Day of the Union Pacific 844

Whilst at the ocean enjoying my 3rd anniversary this week, I chanced upon a CF card from my Sony A300. I hadn't used this card in awhile and, zounds, there they were! Photos of UP's Alco 4-8-4 #844, taken on April 17th of 2009! And here I thought I'd lost them completely! (click on each photo for enlarged version)

It's a joy coming across important photos one originally thought had been lost -- kind of like finding a nice, crisp $100 bill in your sneaker.

Here, the 844 is on its way to Roseville, California -- home to the J.R. Davis Yards and the HQ of the Roseville Subdivision -- during the 2009 Western Heritage Tour. 844 is running light, downhill (you can tell because of the minimal stack plume) on the number one track. Check out the number of people packed into the cab.

Also behind 844 are EMD SD-70ACe's #1996, painted in SP Daylight colors (1996 being the year UP bought SP) and #1983, painted in Western Pacific colors (year that UP bought WP).

Finally, just a minute or so later, Amtrak's #6 California Zephyr heads uphill, eastbound, past the point I had attained for the prior photographs.

As you might suspect, it is always extraordinarily difficult to locate a position from which to photograph UP 844 or UP Challenger 3985 and not get a host of other photographers and railfans in the way. I have since found my "it shall not be revealed" site for all time, just a short distance from my cabin, quite luckily.

Recommended Reference Sites:

• UP Alco 844
• UP Challenger 3985
• 2010 UP Steam Schedule
• UP Steam Shop
• UP Historical 4-8-4 List
• UP Steam Locomotives

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Advantages of a Train:

Cribbed from RailsNW: Train Blog:

NINE UNEXPECTED BENEFITS OF TAKING A TRAIN:

1. No wait, no security. Amtrak asks passengers to be at the train 30 minutes before departure. If you show up a little late, you simply walk straight on the train and find a seat that looks good to you.

2. If you want to pee, go pee. There’s never a time on a train when you can’t stand up and do whatever you want. And that includes having a nice lunch in the dining car, which is what I’m going to go do now.

3. The seats ACTUALLY RECLINE! Instead of the 1.5 inches of lean that the little silver button will give you on a plane, Amtrak’s big black button gives a recline of about eight inches. I could actually sleep in this chair! If I wasn’t so excited about how much it reclines.

4. PLUGS! Some planes are starting to finally provide power jacks so we can keep charged through long flights. But all Amtrak trains have three-pronged jacks to keep you electrified throughout your journey.

5. No NAGGING: It’s a frakkin' pleasure not having someone bug me about my seatback and tray tables and whether my electronic device is approved for that particular segment of the trip. And no seatbelts at all! Whether or not that’s technically safe, it’s certainly more comfortable.

6. Legroom: As a six foot + guy, I notice a couple extra inches here. And it’s nice.

7. No beverage cart slamming into your knees and elbows. The beverage cart on a plane absolutely ensures that you never ever ever put any piece of your body into the aisle. Well, the train aisle is considerably wider, for one, and the cart is nonexistent.

8. Treats: If you happen to want a cheese danish on an airplane, you’re out of luck. Not here, my friends. And the cost of said treats is much more modest than the $5 you’ll pay for a snack pack on American Airlines, filled with crap you probably don’t even want.

9. You handle your baggage. If you lose your bags on a train, it’s your fault. There’s no waiting at the baggage claim and no worrying about how the baggage handlers (or TSA) will treat your bags.

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P.S.

Photo not by MP154. I take all my own photographs unless otherwise indicated.

Roseville Yard: When Nose Units Were Plentiful

Above, an EMD SD-40 in final Southern Pacific speed lettering, littered with itinerant Mexi-graffiti and affixed with an afterthought UP number in yellow, awaits fueling. To the left, a UP flanger car. CLICK ON ALL PHOTOS TO ENLARGE.

Above: schematic, J.R. Davis Roseville Yard.

UP 1425, a hastily re-numbered SP unit, approaches the engine house.

UP employee rides the front of an SD-40 in UP armour yellow paint in the yard.

On a siding south of the engine house, a series of UP locos await orders next to one of SP's original steam rotary units. Yes, that's a GE in front, but I couldn't resist the rotary in the yard. So sue me.

An amazing and elderly fellow. Here sits an original DRGW SD-40 unit, original number unknown, dating back to when Philip Anschutz's DRGW bought SP outright in 1988 (and then did his level best to drive SP into the ground, making it vulnerable to UP's purchase in 1996). Being part of SP, this ancient unit served for a time in the yard shuttling cars to and fro prior to its ultimate retirement.

EMD left, GE right, in the Roseville loco house drop pits at night.

Running up an older EMD SD-40 outside the loco house. You know what? I love the smell of diesel and the sound of 16-cylinder American locomotive engines. How about you?

This shot was taken when Chuck "CW" Smith flew me over the Roseville Yard in the Sacramento Sheriff's Department Hughes 500 -- because he was a railroad buff. As a Sergeant, I tapped CW for a few aerial runs over the Roseville Yard. CW was a former Vietnam Huey pilot who admitted he used to make his own LZs by chopping down through the jungle with the Huey's blades tips. That's some scary stuff. And there are more aerial photos where this came from. This is a view, looking west, of the J.R. Davis classification yard.



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Winter Photos Over Donner Pass

A small respite from a serious snowstorm.  Here, under breaking blue skies, a downhill UP consist has just cleared the Big Hole and meanders towards the Soda Springs crossing.  The sun smiled down upon me and presented some wonderful lighting conditions.

