Western Railroad Discussion > Spotted yesterday on the Pasadena Sub

Yesterday I had a craving for a Pastrami Sandwich at Jim's on Duarte Road in Monrovia, so at 1:15 I went to get lunch. I got stopped by the crossing gates on Mayflower Avenue which were down, as were the gates at Magnolia complete with Santa Fe GP30 on the rails. It turns out the the Irwindale local was switching out some covered hoppers from the tortilla factory just down from the old Monrovia station. Damm, I did not have a camera. Well apparently during the whole operation someone going South on Myrtle got impatient, their food was probably getting cold like mine, and ran down the southbound gate and broke it off. It is one of those quick sheer pin types. They BNSF crew had to stop their train and pick up the gate arm and move it out of the way to go back home. I called Monrovia PD to report the damage. Later when I got off work at 5PM the gate was already fixed. The train consisted of 3 GP somthings including a GP30 all in blue and yellow, several covered hoppers and a red Santa Fe caboose complete with grafiti. One of the crewmen had on a big cowboy hat. I wonder what is going to happen when the Gold Line goes through. Will they still service that industry? Will they have seperate tracks? Or will they do like they do in San Diego and have a dual use line? We shall see.

I also caught yesterday's local, in the morning in San Dimas around 10am. Even though I had the camera in the car, he kind of took me by surprise. Due to his slow speed westbound (about 10mph through SD), I was able to park and get a few shots - although shooting directly into the sun. The power was GP35u 2593 leading 2 blue and yellow GP30u's (including the one of a kind #2472 with block 'BNSF' on the sides. The caboose was CE-8 999708, still with ATSF markings.

I figured he'd be going to Monrovia with the caboose in the train, for the long backup move back to Irwindale once they're done switching the industry you mentioned. I'm also curious what the plans are for BNSF to use the line when the Gold Line expands east.

Rich

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The welcome sight of a caboose on the line!

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