Western Railroad Discussion > A few trains through Riverside, CA yesterday morning...

I usually spend every other Friday doing some railfanning near home in Riverside, and it has been in the early to mid-morning during the summer.  A maintenance minder light on my Honda coming on last week meant that this Friday morning would be spent at Riverside Honda, so that was where my railfanning would have to take place.  After checking the car in, I started my usual routine of getting my steps in for the day walking on the streets around the dealership.  But before venturing too far, I spent about 30 minutes starting at 8am at the nearby Adams Street grade crossing of BNSF's busy San Bernardino Sub.

1) The first train would be a westbound manifest, mostly with BNSF covered hoppers as well as boxcars, led by a trio of ES44s.  Luckily he had a pair of DPs on the rear end and I caught him passing the palm tree at the Lexus dealership.  I'm guessing the train was an M-BARWAT, M-BARLAC, or MBARSDG (or do those symbols still exist for trains to Watson Yard, LA Commerce, and San Diego - respectively?).

2-3) Another westbound headlight quickly appeared to the east on the other main, and I crossed Adams to get some shade and open space away from the grade crossing.  I was surprised to see it was a late-running Amtrak Southwest Chief #3, passing me at about 8:30am.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/21 14:26 by PasadenaSub.

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Figuring it would be some time until a favorable-for-the-lighting eastbound would show up (due to the 2 previous westbounds racing each on other on both mains), I continued my walking - and would return to the grade crossing about an hour later and caught 2 more trains.

4) Metrolink eastbound Train #800 on the IEOC line from Oceanside was running a few minutes late - but still managed to make it to my location before the sun got too high.

5-6) After receiving a call from the service rep at Honda saying my car would take a little longer, I decided to stick around the Adams crossing until almost 10am.  I was rewarded with a westbound 3x0x0 stack train, and then it was off to the air-conditioned waiting room at the dealership.

Thanks for looking,

Rich



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/21 14:23 by PasadenaSub.

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Nice! Plus very efficient use of your vehicle's down time!
(Why sit around in the dealers waiting room?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Nice shots Rich, way to mix business with pleasure!

I see a cone and a signal maintainer's truck in the first photo.  Any indication they might be getting ready to replace the searchlights there at the Arlington crossovers?

PasadenaSub Wrote:
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> 1) The first train would be a westbound manifest,
> mostly with BNSF covered hoppers as well as
> boxcars, led by a trio of ES44s.  Luckily he had
> a pair of DPs on the rear end and I caught him
> passing the palm tree at the Lexus dealership. 
> I'm guessing the train was an M-BARWAT, M-BARLAC,
> or MBARSDG (or do those symbols still exist for
> trains to Watson Yard, LA Commerce, and San Diego
> - respectively?).

Those trains are now H-BARWAT1, H-BARLAC1 and H-BARSDG1.  The 7/31 H-BARSDG1 had a lot of auto racks, especially in front of the DPUs.  The H-BARWAT1 is almost all tank cars and covered hoppers.  It sounds like the H-BARLAC1 which has a lot of box cars, corn syrup and vegetable oil.

mapboy

From my distant vantage - they seemed to be working on the turnouts on both sides of the tracks for the 2 hours I observed them.  But they could have been doing something with the signals, though I saw no new signals being constructed.

Rich

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> I see a cone and a signal maintainer's truck in
> the first photo.  Any indication they might be
> getting ready to replace the searchlights there at
> the Arlington crossovers?