Passenger Trains > Caltrain's GP9 Duo on the Dumbarton

With Caltrain GP9 501 now having been back in service for some time--bent frame and all--opportunities have now returned for it being mated up with its first generation sister, the 500. Caltrain made another one of their periodic journeys out onto the Dumbarton main today with ballast loads to be dumped at the "Dumbarton Ballast Terminal" in Menlo Park, CA just west of the Chilco St. grade crossing. The ballast is bottom discharged into a small excavation directly beneath the tracks and carried by conveyor(seen in the third shot below) to a temporary pile where a front end loader then moves it to a more permanent site about a hundred yards away.

Caltrain operations on the Dumbarton can be monitored on 161.070--overheard at one point: "Bring 'em back two inches", and they meant it. The ballast is stored for upcoming Caltrain projects and, as far as I know, unrelated to the Dumbarton Rail Corridor Project. The four white GGMX-marked boxcars seen in the first shot are used for storage by the MPFD and effectively mark the end of track on the Peninsula side of the Dumbarton line.

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Caltrain's dynamic duo, the JPBX500 and 501, do their thing on the Dumbarton today. Those searchlight ghosts don't lie: this was once double track ABS from Redwood Jct. to a spring switch just west of the bridge over US101.

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Heard them go by the office this morning, didn't even bother to look out the window figuring it was the MP15.

That's what I get for not walking out the door and doing a roll by.

Thanks Richard for getting some great shots of the dynamic duo in action.

-daylight

What a great catch! This means they would have actually had to use the bridge over 101 (one of my favorites). I've never seen anything on that bridge except extra paint to cover the grafitti and some nice SP gold, blue and white emblems. Any way to tell when they'll be out again? I'd love to see them on that bridge.

Excellent! I'm not a big fan of CalTrain's "meatball" logo, but I do think those GPs look very nice in that scheme, logo and all.

Z

tviano Wrote:
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> What a great catch! This means they would have
> actually had to use the bridge over 101 (one of my
> favorites). I've never seen anything on that
> bridge except extra paint to cover the grafitti
> and some nice SP gold, blue and white emblems. Any
> way to tell when they'll be out again? I'd love to
> see them on that bridge.

UP actually crosses the bridge a couple of times a week, but always in the late evening. The South San Francisco based Broadway Local delivers tank car loads to an alcohol bottler near m.p. 29 just east of the bridge. Tired late night drivers on 101 probably think they're seeing a ghost train.

First one to post a pic of the geeps actually crossing the freeway bridge gets a souvenir piece of that ballast for paper weight.

SteveD Wrote:
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> First one to post a pic of the geeps actually
> crossing the freeway bridge gets a souvenir piece
> of that ballast for paper weight.

Hopefully not a piece of ballast that the nice younger kids of the hood like to throw from that bridge onto motorist driving up 101 underneath the bridge. One time a couple of nice kids chuck a rock that hit a CHP cruiser heading up the freeway. The kids were caught by my MPPD units.

I've been over the US101 bridge before, sometimes we would just sit there making motorists wonder what was up, hehehe.

Nice photos Bob, did you happen to notice if one of them was smoking heavily, that's why one of the GP9's was out of service and the other mothballed for reasons unknown.

Yes Frank, the 501 was still puking out smoke Tuesday night. We fumigated the Millbrae station pretty thoroughly on our way north. I would have been interesting to see it under a real load, but all we needed to pull was 5 partial loads. We did lug 3 loaded side dumps, but that was on the RWC wye, so at slow speeds only.

Last time I ran it, it was smoking so bad it left a trail of thick smoke that lingered in the tunnels for quite a while, and of course left a huge smoke plume thru Bayshore, Brisbane and SSF. Also it was coming into the cab, nice to see our top notch mechanical force got right on it.



jrwadman Wrote:
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> Yes Frank, the 501 was still puking out smoke
> Tuesday night. We fumigated the Millbrae station
> pretty thoroughly on our way north. I would have
> been interesting to see it under a real load, but
> all we needed to pull was 5 partial loads. We did
> lug 3 loaded side dumps, but that was on the RWC
> wye, so at slow speeds only.

Dont worry, CEMOF can fix it :-)


fjc Wrote:
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> Last time I ran it, it was smoking so bad it left
> a trail of thick smoke that lingered in the
> tunnels for quite a while, and of course left a
> huge smoke plume thru Bayshore, Brisbane and SSF.
> Also it was coming into the cab, nice to see our
> top notch mechanical force got right on it.
>
>
>
> jrwadman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yes Frank, the 501 was still puking out smoke
> > Tuesday night. We fumigated the Millbrae
> station
> > pretty thoroughly on our way north. I would
> have
> > been interesting to see it under a real load,
> but
> > all we needed to pull was 5 partial loads. We
> did
> > lug 3 loaded side dumps, but that was on the
> RWC
> > wye, so at slow speeds only.

What happened to the frame of 501 that bent it?

Bryce