So there I was:
Witnessing the “falling apart” of a Union Pacific train originally sent from Roseville, Fornicalia and expected to terminate in Sparks, Nevada.
The train in question was an “auto rack” which consisted of a number of railroad cars carrying numerous vehicles from the San Francisco bay area — the receiving Port of Oakland the likely recipient, or perhaps Martinez, where the vehicles are held in multiple rows. A dedicated “auto rack” train is not necessarily by itself predominantly heavy, but it does make up for its weight in length.
This train had stopped in Colfax and the lead Union Pacific unit, a relatively new General Electric C44ACCTE (Controlled Tractive Effort), # 5817, was dead on the vine. There were five locomotives up front and, with some clever manipulation and switching, the newest unit was placed on point. This turned out to be an EMD (Electro Motive Division of GM) SD-70M, number 3853. I suspected the crews wanted this unit on point for a number of reasons: its clean exterior indicated little usage in tunnels and, being a newer unit, its heater might be worth selection, as well as its newer seats, toilet and interior.
Works for me. It was marvelous to watch these switching moves.
At this point, in Colfax, there was already one “bad order” unit, the GE # 5817. I shot numerous photos of this train in Colfax and then headed up the hill to the Secret Town area. The rain turned to flecks of snow and then to bits of ice. Oddly enough, though not prescient in any way, I managed to stop at the precise point where the train halted. The young engineer climbed out of the cab with his conductor and fireman trainee and examined another unit. It would appear that the elder SD-40 unit #3027 had died as well.
Once this was realized the train continued with EMD 3853 on point. I’ll not forget the radio traffic between the engineer and the Union Pacific dispatcher:
“So I’ve got two dead units. And the others load when they want. I can switch them to Run 8 and they might load and they might not. I’ve got Monsters On The Wing like the Twilight Zone.”
Monsters on the Wing indeed; that Twilight Zone episode featured a young William Shatner gripped in the heart of confusion when he realized there was some sort of creature determined to sabotage the plane upon which he rode, peeling off nacelle parts.
In the High Granite, I heard a transmission from this train that said “I think I’ve got another dead one.” Meaning that of the five original units allocated to this engineer, two were clearly dead, one was questionable and two were fully functional.
And pushing on his rear was the UP flanger set consisting of GP-38 units 572 and 583, into an area where younger engineers do not travel: communicating with a live Pusher Set instead of a dead consist of one or two GE DPUs (Distributed Power Units).
Blogger will not let me load photos, which I so desperately need now.
BZ
