Wish You Were Here ... Volume 01 - Tehachapi 09/04 and 09/05 2004 Page 2... New Photos Posted on: 12/14/04
Wish You Were Here - Volume 01 .... Up through Cajon Pass and Two days in the Tehachapi mountains ... Page Two ...... (click here to return to Page One)
After the BNSF train was passed from Caliente, I decided to go get some lunch. I headed down to the Burger King in Tehachapi. Got some food and since the light was better for the lone engine at Summit switch, I went over for a head end photo.
I then returned to Woodford found a shady spot (sort of) and ate my lunch while waiting for the trains to start moving again. I ended up taking a nap for about 2 hours. When I woke up UP 4539 was starting to move... from that point it was one train right after another.
I sat out a few trains at Woodford since they were coming up right behind each other...
A UP baretable with a cyeclops SD60M on the point
A BNSF trailer train which had some Automax cars on the end.

I moved up to the end of the dirt road that runs along Woodford. This affords a nice view of the Tehachapi Creek bridge, and got there in time to capture images of this BNSF train led by and un BNSF's Santa Fe warbonnet # 637.

I headed over to Keene near tunnel 9 so I could get a better photo of the CN engine that was on the last BNSF train.. I caught it on top ot the tunnel.
After that train passed there was a bit of a lull, so I decided to hang out a bit and wait to see what arrived next. I knew there was a UP manifest train that was at Cliff, so surely this would be coming soon. While waiting I met Ron Minor who was down from the Sacramento are with his two son's. We chatted a bit and exchanged website information. Ron moderates / runs a Tehachapi Railfan's group on Yahoo and also post on Railroad Forums. While chatting the UP manifest train announced it's approach.
I liked the last picture here since it shows the last engine on the front end and the first engine on the rear of the train almost passing each other.

I went down to Bealville to take better advantage of the sun angle. As I got set where I wanted to take my photos, BNSF 732 showed up at Cliff and decended into the tunnel. This is the train that was stopped at Marcel for a good span of the day.
As they made the way through Bealville, they began to slow down. Apparently the dispatcher had a hot train that they needed to run around this manifest train.
BNSF 4995 passes by the end of the manifest train.

Up to Caliente I went to capture some more images of these two trains.. first up was BNSF 4995 rounding the curve in shadow.
Then through the S curves along Caliente Bodfish Road.
After that I pulled the lens back for a wide angle photo of the train on the horse shoe curve.
And they meet with a waiting UP manifest train just passed the grade crossing for Bealville Road.
Before I could think of heading back down, the BNSF manifest train I had left at Bealville passed behind me. Having photographed the head end of the train already several times, I waited for the DPU set. Nice to see a B unit at the end 8-)
I was again surprised to see yet another BNSF manifest train come around the corner hot on the tail of the DPU set.

After the last manifest train came by me, I attempted to get down to the grade crossing before they made it there so I could get on the good side of the sun but no luck. I took a photo of the UP manifest train that was given the all clear to proceed up the hill, then got back up to the overlook spot real quick to get a photo of them crawling up the steep grade.
With the sun going down quickly, I decided it was best that I choose my sleeping spot while I could see where I was. I had visited the spot at the end of the dirt road along the Woodford siding earlier in the day, and decided that was where I wanted to stay. The nearby tree's would block the engine lights from constantly shining into my car, yet I had view of the trains coming from both directions. The first photo above is the last train I photographed before it got too dark, and the second photo was taken with only light from a train coming up the hill. That was the view out my side window.
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