Well, the reference to wheat was a nod toward an old story...anyway, we dog-caught (read 'patch' on UP rails) our second move of the morning; the z-wspsto-8 at Woodford, hearing #11 get clearance through Foreman Rodriguez' limits at Edison on the way back up the hill from Bakerspatch from our first dogcatch. (By the way, to the fellow with the 4x5 press camera at Woodford-Bodfish crossing at Caliente- Good on ya! Large format kicks ass!)
We figured at that point we'd either take a beating waiting for it, or we'd see it in the hole for the parade. Sometimes the UP isn't all that thoughtful towards Amtrak. 'Nuf said on that!
What we found instead was a near-perfect meet at Caliente courtesy of JAB in spite of the morning's broken rail discomforts, and as we came down the hill and approached the 15mph curve south of Caliente, #11 was just coasting to a stop. Seeing that train from my vantage point- complete with ex-AT&SF longe car in as the Pacific Parlour- was a thoughtful rarity- given the odds of railroad 'scheduling' and my recollections of youthful railfanning of the area some 20 years ago!
Both the Conductor and the AC were on the ground and gave us a roll-by, and we cruised in towards Bakersfield- but not after having to put the crossover at Kern Jct. into hand-throw!
We were wondering why there were so many fans on the Hill today, given that it was mid-week and not really good air quality for pictures, so there ya go. We heard later on that 11 and 14 met at Walong, and that 14 was basically one train behind us.
I thought it'd be cool to see 14 on my drive back home to Kingsburg, but I figured with all that nonsense we had to go through at Kern Jct., plus rolling out the train we brought in and tying-up that they'd be long gone. Yet, less than ten minutes after I got in the door of my house (16:50, no less! -see earlier thread from Mr. McFarland), my son said he heard Amtrak. My crazy 3 year old daughter, myself and my son got quiet- and heard it again. Split-second decision! Yep- go racing and screaming to the car like idiots and all piled in off to the chase! I was thinking they'd probably be at 50 mph max, but when we got to Stroud Ave., we could just barely make out the rear markers of a Superliner already blasting through Selma to the north, with following signals falling dark. State Route 99 bound, we had to go all the way to Golden State Blvd exit (at a perhaps difficult to explain rate of speed) just west of the Fresno SP yard, (that's more than 25 miles folks!!) with all of three seconds to pile out and watch it go by about to knock down a hard yellow at Biola Hold.
I thought they'd be changing pilots at Fresno, but if they did, it was done quickly (pilots being UP qualified operating personnel for that district). So it took an hour, but I'm glad I did it. Never get tired of the nonsense!