Western Railroad Discussion > Lathrop Question and Tracy Surprise

Yesterday I did my first post-Covid venture out of the inner Bay Area to go to Linden (CA) to get an orchard ladder for my fruit trees.  On the way out while on I-205 through Tracy, I spied a few UP units down in Tracy on the Cal Northern.  So I made a mental note to come back through Tracy and see if they were still there.  See surprise below!

1)  In Lathrop on the former WP, next to the Intermodal facility, caught this mixed freight northbound toward Stockton.  Made me wonder where this would have come from - did it come over Altamont from the Bay Area on the old WP?  Or was it a local up the valley on the former SP that just switched to the old WP at Lathrop for some reason.  There wasn't any activity over on the former SP, so it didn't look like they would have put this train on this line to decongest the old SP.  Any thoughts?
2)  In Tracy - here was the surprise - those UP units I saw were the front of a line of about 50-60 mostly old GM units in storage with a few older GEs mixed in. 
3) Same.

 

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UP 2574 was MWCEU-07 (West Colton - Eugene).

Andrew

florida581 Wrote:
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> UP 2574 was MWCEU-07 (West Colton - Eugene).
>
> Andrew

Which does work in Stockton and is why the Oakland Sub routing at Lathrop.

OK thanks all!

dwatry Wrote:

> 2)  In Tracy - here was the surprise - those UP
> units I saw were the front of a line of about
> 50-60 mostly old GM units in storage with a few
> older GEs mixed in. 

Those have been there for about a year now:  https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4856229

Lots of boxcars in Tracy---then again, all the tomato packing plants south of Tracy use lots of them for shipments.

Nice story and pics Duncan.

Evan - guess I missed the post a year ago!

Posted from iPhone

That train also set out power at Lathrop. These days PSR has most of the manifests stopping to setout or pickup power and cars all along the way between Roseville and West Colton. Makes it hard to get over the road when you keep stopping to do work.

Yeah I wondered about that.  Would be hard to imagine a one-unit train making it over Tehachapi.