in run 8 as the head end has already started its assault on Cima Hill. The westbound coal loads is stopped awaiting two more eastbounds.

The middle of the eastbounds is the hottest one on the rails, UP's ZLADV, overpowered as usual with 4 big units up front and a modest train that easily fits into the frame along the tangent main. The rear unit is one of the few 3000-series SD70ACes out running these days. The Z train is rolling quite casually down the main as the underpowered intermodal ahead struggles up the hill 6 miles into the siding at Dawes where it can let the hot Z train around.

After another 20 minutes, another eastbound intermodal will pass and the coal train will resume its trek westward to Yermo. I headed south to catch up with BNSF's transcon...

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Finally, a series of photos that shows truly how deceptively steep Cima HIll is.  Most photos don't catch this fact, as your 1st and 2nd photos make it appear that you're just on a flat piece of land in the desert somewhere.  I can see why the UP installed signs for the engineers stating "GRADE BEGINS" at certain locations.  On a dark night, if no train is wating in the distance, it would be impossible to tell you're on a long, descending grade.  That's what makes Cima so dangerous.  

As for hte dispatcher not letting that coal train take an earlier siding, maybe someone in UP remembers the horrific run-a-way train crash they had years ago, when a MOW train lost all its air (lack of maintenance, engineer and rear conductor mistakes) with the engineer calling out he had lost control of his train.  A TOFC train ahead of him, with a Centennial unit leading, heard the call and went to full throttle, and into overspeed, with the brakeman hitting the over ride button in the cab for the engineer.  He got up about 85 mph.  It wasn't enough.  The runaway train was then doing 114 mph downhill, and slammed into the caboose of the train ahead at a comparative speed of 30 mph, derailing the throwing the caboose off the tracks, killing the crewman, and partially stripping the diesel cab off the frame.  Just horrible.

Maybe UP has a new rule these days to not use those sidings for downhill trains unless ABSOLUTELY necessary.

Great photo's, just watch where you step, The Mojave Green is a agresive Side Winder with a Tude , and Cima Hill is his turf

Great series, Kyle! I think #3 & 5 would be my choices out of the group.... Thanks for sharing! 

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

Same here, really like #3 and #5.  Good work!

Randy Lundgren
Elgin, TX

Cima to Kelso is such a classic western location!

kyrasmus Wrote:
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> In shots 1-3. the train is passing thru Hayden,
> with a diverging approach signal at West Hayden
> announcing the upcoming siding at Kelso. In the
> distance in shot 3 you can see the headlight of
> the first eastbound approaching in the distance.

The yellow over yellow signal is an approach diverging. They are diverging at the next signal, in this case into Kelso siding. For it to be a diverging signal it would have to be red on the top signal head and then something else below that (red over yellow, etc.).

This is very important so that you can get your 12 mph stacker down enough to diverge in a couple miles.

Out

Nice series!