Sunday, March 4, 2012

Amtrak: A Rainy Day For California Zephyr's #6



There hasn't been a terrific amount of snow where I live this year, and the rainfall has also been lacking of sorts.

That said, I went out trainchasing in the rain recently, and captured an Amtrak and then a UP freight in a number of locations.

Above, you can see Amtrak's California Zephyr, the #6 eastbound, passing Carpenter Road (east of Colfax) on its way towards the Long Ravine bridge (spanning Interstate 80) and thence to "round Cape Horn."

On point is #9, a GE Genesis DC-driven P42B passenger locomotive manufactured in 1996, brimming with 4,200 horsepower. If you stop the video at 0:54 seconds, you can clearly see that prior damage to the front cowl of this locomotive has been repaired and, then, quite poorly repainted with a lighter blue color, over the right side sand fill door.

In number two position is Amtrak #84, another DC-driven GE P42B locomotive with 4,200 hp and manufactured in 1997.

Directly behind is the baggage car with, for whatever reason, its starboard door wide open. I didn't see any Amtrak personnel gazing out; I can only hope that whatever bags and materiel went in didn't somehow magically evacuate in a left curve during the trek.

As I took more videos, the rain quickened and deepened.

Coming up:

You can find some videos and photographs around the internet of various freight locomotive cab interiors. I've already published a few interiors here of UP freight cabs. More to come, by the way.

How frequently, however, do you find photos or videos of the cabs of Amtrak trains? Go ahead and Google (or via your favorite search engine) AMTRAK CAB. You don't find much. Or try GE GENESIS CAB INTERIOR and see what you get. [Oddly enough, you get a few of my somewhat unrelated photographs from prior posts!]

As I write this, I am also uploading high-resolution photographs to my next post detailing my invitation into a GE Genesis locomotive cab as it waited for track clearance near Secret Town. If you want to see detailed photographs -- available nowhere else -- of a GE P42 interior, please stay tuned.

MP154

P.S.
Go here for some nice GE P42 sounds.