Western Railroad Discussion > The ZG2LT Consolation Prize When the BNSF QBCPVJ Half Delivers

I was in the mountains solo around Donner Summit the week of July 28th. (Well, I had the dog up with me, so I wasn’t totally alone.) This gave me some additional latitude to disappear for a couple of hours shooting photos without comment or concern from family members.

The eastbound BNSF trackage rights train, the H-STOPVO1 (UP QBCPVJ) from Stockton, CA, to Provo, UT, came through Truckee on the evening of Thursday, July 31, as I was getting ready to leave Truckee Thursdays. (Side note: Truckee Thursdays is a weekly street fair, live music, and food truck event in the summer months in downtown Truckee. It tends to be a family favorite and must do weekly activity when we’re in the mountains in the summer.) I thought I could catch the BNSF in evening light as it came out of the narrows of the Truckee River Canyon in Verdi, NV, so off I went. I felt pretty good as I passed the train near Boca/Hirschdale, but by the time I arrived at my chosen location in Verdi the sun was already below the mountain ridges that tower thousands of feet above the Truckee River and the town of Verdi to the west. I managed to ponder an alternate photo location or framing/composition just long enough that the train was upon me. With no time to get my video rig set up on a tripod, I grabbed a quick video with my phone, and that was it.

Video 1: BNSF 9278 leads the H-STOPVO1 (UP QBCPVJ) east at Verdi. This was shot handheld with an iPhone, so things are a little “floaty.” It’s a bummer that I couldn’t come up with a better plan to get photos and a higher quality 4k video of this one, as I appreciated the EMD leader on a BNSF train.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/25 15:57 by broken_link.

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As I was getting the video of the BNSF and preparing to head back the cabin on Donner Summit, I overheard the crew of the ZG2LT getting their train ready to depart Sparks heading west. I’m guessing they might have been cutting in DPUs, though I’d be curious if that train ever picks up cars from the small ramp at Sparks. I headed a mile east of “downtown” Verdi to a location where the tracks cross the Truckee River. I didn’t have direct sun anymore, but the lighting was starting to take on that almost ethereal quality. I got things set up just in time for the ZG2LT’s arrival.

Photo 1 and Video 2: The ZG2LT is seen shortly after climbing out of the Truckee Meadows Valley that contains Reno and Sparks, NV. The Truckee River Canyon further narrows just railroad west, geographically south, of the townsite of Verdi, as it winds upstream towards Truckee, CA.

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I tried to grab some shots of the train on the east side of Truckee near Glenshire Drive. The sun had been set for just shy of 30 minutes, so I was asking a lot trying to get handheld shots at 135mm. Most didn’t turn out, but these three sort of worked.

Photos 2 and 3: The ZG2LT runs through the reverse curves just after passing under Glenshire Drive on the east side of Truckee. I was hustling to beat the train to this spot after leaving Verdi. I had fixed ISO at 1000, but I was still shooting in aperture priority wide open at f/1.8 handheld and relying on the image stabilization. This resulted in a shutter speed of only 1/13 second for Photo 2 and 1/30 second for Photo 3. Manual mode while bumping the ISO and using a faster shutter speed to reduce the motion blur would have served me better, and that’s likely what I would have done with more time to prepare.
Photo 4: I attempted to grab a series of panning shots as the head end and DPU locomotives passed. This is the only one that mostly worked. Again, at 1/10 second, I probably could have used a slightly higher shutter speed. I also can’t tell if it was my panning technique or if the image stabilization was fighting some of the lateral movement, resulting in horizontal jitter. The sensor based stabilization doesn’t allow you to specify a panning mode like some of the lenses with optical stabilization do, e.g. the Sony 100-400mm and most all of the 70-200mm f/2.8 zooms with OS. I’d be curious if any other mirrorless shooters with in-body stabilization out there have better luck panning with IBIS on or off. It’s definitely something I need to play around with more.

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Photo 5: I headed to east Norden to attempt an idea I had been kicking around for a night shot of a train climbing through Tunnel 41. This was the result. It was actually fortunate that the signals protecting against eastbound movement didn’t light up until just before the train hit the switch at East Norden. The LED signals just aren’t anywhere near as flattering as the searchlights they replaced. I think I want to play around with this idea a bit in the future as well, using different focal lengths and compositions, etc.
Photo 6 and 7: A couple of long exposures of the DPUs and end-of-train at the Old Donner Summit Rd grade crossing.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/25 16:02 by broken_link.

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By the time the ZG2LT was disappearing in the distance, the signal for Main 1 started flashing for diverging advanced approach. I soon heard the unmistakable rumble of an eastbound climbing up to the summit. The signal for Main 1 switched to a diverging clear, and a headlight lit the horizon to my west.

Photo 8: UP 7094 was leading an eastbound manifest over the summit. I think I want to play around more with this type of shot of an eastbound at night at East Norden as well with respect to focal length, exposure, etc. The focus was challenging. After all, it was over an hour past sunset and there was little to illuminate focus points as I tried to manually focus a telephoto prime lens wide open. As such, the focus was a little in front of where I wanted it to be. I also had far too low of a shutter speed for the first several shots that had a composition that I liked better. The shot here was a little further to the east than what I was going for, but things turned out a little better at a 1/25 second vs a 1/8 second exposure time.
Photo 9: One final shot of the DPUs approaching Tunnel 41.

Cheers,
Sean

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Great stuff, I really like #5

Posted from iPhone

Holy crap! Those are some EPIC Photos, man! Especially ially that close up of the UP unit in motion... wow!

Tom Loftus
Omaha, NE

Fantastic night shots! All are awesome! #5 is, definitely a Blue Ribbon! Different and unique motion shots must qualify for Picture of the Day on Rail Net! Great idea pursuing future night shots in Donner Pass!
Thanks for posting!!

To answer your question about the Z picking up in Sparks, the only time the westbound picks up in Sparks is if someone missed a cut, which thankfully hasn't happened in quite a while. The westbound actually makes a setout in Sparks, which gets unloaded and reloaded before the same cars (now) usually get picked up by the ZLTG2. The same day exodus is a new thing, as the yard job used to have to grab the inbound cars that would typically get cut off on the main (either at the office door or east of CP RV245) before pulling high of west Sparks (RV243), shoving in the ramp, and shoving the outbound cars out to Glendale (RV245) for the eastbound to pick up before spotting the inbounds back in the ramp.

Brody Wyrick
Reno, NV

Thanks Brody. I've noticed on the Reno railcam that the head-end often pulls up near the I-580/US-395 overpass and stops, occasionally reverses, etc. Now I know. I'm curious, do the Z trains typically make the run to and from Chicago with all the power seen when they cross Donner Pass, or are DPUs or head-end power cut in or out en route? They often seem to have decent power to make the run over Donner at or near track speed, so I'd bet they're moving when crossing Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois if they run through with all that power and can if they can tap into it. TIA.

Great night shots!!  My favorite is Pic 5!!