Bill Compton and I planned to make a Tehachapi trip and finally he picked a date. I was up at 4:50 AM to get ready and Bill arrived at 5:40 AM to pick me up. We drove to the Fullerton station to pick up Richard, a friend of Bill's and drove to the Riverside Freeway which we took west to Interstate 5, to California Highway 99 and on to Bakersfield. We followed the tracks east out of town, stopping for petrol and ice before heading into the mountains then found our first train at Bealville awaiting a westbound.
BNSF 7063 East waits at Bealville.
BNSF 7377 West came down the grade into Bealville.
BNSF 7063 East then departed for points east. We left as well and drove up to the Tehachapi Loop, hiking up to the hill that overlooks the loop. BNSF 7063 East made it to Woodford where he waited for a pair of trains there. I called the Let's Talk Trains show and during my call, spotted our next westbound train coming down the grade through Marcel.
BNSF 5211 West made the trip down the grade around the Tehachapi Loop.
Union Pacific 5395 West with DPUs 5465 and 5365.
BNSF 7063 East finally went up the grade, around the loop and headed east. We drove back down to an overlook near Tunnel 2 and had been hearing over the radio that Union Pacific 5372 East was having major problems with its DPU brake line system and passed that train at Caliente on our way to our overlook. The plan was to bring new DPU's out of Bakersfield but it tied up the railroad from Caliente to Ilmon, bringing all traffic to a stop. We listened to the radio as these plans took place.
A track inspector came by heading east up the grade to Tunnel 2 and would wait at Bealville.
BNSF 7063 West came down through Cliff and would also wait at Bealville, discussing the wait with the dispatcher. We knew we had one eastbound BNSF at Bena and another one at Edison so would wait for the new DPU's to come up to Ilmon, retrieve the bad DPU's and replace them with their DPU's and take the bad ones to the helper pocket track at Bena and tie them up there. Once the new DPU's were ready and an air test made, things should be moving again on this railroad.
