Western Railroad Discussion > Trip to the Arizona & California-Day 1

Late last month, my friend Mike and I wanted to give the Arizona & California Railroad one more try before the heat of summer arrives. Their inconsistency has made them quite the challenge these days, sometimes frustrating and other times rewarding. By no means are we experts on their operations but after several recent trips, Sunday seems to be the only sure day that they run west from Parker, AZ to Cadiz, CA. They don’t normally run on Friday or Saturday and from talking with an employee, the other days depend on when the BNSF connection at Castle Hot Springs arrives. On our last two trips, we got burned on Monday both times when the westbound trains ran out of time and went dead at Aguila, AZ. I’ll get into the Monday details from this trip when I do the “Day 2” report.

On Sunday March 24, we left home knowing that the weather would be dicey, clouds were predicted in the afternoon but we decided to take our chances. We arrived in Parker at 10:30AM and found the westbound train tied down just south of town. Business is apparently good as today’s train was three former BNSF C44-9W’s 4403, 4401, 4402 and exactly 100 cars. After some lunch, we went back to the depot and waited for the crew to show up. By 2:00PM, the crew had arrived and by 2:30 the train was on the move.

1) Our first stop was just across the river at Earp, CA, I wanted something other than the standard Colorado River bridge shot. In hindsight, we should have stuck with the sure thing.

2) The farther west we went, the cloudier it got. The weatherman was right but we were still able to hunt down a few holes of light. One of my favorite shots was a grab from the Highway 62 crossing near Grommet.

3) A few miles west, the train banks into a nice pocket of sunlight.
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/24 22:46 by oyw.

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4) The train seemed to be in no hurry and the shots were all starting to look the same. I tried to incorporate some wildflowers in this view just east of Rice.

5) As we left Highway 62 at Freda and started up Cadiz Road, we passed about a dozen maintenance trucks and also caught up to a hi-rail pick up causing the train to stop and wait. At Sablon, we found several pieces of tied down trackwork equipment and a cool trailer with a Genesee and Wyoming “Engineering Services” logo. We figured the trucks we passed earlier must have been working here.

6) The clouds now looked hopeless and just as we started back for Parker, the train stopped again. Ten minutes later the sun popped out and, after a couple of shots, the train was on the move once more.
 

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It was getting late but since we were so close to Milligan we kept driving, hoping for another shot. We checked out the notorious section of soft dirt on Cadiz Road just west of there, which was no problem at all although we had 4WD. The light at the curved trestle here was awesome but we could see the train stopped again in the distance, so we left to meet the train.

7) Of course it started moving and we had to take a “shoot from the hip” desperation shot at Milligan, our last of the day.

It was now 6:30PM and we wanted to get back to pavement before dark. We made it to Parker before 8:00 but had to settle on fast food for dinner, the price you pay for chasing trains too late. Not a spectacular day but definitely a good one, and the clouds added a nice touch. I will get to Day 2 as soon as I am able. Stay tuned and thanks for looking, so far.

OYW
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/24 22:50 by oyw.

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Beautiful shots, especially with the wildflowers. Dramatic lighting, bright colors, gorgeous scenery. Thank you for sharing, and I hope you got a decent breakfast after all that.

That rail in photo #6 looks light--anyone know what size rail they use here?

What is the dominant traffic flow to this RR?  Is most freight to / from the PNW, because they always seem to run everything via Barstow.  Or is that for classification reasons?  Do they hand off any traffic to BNSF in Phoenix?

Glad to hear traffic is good, considering the Class 1's moved 10% ton-miles last year (NOT good).  How extensive is A & C's switching network to various customers?  What city or cities are their main traffic generators?  Any reefer business, being that so much produce is still grown down there??

Coach, the online reefer business is non-existent, what there was came out of Blythe before Trail-America abandoned
the branch. There is some odd container traffic of alfalfa pellets shipped. alfalfa is the primary agricultural product of the
area. Aquila which is mentioned, used to ship melons but that's gone to trucks. There is inbound chicken feed to Rose
Acres and some lpg business into Parker. The real value of the line is as a bridge carrrier between Barstow (BNSF) and
Phoenix. Once the large IM Terminal is built in Suprise/Wittman I'd look for BNSF to try and reacquire the line.

Out 

Nice set!  Thanks for getting out there.

texchief1

This looks like a great chase, and the clouds make the scenes all the better. (If not a little challenging to find shooting locations.) Looking forward to seeing part 2.

Sean

Excellent.
JB

great images out in the desert and i liked the clouds.  thanks for making the effort to get out there and chase this train....................

66

Killer shots Bob! The clouds definitely added to your Great pictures!

oyw Wrote:
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> Late last month, my friend Mike and I wanted to
> give the Arizona & California Railroad one more
> try before the heat of summer arrives.

I had a chat with Mike couple of months ago... and I tried my hand at A&C a week after your visit reported here. Clouds were worse near Rice, but I'll elaborate on that later.

Great stuff so far! Looking forward to your next installment.
 

oyw Wrote:
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>> It was now 6:30PM and we wanted to get back to
> pavement before dark. 

Excellent photos and wow that's a big train! 

I understand your sentiment about getting back to the highway.  It was a bit unnerving for me when we were out there so far away from civilization or even a paved road, and no phone service and surely a VERY expensive tow if we got stuck.  Was glad to get back to the main road.

Andy

Textbook ‘oyw’ shots! Yes out there alone on Cadiz Rd. is beautiful, humbling and so peaceful.

Callum_out:  thank you for the answers!!  I hope to go visit that area next winter time.

very nice set

Nice pics!!

Great post Bob, nice to see those A&C Dash 9s with their full decal set now.

Rich

Great shots, Bob!

FYI. I drove Cadiz Road from SR62 to Cadiz last night, partly after dark.  The west half is a mess of washouts where it is crossed by stream channels.  Some of the cross channels are very abrupt, I crossed them at a crawl.  Probably it is left overs from the tropical storm remnant that blew through the area last summer, dumping a lot of rain along the way.

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography