Day 19 - Cajon Pass

What can you say about Cajon Pass - a railfan's Mecca ? Quite possibly. As the sun moves around so does the best place to take photos.

We took off and the "B" team decided that they hadn't got enough of Frost so spent the morning there - I stuck with my plan and went straight to Cajon Pass with the first stop off being the Mormon Rocks - probably the most photographed rocks in California. Their smooth appearance and the acute angle they appear at is something quite extraordinary. Putting a train in the foreground sets the scene.

We then relocated to Hill 582, entering our names in the visitors book and admiring the handiwork of railfans and their attempts at landscaping this prominent geographical feature. Some trains went past as well. We caught up with the B team here and they entertained us with their tails of confronting their first rattlesnake, which was sunbathing in the middle of the road. We countered their story with our story of running into a private security guard who reminded us to purchase a day pass permit - which we did. $5 for the permit or $100 fine - no brainer really.

We all then relocated to the top of Summit where you could look down on the triple tracks. Good photo spot but shocking for video - lots of vehicle noises and people pulling over to have a look and then exercising their jaw muscles in conjunction with their voice boxes. Funnily enough, it was other foreigners that felt obliged to ruin my soundtrack.

Dinner at a local Chinese diner, a chat with the local CHiPs and settle in time.

Piccies below.

Mormon Rocks, Cajon, Ca.

53 foot domestic container on top of a standard 40 footer. Big, isn't it ?

Looking beautiful in blue...

One of the curves from Hill 582

The triple tracks at Summit and the fourth track further to the left up the hill.

Day 18 - Ludlow to San Bernardino

After three nights of blissful peace and quiet at Ludlow, we once again find ourselves in a big city. Day 18 covers the relatively short drive from Ludlow to San Bernardino - about 3.5 hours driving that once again took us all day.... "ohhh, look at that !".  We drove along Route 66 as much as we could but soon had to resort to using the freeway - jostling for position at 70 mph is an interesting experience, and recent road works got Sally confused and she sent me on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction. Luckily we knew where we should have been and ended up at the motel a few minutes later.

The drive was uneventful with a large part of the day being spent in the Victorville suburb of Frost, where we could look down onto an area where one set of tracks pass over another.

The check-in process to our motel was the quickest and most painless so far...although we're in an area that is not favoured by the rich and famous.

Nothing exciting to report - yet. Tomorrow we tackle Cajon Pass.

Pics from today:

Day 15 - 17 - Las Vegas to Ludlow

Ludlow didn't have internet, in fact the rooms didn't even have a phone, or a lobby. More on that later.

Day 15 was the day trip from Las Vegas Nevada to Ludlow California via Cima, Kelso and Amboy. The scenery was absolutely stunning, the heat was stifling. This is the heart of the Mojave Desert where yuccas, cactus, and other exotic plants and animals are abound.

We had lunch at Kelso and just as we were ready to give up on seeing anything on the rails, everything started going crazy. The gradient from Kelso to Cima is very steep and I managed to film the same train about 5 times.

We continued south to Amboy where we had a cold soda at Roys Cafe - a lot of history in this place and is very remote. The final drive took us past the Amboy Crater, which I was eyeing with envious eyes as we drove past. Everyone was hot and tired and just wanted to check in and crash.

Ludlow is a very remote town of 2 streets, about 6 houses, two service stations, a Dairy Queen, Cafe and Motel. The motel is administered from one of the gas stations, and the entire town is more or less owned by one person who has declared the area a dry zone - no alcohol. Anyone who knows me will realise that this wouldn't be a problem at all. On top of that, if you present your room key to the attendant at the gas station, you get endless free coffees or pops (coke, sprite etc.). The rooms in the motel are adequate, the water pressure could be referred to as "drip" but it's right on the the BNSF main line and the scenery is something else.

Trains were going through at about one every 20 minutes, averaged out, and there are plenty of locations to film from. A shame we struck another Monday work day and the wind was quite irritating. We ended up spending three nights here and still didn't cover all locations - the distances to drive are quite vast.

