Western Railroad Discussion > Lucking out last Sunday (2/18)

Last Sunday I rode up to Cajon with my friend Mike and we were quickly chased to the east side of Summit due to thick low clouds in the basin. That was OK because the night before I had spotted  a clean warbonnet leader coming west on one of the railcams so the plan was to intercept and follow it back, living happily ever after. Wrong! As we found out later, it never showed up in daylight and they had added a crappy orange BNSF leader in Barstow anyway.

The morning started out very busy and due to congestion, several westbounds were backed up from Summit east. Thinking this “phantom” warbonnet was on its way, we decided to “jump the gap” (where you lose sight of the tracks between Hesperia and Victorville) and go find it. Just as we crossed over the tracks on the new Green Tree Blvd overpass near Frost, we saw another slow moving westbound but could not quite make out the power. I voted to keep going but Mike thought it looked “different” and insisted we turn around to check, good thing as it turned out to be one of the cleanest BNSF SD70ACe’s we had seen in years.

1) Before we even knew what it was, we set up just east of Bear Valley Road near Thorn in Victorville. BNSF 9033 and GE 4406 were paired up on a maritime stack train and so begins the chase.

2) Catching up to it at MP 42, now in Hesperia, a moving roster shot of the spiffy ACe from the passenger seat.

3) Coming into the curve at Lemon St.
 

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4) At Main St, the entire train including the rear DP unit is visible.             

5) A bit further west, a standard ¾ wedge shot.

6) And finally the train begins to curve away from the sun near Ranchero Road (all three taken in Hesperia).
 

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Still unaware of the whereabouts of our warbonnet we began east, this time making it to Oro Grande before turning back to chase a westbound manifest with a Ferromex on the rear faced out. Right around this time we got a call from a good friend who had found out the warbonnet was still several hours east of Barstow.

7) By now it was almost 10AM so we waited at MP 49, near the Cajon Pass railcam. BNSF 7351 leads, what we later found out was a Barstow to San Diego manifest, into the curve.

8) Going away at MP 49, FXE SD70ACe 4064 and BNSF 5292 are the rear DP’s.

9) One last train, not far behind was the UP 9614W with a fairly new rebuilt, also near MP 49.

I should probably apologize for the redundant barrage of BNSF 9033 photos but I thought that was a pretty rare catch thanks to Mike. The warbonnet would have been nice but, what we got more than made up for it.

Thanks to all for looking,

OYW
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/24 23:27 by oyw.

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Very nice series!  Really like the ACes.

texchief1

Very nicely done! Thanks for posting.

PCBill

There's something wrong, its Clean!   

Great shots.  I think the SD70 ACE is my all time favorite "modern" locomotive. 

Dave

Great bunch as usual.
JB

Very enjoyable series! BNSF 9033 sure looked spiffy!

Larry

Good stuff.  Always nice to see ACes leading and DPU facing out in any paint scheme.  Thanks for showing the nice locations too.
Brian Stevens

I never get tired of photos from the Cajon Pass area. Makes me look forward to my next visit to Hill 582. Since I live in South Dakota, these visits are not frequent enough... 

I beg to differ, sir! You say luck, where most of the rest of us say ‘talent behind the camera’… ☺️

Posted from iPhone

Another great set from the east side of Cajon, Bob.  I'd say you did great with the BNSF ACe, as they aren't too common leading in our part of the system.  Very common on the UP here in SoCal, but not on the other major player's rails.

Rich

Nice group, and definitely a clean ACe!
GK

oyw Wrote:
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> 7) By now it was almost 10AM so we waited at MP
> 49, near the Cajon Pass railcam. BNSF 7351 leads,
> what we later found out was a Barstow to San Diego
> manifest, into the curve.

I see another Pumpkin SD70ACe hiding 3rd in consist there.

I keep forgetting how rare SD70ACes in SoCal on the BNSF side are, because I catch EMD leaders quite often on the UP side when I'm there.

> Thanks to all for looking,

Thanks for the great shots.

Great bunch, a little good fortune never hurts...

JG

Nice pics!!