This is a UP train running downhill on the #1 track, EMD SD-70M on point, in the midst of a rather serious 2004 snowstorm.  At the time I still had a smaller, nimble 4WD vehicle.  The train approaches "American."  Flangers had just, about an hour prior, cleared the downhill track.

This was the head-end of a special consist purposely run up Donner for former UP CEO Dick Davidson's Christmas cards for 1998.  Yes, that is the reason these units are inordinately pristine.  This train stopped just past Shed 41 for the photographs.  Please note the sequential engine numbers: 4526, 4527, 4528.  The engineer is waving.  It's good to be King.

A very unusual consist over Donner: two Norfolk Southern engines.  NS is seldom if ever seen this far west for good reason.  Here a mixed manifest train pulls uphill, eastbound, past a spot UP engineers know as "Rocky Point."  In the mid-1800s Central Pacific named this area "American" and would stop their open-car trains here.  Passengers would step down and gaze west towards Sacramento and down to the north fork of the American River.

GE, EMD, GE, EMD: An autorack with an elderly GE engine on point exits the Big Hole, Tunnel 41, 10,322-feet in length, having summited and now beginning to run down hill on the Number 1 track towards Norden and Soda Springs.  This portal, now concrete, was once comprised of massive timbers, removed in the early 2000s.

The City of San Francisco, a Southern Pacific train, gets trapped in the Winter of 1952:

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Farewell to Double Stack Trains Over the Feather River Route?

Union Pacific recently opened the Donner Pass route (otherwise known as the Number 1 and Number 2 tracks) from Roseville, California to Sparks, Nevada for double stack container service. This was done because running intermodal trains over Donner saves about 75 miles in distance, as opposed to running the Feather River.

See my prior post here for that opening.

Before November 19th, Donner could never handle double stack traffic due to the height restrictions in most of the tunnels, first holed by Chinese laborers for Central Pacific's portion of the Transcontinental route.

East/west double stack traffic into and out of California historically had to travel through the Feather River Canyon, as the multiple tunnels there could easily accommodate the height of well cars -- roughly 22' tall.


Now, there are those who fear that the removal of intermodal traffic from the Feather River Canyon will doom that route.



Union Pacific, at this point and to my knowledge, is not making any indications that it is even remotely considering the abandonment of Feather River traffic.

There are those, however, who believe that the writing is on the proverbial Union Pacific wall, and the above beautifully-done video laments what the producers believe may be the end of trains through the Feather River Canyon.

I personally do not believe Union Pacific can afford to close the FRC route. Each route, Feather River and Donner, have their weather problems. For example, when snow and drifts occlude or close Donner Pass, the alternative route is the FRC.

And when heavy rains, the rising or flooding Feather River or loose shale closes the FRC, then Donner is the viable alternative now.

Both routes have their own very serious weather issues.

For now, railfans and railroaders alike will have to simply enjoy what exists, while it exists.

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Double Stack Trains Over Donner Pass!

Southern Pacific had a problem at first. Then, when SP was bought out (actually owned by DRGW's Philip Anschutz) by Union Pacific on, oddly enough, 09-11-1996, Union Pacific inherited that problem.

And that is this:

Double-stack (also called intermodal) trains could not be run up and over Donner Pass due to tunnel clearance problems.

Now, double stack traffic can run over Donner.

If UP wanted to move double-stack traffic west/east, east/west through California, it had to do so through the Feather River Canyon -- once the province of the Western Pacific (purchased by UP on 12-22-1981).

The problem with the Feather River Canyon route is that it's inherently fluctuous. The Feather River is prone to flooding, and the area is rife with shale rock -- making the route notoriously unstable and -- as UP discovered once purchased -- requiring thousands and thousands of dollars spent for track stabilization programs to shore up the sides of mountains, hills, tunnels, sidings, bridges, trestles and basic trackwork.

The additional problem was that running double stack traffic east/west through the Feather River Canyon added 75 miles to the journey and another three hours.

Today, what is known as "Donner Pass" corresponds to Union Pacific's Roseville Subdivision, what are now termed the Number One and Number Two tracks from Roseville, California to Sparks, Nevada.

When originally holed in the mid-1800s by the Central Pacific, the tunnels comprising the Central Pacific portion of the Transcontinental Railroad were built only to accommodate the traffic of the day. And certainly not traffic corresponding to the height of today's double-stack well cars.

The average locomotive is 15 to 16 feet tall.

Auto rack cars are currently 20' 2" tall.

Double stack traffic can run up to 22-feet.

The specific tunnels in question were holed down to accomodate 22-foot traffic. Enviro- and historically-concerned issues included destruction of the original Chinese tunnels. But, as Union Pacific worked, it didn't scrape the tunnels up. Instead, it lowered the track beds through the affected portals.

Efficiency and history can be reconciled.

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Older Power Up The Hill

An extremely rare sight and consist indeed. Recently, I caught a mixed manifest train running through Gold Run and past Casa Loma Road towards Giant Gap, over UP's Roseville subdivision towards Donner Pass.

These days, the bulk of the power is GE, with a smattering of EMD for good measure.

This unique train, however, had UP 8224 on point, an EMD SD90/43AC, and UP 8270 on the rear, another EMD SD90/43AC -- albeit a bit nose-battered.

UP has already completely scrapped all the true SD90MAC-H units; the only ones left are the original convertibles -- huge frames containing AC traction motors but with smaller 4,300-hp diesel prime movers.

What a shame neither EMD nor GE could produce a reliable 6,000-hp American locomotive.

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