This blog then covers Day 15, Day 16 and Day 17, and includes a lot of filming around Ludlow, a trip to the Amboy Crater, a trip to Cadiz to see the interchange of the BNSF with the Arizona & California and their massive SD45 & SD45-2 locos, and a visit to the wye at Siberia.

Enjoy.

The signal arm at Ludlow - seeing a green on the right is always a good sign.

A&C 4004 - a rebuilt SD40M-2, which was once an SP SD45

BNSF grinding up the hill at Ludlow

Sunset on the Cadiz Turn - a train from Barstow that meets at Cadiz with the Arizona & California where they swap trains. The A&C goes to Phoenix. The Cadiz turn is currently operated by five B40-8W locos in various paint schemes, including one in Warbonnet BNSF and one in Warbonnet Santa Fe, albeit very faded.

 The view from the Amboy Crater as a BNSF intermodal freight passes by.

This is the real Mojave desert - dust covered rocks with sharp edges and scattered plant life.

The Amboy Crater and its associated lava field - last erupted about 500 years ago. It's a 3 hour climb to get to the top, I opted for the short 5 minute walk to the observation platform....

Four of us were lucky to witness a random meet at Bagdad.

Accelerating out of Amboy.

Passing through Ludlow

Day 14 - Williams to Las Vegas

I know what you're thinking about me being in Las Vegas, and you'd be totally wrong. I'm in my hotel room writing up my blog, sorting out maps and references for tomorrows leg and doing a load of washing....although I did make time to have a nice salad and some fries for dinner served by young girls in tight orange shorts and white singlets - something to do with owls - I'll figure it out one day... ;-)

Anyway - today I decided that we (as in my vehicle) would stick stringently to the itinerary I'd written up prior to the commencement of the tour. Thankfully the Johnson luck of finding trains kicked in and I filmed 10 trains in total - all before 2 pm. Within 10 minutes of turning up to the new location, something would turn up.

We departed Williams and headed back east to check out a few spots I'd identified on Google Maps and they turned out to be really good. We then returned to Williams to witness the departure of the Grand Canyon Railway train, led by a couple of F40 locos - ex Via I think.

We then headed to Seligman, but this time I stuck to the itinerary and got onto Route 66 on Crookton Road to check out the overpass. Excellent. Further along the road the trains just kept coming and coming. At Seligman I took a break from driving and Greg got us to Crozier Canyon where things seemed to slow down a bit, but we still got a couple.

We then continued onto Kingman where we then swung north and headed towards Las Vegas, stopping off at the Hoover Dam. This place isn't on my bucket list as it's man made, but it's still pretty darned impressive. The heat was pretty intense but we all managed to make the long walk up a gazillion steps to view the dam from the new road bridge.

A quick stop at the Lake Mead info centre for some scenicky photos and it was off to Las Vegas. Sally (we call her that) the GPS Hertz Neverlost told me one thing, and I saw another - and I missed the off ramp to our Motel so had to double back via - oh gawd - Las Vegas Boulevard. That was a driving experience and a half.

Despite my best efforts, Sally got us to the Motel unscathed - just in time to see a guy being arrested and carted off - right on the doorsteps of the main foyer. Great !

Dinner at Hooters, bought some stuff from their store, and I'm back in the Hotel. Personally, I dislike Las Vegas. I get the impression that the general attitude is "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" and being there is an open cheque book for personal behaviour that would not be normally carried out at home. Maybe I just need to spend more time here and take in more of the good side of Vegas.

Other than that, bright lights, big city, lots of people - including a raft of young adults from California on a weekend holiday. I'll be glad to get to the peace and quiet of the Mojave desert again - Ludlow tomorrow and we're there for three days - they're so remote I don't think they have internet - we'll see.

Erin.

Lots of these little fellas hanging around - he sat still just long enough for me to shoot off this shot. It's a railroad milepost marker.

Some of you will realize the significance of this sign, and how old it is.

