The U-PITKAI1-26A (Pittsburg, Calif to Kaiser, Calif unit coil-steel train) takes Siding Marcel so a 'hot' baretable can make its way across the district from storage in the desert...probably Pisgah or Ash Hill...to Oakland to load up more imported consumer goods from Asia. Even with this delay, the steel train is generally a good train to get out of Bakersfield, because the crew won't have to go into the R Yard at Barstool. Not doing that is blessing enough!

I recently voiced my interest to a fellow crewmember as to why it seems these baretables originate/terminate so far from where they need to be. His thinking was that perhaps it may be that transit time cuts down on storage time. The relevance is that the owners of many of this intermodal equipment (TTX, foreign roads) cannot bill for storage or demurrage if the equipment is 'in transit', and there may be a tax incentive too, if the equipment is 'in transit' as opposed to 'stored on property'. I have no idea about that, but it wouldn't be surprising to find some truth to that idea in some way.

Velvia 50, Canon AE-1, 24mm lens, 1/30th sec. Cheezy digitized process!

Thanks for looking, and comments always welcome.

Steven D. Johnson
Kingsburg, Calif.