Monday, October 1, 2012

UP 7970 West: an incredibly SHINY new locomotive consist!

There are roughly nine new videos awaiting posting on this blog, my having captured them over the past two months and then edited them down this past week.

That said, I couldn't help but push those videos all aside in order to post this video instead, which involves a quadruple set of brilliant new GE C45ACCTE Union Pacific locomotives -- also known in GE builder nomenclature as the ES44AC, in the Evolution Series.


Below, UP 7970 West takes point on a Union Pacific Z-train (UP's verbiage for a priority consist), with 8017, 7993 and 8002 behind.  [It is interesting to note that Union Pacific had, prior, given numbers 8002 and 8017 to the EMD SD90MAC (also know, in UP parlance, as the SD9043AC).]
As I customarily indicate, I recommend you not watch the video here on my site, but instead click on this link to YouTube where you can completely enlarge the image (Please click on the "HD quality" button -- makes a big difference!) and then clap on some headphones for the sound.

I first caught this wonderful consist exiting Tunnel 35 in the high granite of Donner Pass, then followed it down through Rocky Point, under Interstate 80, and the single track at MP 135.

I had a friend with me for the day, and we had previously captured UP 8441 running eastbound through Switch 9 (video coming).

As a very strange aside, when we parked and then began to hike down to the tracks, we passed a white cranker transient chick -- with no pack, no boots, equipment -- who neither spoke nor met our eyes as we walked by.  Quite bizarre.  She disappeared.  I almost expected the windows of my SUV to be broken and the rest of my camera and video equipment to be gone when I returned.  However, as my guest pointed out, she wouldn't have possessed the muscle to do so.


Above, UP 7970 rolls down towards Rocky Point in the late afternoon Sierra Nevada mountain sunshine.


Here, I caught UP 8002 passing near MP135, a close detail of its freshly-painted cab, labeling and UP side shield.

Bottom line: these UP units are so new that they are not yet listed in James Kerr's DPA-LTA book nor are they accessible on the internet.  You'll just have to trust me on their nomenclature.

I love new units, and I enjoy posting things that that bulk of Traindom doesn't quite seem to yet possess.

MP154

P.S.
Click on the photos -- captures of my videos -- in order to expand their size.  And finally: I am having to deal with the "new Blogger" and that, in itself, poses a challenge I may not be, yet, up to.

If this post doesn't quite correspond to the professional manner in which I've made prior posts, I grandly apologize.

It's now a matter of me having to re-acquaint myself with Blogger and its new iterations.  Please give me some time, if you will, to familiarize myself with this new Dashboard.


3 comments:

Well Seasoned Fool said...

Sorry for the late comment. Your video skills are improving; near professional (in my amateur opinion).

Someone on the UP needs to check their track oilers; way too much flange/track noise.

Milepost 154 said...

Thank you quite kindly, sir.

It's all due to Flip -- which Cisco no longer produces. Their very simple editing software allows me to do what I do.

One day I'd like to get an editing software upgrade with a beginning editing suite, perhaps something by Adobe or Sony.

My problem is that I need to upgrade from the Flip, to full HD. But if I do that, do I want to go to another "prosumer" camera and spend another $4,000 -- which is what I spent for the Mini-DV Sony DVX2000 in 2000?

The DVX2000 is a great camera, but it isn't HD and HD is now the "state of the art."

MP154

Milepost 154 said...

And funny thing is, in my 60s, I can't hold cameras nearly as still as I used to -- and the Flip HD is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

Tough to hold still.

MP154