The Grand Canyon Railway departing Williams AZ

Mr Hoover's little concreting project. The difference in colour above the waterline shows where the waterline should be - it's 128 feet low.

Day 13 - Flagstaff to Williams

Two items were struck off my bucket list today - a visit to both Meteor Crater and the Grand Canyon. Photos cannot do these places any justice - you have to see them.

The day started off departing Flagstaff and heading east to Meteor Crater. On the way there and back we stopped off at Cosnino Road and at Winona - which the old Santa Fe called Darling. My insistence of calling this place Winona is falling on deaf ears.

The light was good, there was no wind and trains were aplenty - until just before we got back to Flagstaff, where we stumbled across the aftermath of a grade crossing incident - train versus pedestrian. Flagstaff is split by the railroad and having a 2 km long freight blocking every grade crossing in town while the police and fire service sort out the mess can cause traffic mayhem.

We had lunch and due to the muck around, decided to alter the itinerary a bit and drove direct to Williams, from where I took two others up to the Grand Canyon to see it at sunset - stunning is an understatement.

At 6000 feet deep, the Grand Canyon is one big hole in the ground.

BNSF through Winona, AZ

Meteor Crater

Day 12 - Kingman to Flagstaff

As promised, we returned to Kingman Canyon to make use of the morning light. Only two trains passed through for the hour we were there - something was up. As we departed Kingman we soon discovered the problem - two trains were being held back to allow the UPS hotshot to overtake, thus preventing both tracks from being used until this special train had passed through. On top of that, a loco was having its traction motor being changed out in a siding.

We immediately hit Route 66 where our first stop was the Hackberry General Store where I spent too much money on crap I didn't need.. I did my thing for NZ-US relations - wrote my name on a NZ 5 dollar note, pinned it to the world map and put another pin in the map on top of Feilding.

The second stop was at Crozier Canyon where two trains were filmed. A quick stop at Peach Springs netted two more. Seligman was our lunch stop and this is where we lost the other vehicle - not a problem. We'd finally meet up at the hotel.
We continued on along I40 where Greg took over the driving while I slept - missing out on Williams altogether. Our next stop was on Sherwood Forest Road just short of Flagstaff. We were there for no longer than 10 minutes and saw two trains - one of them having three new ES44C4's on the point, two of them were consecutively numbered.

We shot past Flagstaff and stopped off at Cosnino Road and further along at Winona (Darling). We ended up pacing an intermodal all the way to Winslow, at one stage we were doing 75 mph and not gaining on it. Crazy.

More shots from Winslow - I did manage to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona, but not the touristy corner.

Back to Flagstaff where re rocked up the same time as the other team.


The Winslow Gap.

Kingman Canyon

Kingman Canyon

Hackberry, AZ

Peach Springs, AZ

Winslow AZ

Day 11 - Needles to Kingman

We're flying through the tour now, rapidly heading east. Today was only a short drive but there was plenty to do - lots of waiting around, a bit more waiting around, and then some more waiting around.

We headed out of Needles and drove down I40 and got off at Park Moabi. The BNSF cuts through a lot of old mine tailings here and the view from the road is pretty darn good. Alas the scanner revealed that a loco was having compressor problems at Needles and was fouling the main line - no trains for ages. We got a couple though, and also saw a meet on the Topock Bridge across the Colorado River.

A reasonable drive north saw us having lunch at Kingman followed by the entire afternoon at Kingman Canyon. The light was OK, but this place is more suited to morning shots, which we'll get tomorrow.
By the time we got there the backlog of trains was starting to clear with one turning up about every 15 - 20 minutes. Beautiful scenery.

I've rapidly picked up the necessary skills to survive driving in the USA, and tonight I found out that I don't make a very good passenger - finger nail marks in the dash board when one of the others took us to the supermarket.

Not many piccies, but I managed to film 14 trains today.

Northern Class loco on display in Kingman. The drivers are just over 6 feet tall and this beast totally dwarfs anyone who stands beside it.

BNSF intermodal at Park Moabi near Topock

BNSF at Kingman Canyon

BNSF at Kingman Canyon