At Eyeball Level: The New & The Old

Now that I've discovered how to upload my quirky Flip Slide videos to YouTube, I'd care to display another if I might:



In this video, UP 7640 East charges up The Hill from Roseville towards Donner Pass, directly under Interstate 80, at about the 3,500-foot level.

UP 7640 is a GE C45ACCTE manufactured between 2007 and 2008, boasting 4,400 hp. UP currently possesses 325 of these units.

Second in line is an older Southern Pacific GE unit, #6221, still wearing its faded SP paint with red nose.

UP 6221 is a C44AC with 4,390 hp, purchased in 1995 by the Southern Pacific. It is one of 167 GE units that UP has, once owned by SP. These GE units were the last locomotives ever purchased, as a matter of fact, by the Southern Pacific. Most still have their SP paint with red cab numbers over rectangles of armour-yellow paint.

Finally, UP 7089 runs in rear DPU status -- 7089 being one of only two GE C44AC locomotives purchased in 1997, with 4,390 hp.

At this point, you are eye-level with the engineer and about five feet from 8,000 horsepower as it passes by at 25 mph.

I can't think of another spot -- unless you're in the cab -- where you can get as close to a moving set of locomotives running at track speed.

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NOTE: Union Pacific's steam locomotive #844, its Alco 4-8-4 FEF-3 locomotive, is currently on a Pacific Northwest Tour:

Omaha, Neb., September 02, 2010 – Bound for the rugged western U.S., a land of endless possibility that the railroad united with the east in 1869, Union Pacific Railroad's historic steam locomotive, No. 844, will travel more than 2,300 miles from its base in Wyoming on a 15-day, three-state tour to the Pacific Northwest to celebrate Union Pacific's role in the building of the western United States.

The "Portland Rose Heritage Tour" will begin September 8 when No. 844 departs Cheyenne, Wyo. The locomotive will make several overnight stops in cities in the region with an extended four-night layover in No. 844's first-ever appearance at the Pendleton Round-Up in Pendleton, Ore. The historic consist will stop in each of the following cities before arriving back in Cheyenne September 23:

• Laramie, Rawlins, Rock Springs and Green River, Wyo.;
• Montpelier, Pocatello, Shoshone, Boise and Nampa, Idaho;
• Huntington, La Grande, Hinkle, The Dalles, Portland and Pendleton, Ore.

If you live in the above areas, heads-up: live steam approacheth!

Thanks for stopping by and reading!

MP154

P.S.
Another video of the UP7640/6221 combination is coming, in which I document yet another train meet -- grain train vs double-stack.