Rarely do I say too much about railroad operations in a public forum but today is an exception. I’m sure you are all thinking the worst since this is a post about the UP. Before you go there read on.
On Friday a westbound grain train left LaGrande with a 3X5 configuration (3 on, 5 in) and not long after leaving Hilgard stalled. This time of the year a stall on the hill with the usual power is not uncommon according to those that operate there regularly. They say it takes a couple of snow storms and cold weather before the UP remembers to have a manned helper around just in case something like this happens. After the 4022 west contacted the dispatcher about the stall it was around two minutes when the dispatcher came back with explicit and concrete directions on what to do. Two minutes? The UP responded to a situation like this in two minutes? Steve, you’re nuts, no way. Way.
The train was instructed to get the conductor on the rear end and back down between switches at Hilgard to await the arrival of a manned helper. After safely backing the train to Hilgard the train crew once again contacted the dispatcher to let him know they were stopped. At this point the dispatcher informed them a crew van was on its way from Hinkle to pick them up and a fresh crew from LaGrande would be put on along with a helper. What, the crew wasn’t going to continue west and risk dying on the road? What foresight on the part of the UP! As someone who analyzes business process for a living I was impressed with the quick and reasonably smart decision making on the part the UP. Instead of letting the crew continue, only to reach their hours of service in the middle of the canyon (Camp, Huron, Bonifer), they relieved them and set the next crew up to be successful in getting the train to Hinkle under the law. To me that is somewhat unusual these days. [Note: Some would argue the helpers should have been called and on the train to begin with. I suppose, but weighing the cost of a crew and locomotive fuel and the fact the weather was good at the time the likelihood of that occurring was not high.]
Now that I’ve said that….on Friday 12/7 Robert, Richard, and I left LaGrande around 6am and worked our way west over Kamela summit towards Hinkle We spent most of the morning photographing near the summit but it was clear our crush of trains was drying up. We continued west until we ran into the first eastbound just east of Echo. The PDG1 met a couple of eastbounds that we’d already photographed west of Gibbon so we decided head back up the hill to continue chasing it east. In nearly the last light of the day we shot it for the last time between Hilgard and Perry at one of the most interesting locations in the Blues.
PDG1’s Wild Ride
After driving up and down the road between Glover and Kamela we became very familiar with the various nooks and crannies where a person could stick their camera and grab a photo. I liked this location so I separated from the group to get this photo of an eastbound stack train between Nordeen and West Motanic. This train’s crew must’ve been bored because they spent a bit of time with the whistle after they spotted me set up on the road.
Descending Quietly
Steve wanted to shoot from the old highway bridge at Glover and since I’d already sampled that location a couple of times I decided to camp out underneath for something different. I guess since this train is dubbed the Super Fruit was fitting it have some clean power leading. Nothing like putting the best on one of the hottest trains on the railroad!
Super Fruit!
…ahhh, winter in the Blues!
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