A year after the Union Pacific acquisition of Southern Pacific, a westbound Shasta Route manifest enters Sawmill Curve near Mott siding on the Black Butte Subdivision. As the train passes through Siskiyou County in Northern California, it is a mixture of common and unique.
The Cotton Belt GP60 on the point likely has a bright future in the UP world. The same can't be said for the trio of tunnel motors next out, one of which is still sporting the "Kodachrome" paint scheme from the failed SPSF merger a decade earlier. Prime lumber drag power since the first T-2s were delivered in the 1970s, these EMDs will be shoved aside in a few years when UP begins to receive massive amounts of new SD70Ms.
The GP15 and GP38 are very rare birds on this former SP line. Presumably, they are a local power set going to Roseville for service. A few years earlier, if a westbound was ferrying local power to Roseville, the locomotives would have been Espee's hallowed SD9s.
The final notables in sight are the SP hi-cube boxcars at the head end of the train. Built at Gunderson in Portland a year earlier, these boxes were part of the last order of freight cars delivered to SP.
This vantage is just next to the frontage road along I-5 between Mott and Dunsmuir. Although we're less than four miles from the Dunsmuir depot where this train's crew will change, their train has to double back around Cantara Loop and cover over twice as much distance to get there.
Tags: Union Pacific UP Southern Pacific SP Shasta Cascade Wonderland Siskiyou County Shasta Route EMD GP60 tunnel motor Freight Train Trains Train Railroads Railroad Railway
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Just in case anyone tries to say that Southern Pacific's 8100-class General Electric Dash 9s never worked the Swift RoadRailer train, please show them this high noonish image. During June 1998, John Shaw and I caught the southbound RoadRailer heading into Sawmill Curve. The west end of Mott siding can be seen in the distance. This train is less than a half hour away from the crew change at Dunsmuir, California.
Tags: Mott California Southern Pacific SP Union Pacific UP Shasta Cascade Wonderland Siskiyou County Black Butte Subdivision Railroads Railroad Railway GE General Electric GE Dash 9 RoadRailer Intermodal
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A westbound Southern Pacific intermodal train rounds Cantara Loop in April 1985. This train began its descent into the Sacramento River Canyon up at Mott siding. It will will now follow the Sacramento River all the way to Lake Shasta.
It appears a very late season snowstorm hit the area earlier in the week.
Tags: Cantara California Southern Pacific SP Shasta Cascade Wonderland Siskiyou County SP Oregon Division SP Black Butte Subdivision SP Shasta Route Shasta Route Sacramento River Canyon Sacramento River Railroads Railroad Railway Trains Train Intermodal Freight Train piggyback
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In July 1995, I accompanied my wife Jennie when she attended the National Association of Legal Secretaries convention in Las Vegas. We decided to combine her trip to the convention with our vacation. For fun, we split the drive from Portland to Sin City into a three day trip so we could take in some sights on the way.
After we left work on Friday afternoon, we discussed our first stop. If we went via Klamath Falls, we would need to spend at least half a day making short visits with relatives. As an alternative, we could stay in Weed, California, heading to Nevada via McCloud and Susanville. Since we hadn't been through that region before, we chose that routing.
Following a fine breakfast on Saturday morning at the Hi-Lo Cafe in Weed, we set off for our second stop, Hawthorne, Nevada. I had my scanner on, and I heard a dispatcher call to a light engine heading for Dunsmuir. The engineer was my cousin's husband. One train photo on the Friendly Southern Pacific before the long slog east seemed appropriate, and we could wave at someone we knew. We went to the Mott Road grade crossing to expose this image of the “seasoned” locomotive running long hood forward, such as it is.
To my surprise, when cousin Christe's husband Larry saw us, he stopped the T-2 and climbed down to chat for a minute. He said if I would like, I was welcome to ride down the hill to Dunsmuir with him and the brakeman. Since this was a unique opportunity, I jumped all over it, even though it was a slight detour from our itinerary. Once we explained to Jennie how to find the depot in Dunsmuir, we were off.
As we went around Sawmill Curve, they put me in the engineer's seat and had me run the engine. On the steep descent into the Sacramento River Canyon, "running" the big motor only involved adjusting the dynamic brake lever to control the speed. The grade was mostly between 1.8% and 2.0%, so the unit would quickly gain momentum if the amount of braking was reduced. When we spotted hikers on the right of way, we would turn on the locomotive bell.
During the half hour trip to Dunsmuir, we discussed the ongoing Susan Smith trial and the latest roundhouse rumors on the railroad. Both Larry and his colleague mentioned that there had been several unusual things going on around the Espee of late. They both felt that something major was brewing, although what it might be was unclear.
The ride around Cantara Loop and through the curves along the Sacramento River passed quickly. Upon our arrival at Dunsmuir, I profusely thanked both men for the experience. After they verified no officials were around, I got down off the locomotive and rejoined Jennie, patiently waiting in the car. We quickly resumed our long drive to Hawthorne.
As fate would have it, the discussion aboard SP 6862 about "something big" being just over the horizon was spot on. Just three weeks later, Union Pacific's acquisition of SP was announced.
Tags: Mott California Southern Pacific SP Shasta Cascade Wonderland Siskiyou County SP Oregon Division SD45T-2 Locomotive helper light engine Black Butte Subdivision SP Shasta Route EMD Trains Train Railroads Railway Railroad
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The southbound Swift RoadRailer crosses the Sacramento River at Cantara, California in March 2001.
Tags: Cantara California Union Pacific UP Southern Pacific SP Shasta Cascade Wonderland Siskiyou County Sacramento River Canyon Sacramento River Cantara Loop Intermodal Train Railroads Railroad Railway Swift RoadRailer RoadRailer
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