Nostalgia & History > Idaho Files: Pocatello Yard Power+EIRR + Stormy Weather 7-28-1994

The sound of old school EMD switchers pulling a block of cars thru the yard, plus Eastern Idaho RR Power getting ready for westbound trip to Minnedoka, under Stormy Skies.

EMD Power plus occasinal Thunder makes a nice sound mix. Please Enjoy! The Eastern Idaho Power is to the right side of video, joined by MRL borrowed power.

This is the early days of EIRR In Idaho, whitch took over the branch lines on southern Idaho, and provided an exotic mix of power fron variouse fallen flags, plus some borrowed power from UP and other railroads,such as MRL and UP. The Power here is Ex-WP 786 GP-35(?),Ex-Southern High Nose SD45 3133,which had problems running since day 1 of delivery to EIRR, and 6525 SD45,which is more dependable,and an MRL unit.

The EIRR shared trackage rights between Pocatello and Minnedoka,Idaho.

Thunder is mixed in with diesel sounds, but there's a good crack near end of this footage.

Any corrections to my Diesel unit descriptions are more than welcome.

PLEASE NOTE, HEADPHONES are your friend with these videos! The original sound track is mono, not stereo, might be semi processed into stereo during the conversion to digital however?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/19 14:29 by RailRat.

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Video 2 is EIRR Power getting ready to hook up to the evening's train from Pocatello to Minnedoka, the 786 will be leading the train in the next video.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/19 05:15 by RailRat.

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Video 3 is one of the more steady pacing shots I ever filmed, (or Videoed?) of the same EIRR power running west of Pocatato,or Pocatello, on the same evening, with #786 in the lead, All Pure EMD SOUND,  the 3133 was surly a major attraction for a few monhts, after being delivered to EIRR with water in the crankcase on the eve of startup in Twin Falls, Then fixed by the EIRR crew! PLEASE NOTE: I had to DELETE and then RE-UPLOAD VIDEO at 5:40am, The first one cut off too early, This one should be fixed to be entire 4:00 mins. long.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/19 17:20 by RailRat.

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Video 3 Fixed to entire lenght!

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Very nice videos.   The sounds they included were great blasts from the past.  Thanks for sharing them here with us.

That EIRR train you caught had quite the HP/Ton ratio.   Anyone know if they commonly overpowered their trains during that era or did they have challenges such as unreliable power, an imbalance in the amount of traffic directionally or signficiant fluctuations of volume on different days that made it hard to dial up the assigned power better?

Thanks Milwaukee, from what I saw a lot of Early EIRR power was Tired Iron, Especially the 3133, plus another Ex-Southern High Nose SD45, but they both arrived in new paint!

For a while UP had to loan them some units, then shortly later all kinds of different model diesels started showing up.

I think the train in my video is a bit shorter than normal, on average I would see 3 to 4 units leave Twin Falls in the evening with 10 to 20 cars, and they would pick up more in Rupert, before heading east to Minnedoka and Pocatello.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

I grew up in the Rupert/Minidoka area. It always seemed like those old SD45s spent more time on the shop track or dead line then pulling trains! It was a sad day when they scrapped about 15 years ago. 

I should mention I have posted some other videos of EIRR power, including some with 3133 smoky departure, just search the TO video archives with RailRat as author.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Got some video of the last decade of UP humping cars at Pocatello.  I remember growing up in the late 70's, early 80's in Twin Falls ID and the UP would come in, or go out of there often with 50-70 cars (even in 1983 they were loading TOFC cars there).  I remember the UP guys saying that the Twin Falls branch was UP's most profitable branch line before the mergers and coal lines.