Richard is correct. There wasn't much traffic and slow orders for #5 & #6 to get held up with. In following up on them today, both trains ran pretty much straight thru without delay. Only thing showing was a 30 mile long 40 M.P.H. slow order not far west of Winnemucca due to deteriorating tie conditions. I was unable to detect if the trains ran at freight train speed or "UP Passenger Train Speeds" that are 5 MPH above freight train speed on the Canyon Sub. and 10 MPH on the Winnemucca Sub. Maybe someone that was there that knows the answer can give it here. Yes, #5 & #6 met in Portola and the "Super Z" train as we call it, ran right behind #6 out of Portola. Wish I could have had time off to be there, but we are short of help at work right now. Train performance wise, these were some of the best detours of Amtrak trains I have seen in my life. But detours will always perfom better, especially when they are well planned out! Why, you ask? Good answer, there is a freight engineer pilot on those trains. The quicker the train gets to the pilot's end terminal, the quicker he can go on rest and then get called to run a freight train. I see this all the time. Ah, if Amtrak trains were only still crewed by the host freight roads, they would perform much better for this reason. A prime example of this today is Metra trains on the BNSF & UP in Chicago and Sounder trains on the BNSF in Seattle.
As my co-woker Steve, A.K.A. "Side Track Always" would say, "Thanks for travelling over the Union Pacific. You all come back now, you here!"