Some of you may or may not know, but BNSF is adding a 3rd line in the Cajon Pass. I found this site with some pretty good pics. Just thought I would share.
Cool pics!! There’s a scene to model if you have some extra real estate!
I wonder what that new construction would do to the track plan/operations of John Armstrong’s classic Cajon Pass layout.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - to include major right-of-way construction)
I love the addition but hate to see the two tunnels go. I’ll just have to go to the Loop to see some tunnel action in So Cal.
Jason:
Wonderful pictures. Thank you for the map. I had no idea the scope of the construction.
Santa Fe used the original 3% Calif.Southern track for downhill and the added (2.2%) north track for uphill. One wonders if they’ll pull the old 3%?
Is UP still using all the BNSF track or crossing over to the ex SP track W of Summit?
It’s dry Southern Cal. desert (3000’) but I remember driving the pass in a blizzard.
Yeah, I didn’t realize they were daylighting those tunnels until the other day. I was driving home from work and I looked over and saw them giving the hill a “haircut”. If I remember, I’ll try to get some pics tonight on my way home and post them on Monday.
Um…yeah…I don’t really know. [:D]
Yup. Every once in a while, it gets a little white through there. Makes it fun trying to get home with all the SoCal natives that freak out at the first sight of snow.
Don,
There is way too much traffic for BNSF to take out the original track. I’m talking 100 trains a day. Cajon Pass is great for that and for about a month out of the year it is actually green, so it makes for some great photos especially if the background mountains are white capped.
UP is all over that mountain. They still have trackage rights on the old SF tracks and now since they took over SP the now have the Palmdale Cutoff (the higher track) which is how SP used to travel from the Sunset Route to Central California (the Loop).
I’ve never need so lucky to be there when snow was on the ground but I do know that it gets pretty darn cold in the winter.
Whilst slurping my lunch time protein fruit smoothie, I googled Cajon, CA and was able to trace the tracks over the pass. The excavations are very clear, including a concrete lined tunnel bore that has been daylighted.
As I panned to the east I saw the Palmdale cutoff curve to the north and west and followed it all the way to Tehachapi and the famous loop.
Having parked there above the loop in 1995 it was very interesting to view it again
Did a little off roading and managed to get about a half dozen pics on Saturday.
Great Photos and if access were to be granted I bet there would be some great rock collecting to be done at the new cuts–naturally with train-watching in the background. I hope a local university geology department was informed of these fresh rock exposures. The rock looks quite soft–any idea of its composition?
Reminds me of when I was younger the PRR or Conrail chopped the tops of some of the smaller hills above the shorter tunnels in Pa. to allow the double stacked containers to pass unobstrtucted. It was a wonerful opportunity for a young teen to teaspass, do some rock collecting and train watching.