Western Railroad Discussion > UP Timetable Direction

In Chard Walker's Cajon books, he states that SP had their mileposts counting out from San Francisco and that all trains heading toward the Bay were considered westbound and trains heading away from the Bay are eastbound. Did the UP stick to that same plan when they took over the line? According to the Altamont Press timetable it looks like trains heading uphill in Cajon are going Westbound by timetable direction, so I'm guessing the answer is yes.

Ed

My Altamont tt shows trains running from Rancho to Mojave and Bakersfield as northward.

Rancho is a few miles east of West Colton; the Alhambra Sub. runs east-west.

the UP mojave sub from bakersfield to colton is a north south line

UP changed many of the timetable directions over the past couple of years. The change in the Altamont Timetables occurred in #13 or #14; I can't remember which one. I guess the UP finally decided that east-west didn't make sense in a lot of places, in addition to confusing train crews and dispatchers. A perfect example of this is at Silverwood on Cajon Pass. For example, a westbound UP train leaving Barstow would be UP xxxx west, but suddenly became UP xxxx east on the Palmdale Cutoff when they used the new Silverwood Connector track.

Less clear than main lines are various branches, such as in L.A. Basin where ETTs list them(Industrial Spurs now) as simple paragraphs without conventional TT format, and no compass direction. Rob has adopted former S.P. directions in the A.P. versions, and 'old heads'(i.e., former S.P. men) can be heard on radio referring to them likewise, leading to occassional confusion by newer U.P. interlopers. In doing some research on the cluster of S.P. branches west of Goshen in the SJV, I was amused to find Coalinga Branch TT direction coincided with compass direction because it was originally intended to continue to Tres Pinos to hook up with S.F. peninsula line as part of SJV route, which historical tradition SJVR has perpetuated on its Hanford Sub.

More on the branch lines -

The Torrance and El Segundo branches have *some* new mileposts in place that indicate the MPs were re-set recently. SP had the MPs in the area all in miles from San Francisco, but the new posts all show zero at Watts. For example Centralia is at MP 1 just short of south LA. However, the road crossings still have the old MPs listed, where they haven't been obliterated by graffiti or otherwise painted over.

Kit