Western Railroad Discussion > ZLCTM & UP 8454 on New Year's Day

I woke up early on New Year's Day and went hunting for ZLCTM as my first foaming adventure in 2025.

ZLCTM = Los Angeles, CA to Tacoma, WA, or LATC (Los Angeles Transportation Center) to TacSIM (Tacoma South Intermodal Terminal)

Post-holiday season ZLCTM has returned to running 2x2, and no 40' reefer containers. I decided to go out to California's Central Valley to nab it, as it had an interesting leader that I caught just before Thanksgiving in SoCal, SD70ACe UP 8454, repainted in the "flagless" scheme:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5954706,5954708#5954708

I made it past Turlock for the intercept, but lighting was challenging near Delhi, so I jumped back on Hwy 99 to try another location. Clouds showed up as I drove past Modesto, so I used the video-friendly neutral light to record the entire train near Covell (SP 109) on the Fresno Sub. Had the sun been out, the nose would have been shadows.

I wanted to nab the train as far south as possible from Stockton, to give myself ample time to find a "split-the-searchlights" composition that was better than what I did couple of weeks ago. I chose the searchlights at F109 for that.

ZLCTM had 292 axles, and hotbox detector at F109.5 said 58 mph.

Last clip of the video shows the UP 8454 meeting a westbound in San Timoteo Canyon in November.

That's it for the report.

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Real nice! 8454 looks good in the new paint.