Western Railroad Discussion > ILBG4-ish Train in SoCal

In the past, this eastbound was called ILBDU (Long Beach, CA to Dupo, IL). Regardless of what it might be called now, the train almost always was very long and underpowered, at least for the Beaumont Hill segment of the trip. Often times, manned helpers would assist.

No manned helpers this time. They did go on duty later to help a westbound stacker that stalled between Amtrak Palm Springs Depot and West Palm Springs. The stalled stacker could have been the counterpart to this train (IG4LB), all marine (40', 20', 45') boxes.

Normally, I don't video-document ILBDU-ish trains as they're too long and too slow, but the front of this train was loaded with empty 40' reefer boxes (ONE and others), and looked like a counterpart to the "Super Beef" ZG2OAB that I see in NorCal on Sundays/Mondays. So is this "Leftover Beef"? I decided to record the entire train.

I chased it further east to pick a spot where the train ran fast enough so that the entire train would fit within 6 minutes without using elapsed time to shorten the video. That was not going to be possible on the west end of Beaumont Hill, as this train was crawling up the grade and delaying 2 Z trains behind it. DS 244 did not want to delay couple of westbound manifests coming down Beaumont Hill, so the first of the Z, ZCIG4 that I posted about earlier was running yellows and restricteds behind this train until it crossed over at Hinda.

- Video of the entire 2x2x0 train at Cabazon. Classic "K-Line" boxes, both reefer and non-reefer can be seen.

 

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This post is specific to marine stacker foamers and ZG2OAB "Midwest Beef & Pork" foamers, so ignore this and go to the next post, if you wish.

People paying attention to the video above should notice that beige-with-pink-lettering ONE boxes are not necessarily reefer boxes. Clue is that the non-reefer ones have corrugated sides, while the reefer ones don't. The obvious difference, reefer on one end of the box can't be verified all the time unless done on purpose like I'm doing on this post.

- During my rainy day foaming 2 weekends ago, non-reefer ONE behind my rental Nissan Kicks.
- Same box, angled to show the other end.
- Nice-looking CEFX 1055 was part of the mid-train DPU set, facing backwards.

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After I recorded the ZCIG4 between Beaumont and Banning, I stayed in the area and waited for this eastbound Z to show up. While I don't know the symbol, my guess is that it is the ZLAMQ (Mesquite, TX), as it's rare for the current iteration of ZLAAI to have trailers. ZMQLA/ZLAMQ I've seen in the past almost always had trailers. Lack of FedEx boxes or trailers means it's unlikely the ZLAMN (Marion, AR, which is very close to Memphis, TN, FedEx's main hub).

I guessed this train was coming sight unseen, by how soon the hotbox detector "talked" after ZCIG4 passed it (hint: high priority). My guess was reinforced when DS 244 was talking to ILBG4 about 2 trains passing it near Beaumont.

5 locomotives up front, with the new-ish DC --> AC converted C44ACM UP 9787 second in consist.

That's it for the report.

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Nice pics and videos Charles! Good snapshot of UP's current PSR mentality.

Nice video.