Union Pacific continues to struggle in the Pacific Northwest and has made some notable operational changes.

Eugene is apparently still a black hole and incapable of doing much of anything. (Good thing UP ripped out most of the SP yard and hump.) Best example is chip cars being sent from G-P Toledo to Klamath Falls. One large cut of cars apparently couldn't get into KF yard, so were set out at Lobert(?) and then brought into the yard by the LIM70. Most of the time, cars out of Eugene for KF had been sent on the MPWRV, now more often than not they are not being blocked and going through to Roseville to be sent back on either a MRVHK or MRVPT. BUt, with Roseville's issues some of these trains have been sent through Roseville to Fresno, where the Klamath Falls cars have to be switched out and returned back to Roseville anyway.

Regardless of how many cars can be put over the hump at Roseville, the true capacity is how efficient they can be getting trains built and outbound. By the number of misrouted cars, it would seem that they aren't bothering to switch the mis-humped cars out and they just go where the train is going.

A new train that showed up recently and seems to be operating on a semi-daily basis is the MWCKF. That "other website" claims there is a matching MKFWC, but I haven't seen any evidence of that and it doesn't make sense. The MWCKF appears to be just crew changing at Roseville, and is arriving at Klamath Falls a jumbled mess of cars (mostly empties). While some cars are for KF, the majority must be being blocked for Eugene, Portland area or maybe Hinkle? Klamath Falls has originated some extra trains to Roseville or Eugene in the past few months, but I'm not aware of how they are getting the rest of the empties off the MWCKF cars beyond KF - the MRVHK and MRVPT are still picking up cars at KF.

Prior to the MWCKF starting to run, the only Klamath Falls based train was the LIM 70 which works six days a week and covered everything - a mainline roadswitcher north and south, the Modoc plus the yard job including the BNSF transfers. When I was in KF the other day, the yard which was normally fairly empty was jammed full of scattered empty centerbeams, tank cars and other freight cars, most presumably of several MWCKF trains. Is the LIM70 expected to switch them out, is there a regular yard job now established or are they just calling a switch job off the extra board on an irregular basis?

Pushing switching off into regional yards when things start jamming up isn't unusual. I remember Elko getting suddenly thrust in this roll in years past, but they at least had a fairly new yard and regular yard jobs already assigned. Any other yards between Fresno and Klamath Falls getting stuck with Roseville and Eugene's overflow? And sadly - it is painful to watch how slow the newer, safer way of Class 1 switching is now done. You can bet most Class 1 railroads would just love to dump loose car traffic and just run unit trains and intermodal.


Perhaps the best example of UP's incompetence and reliance on what the computer says is the following example of a lost car:

Car was originally released empty from a customer in the Phoenix area to be returned to Klamath Falls. This is a private car, so it has to come back to the shipper that leases it. Here is its history -

October 27 - arrived empty at Phoenix
Trace history no longer shows until:
November 26 - Lake Yard, OR then YPD51 to Albina, OR (both Portland area yards)
November 28 arrived Hinkle, OR on MPDHK (misroute, why not towards Eugene?)
November 28 - claimed to be in Arizona then Hinkle with no waybill?
December 5 - arrived Pocatello, ID on MHKRO
December 6 - arrived Silver Bow (Butte), MT on MPCSB
December 7 - arrived back in Pocatello on MSBPC
December 10 - arrived back at Hinkle off MROHK
December 12 - arrived Trentwood (Spokane), WA on MHKET
December 15 - back to Hinkle on METHK
December 19 - arrived Salt Lake City, UT on MHKRO
December 23 - arrived North Platte, NE on MWCNP
December 28 - arrived Parsons, KS on MNPPB
December 30 - arrived North Little Rock, AR on MPSNL
January 3 - arrived Pine Bluff, AR on YNL99
January 6 - arrived Baytown (Houston), TX on MPBBW
January 10-12 - problem with no waybill at Hinkle/Baytown
January 16 - arrived Dayton, TX on LHH79
January 18 - arrived Englewood (still Houston area), TX on LHX05
January 19 - claimed to have left on QEWWC
January 20 - claimed to have left West Colton on QWCEW
Scheduled to be on another QEWWC back to West Colton, then a MWCKF to Klamath Falls

The advance list shows 199 cars on the QWCEW it is supposed to be on, but the actual trainlist only shows 126 on the train now and the car is not on that list and it has passed an AEI reader. So maybe it got set out in Del Rio, TX with a bunch of other cars?

Does UP have any clue what they are doing? You can't maintain a low operating ratio, increase velocity and shorten dwell time hauling cars three times as far or taking them on nationwide tours. And some point - UP will be paying the piper at their customer's (and investor's) expense.