Sunday, 29 Aug 2010, was cooler than normal in Sacramento, a beautiful day that
made me want to get out and do something
besides sit around the house. Nobody else was up to a day in the hills, so I
took the dogs and went to see what UP was doing on Donner Pass.

First stop was Antelope, the west end of Roseville yard. I was hoping to catch
the westbound Zephyr, which was running about 45 minutes late, but I got there
after #5 went through and instead
got a westbound manifest with 3 GEVOs on the point, and 2 pushing. The manifest
was heavy on lumber.

An eastbound manifest with 4 EMDs was waiting for the westbound to leave. 2
light SD70Ms showed up about the same time as the eastbound.

Note the clouds in the east over the mountains, we'll see more of those later.

I needed gas, and Lupe, the chihuahua, watched the proceedings as I fueled the
car.

Nothing was in the yard, ready to leave, so I drove east up the hill to see what
I might encounter. At Auburn Ravine trestle, I saw the end of an EB manifest,
which turned out to be mostly empty covered hoppers and tank cars. No DPUs,
but, when I got the first photo of the train at Bowman, it turned out to have an
SD9043MAC and 2 SD70MACs.

I tried to catch the train at Applegate, but it was a bit too quick for me, so
my next stop was the Highway 174 bridge in Colfax, one spot where I had not
taken any photos during the Calrailfans meet a couple of weeks earlier. To the
east, storm clouds were billowing over Cape Horn, so a stop at the Red Frog Inn
for the Cape Horn shot was in order.

My next stop was at Casa Loma, where it was raining. The sound of the train
horn blowing for Alta made it several miles to the canyon overlook and I thought
the train was closer than it was, or I might have tried for a bit different
angle. Still I was happy with the way the photos turned out.

I had not hiked in to Tunnel 36 at Yuba Pass (or Yuba Gap) since June 1975, when
4449 came east to meet the American Freedom Train. Rather than get photos at
places I visit more often, I took advantage of being pretty well ahead of the
train to walk the half mile or so to the tunnel. On the way, I shot photos of
the hillside from where a snow slide came down and knocked over a rotary
snowplow during the
rescue effort of the City of San Francisco in 1952. A bit farther on, we passed
the spot where train 101 ground to a halt when it hit a slide in 1952. SP
removed Track 1 between Emigrant Gap and Shed 10 in 1993.

For comparison, I have included a photo from 1982 of the westbound Zephyr on old
Track 1, as it came around the outside of Tunnel 36.

Just as the dogs and I made it to the top of the tunnel, a westbound came
through, empty reefers behind an SD70ACe and a GE. Well, we'd be waiting for a
while for the eastbound, as it would be sitting at Emigrant Gap waiting for the
westbound.

Eventually, UP 8122 and its two SD70MAC mates appeared in the distance and
popped out of Tunnel 35. Click, click, click, and then the train was gone. The
dogs and I carefully came down the hill next to the tunnel and were heading back
to the car when over the noise of the freeway, the sound of another train was
heard.

This one was empty grain hoppers with 2 AC4400s on the front and another
pushing. Two of the AC4400s were still in SP paint, but patched.

Not a bad haul for one day, but I thought I'd try for another shot of the grain
train, as the last shots of the DPU looked pretty nice in the late afternoon
light, so instead of heading west, we got back on the eastbound freeway. A few
miles later, I saw the grain train on the hillside above the freeway, stopped.

I got off at the next offramp, and found a road that went up to the tracks.

There, framed in a signal bridge, was the train. "Is this the face that launced
a thousand ships, and burned the high towered walls of Troy?" No, not unless
Menelaus and Agamemnon were foamers, but the train was stopped at Troy.

My stomach was rumbling and I had no idea why the train was stopped or when it
would be moving again. Snapping a last photo of the lead AC4400 through the
trees, I headed down the mountain and to home.

[photofile.ru]

I've also scanned in a few more photos from my 1980 trip to India. There are a
few shots of Bombay, then some more between Bhusaval and Delhi, specifically
the engine shed at Agra and overtaking a WDM2 at Mathura Jct.

The following day (25 Jan 1980) we took the Taj Express to Agra, where we saw
Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort and the Taj. To...top it off, a couple of us got a
cab ride on the WP 4-6-2 on the way back to Delhi.

After that, the Republic Day parade in Delhi on the 26th was just icing on the
cake.

[photofile.ru]