Does anyon know of the UP running a passenger special somewhere west of here? I saw some UP passenger cars head west through here today, didnt hapen to see anyone on board though.
Maybe they are excercising the bearings?? Or perhaps they are doing repetative operating brake tests??[:D][:D][:D][}:)][;)][:-^]
OK. OK…
LOL!! Gotta do that once a month I guess.
Could have been deadheading somewhere.
They just completed a 13 passenger car move west to Oakland. In years past the UP stores some cars at Oakland, California for the winter, so I guess this move was for that purpose. I didn’t see the train, but the wife called me at work when it went by our house at Lawton, NV - “Overland Route” MP 235.5 yesterday (12-02-05) at about 1:30 PM. See did see a few people in one of the domes, about 10 folks.
Jim - Lawton, NV MP 235.5
Does UP still have and use the E9s?
Union Pacific also operated the Jacobi Special with Union Pacific Western Pacific heritage locomotive No. 1983 along with 3 passenger cars from Emeryville, CA to Sparks, NV via the Feather River Canyon to Winnemucca and back to Sparks. The train was symboled SEMSP 02 and had Union Pacific business cars Stanford and Sunset, both former ESPEE cars along with the Dome Silver Lariat sandwiched between the business cars.
Passengers were let out at Portola, California on Friday evening (12-02-05) and bused to John Ascusga’s Nugget Hotel and Casino at Sparks, NV for the night. Saturday morning passengers were boarded on the special and the train left Sparks at about 9:00 AM. Between Sparks and Oakland, CA the train was symboled SSPOA 03. As I understand it, a problem with telemetry between the 1983 and the FRED hung on the rear of the Sunset, caused the railroad to add another unit to run along with the 1983.
Chosen for the job was a GE No 5773, one of the units that ping-pongs back and forth between Sparks and Roseville as a DPU locomotive. Needless to say it had a thick coating of what we in these parts call “tunnel mist.” In other words the lead unit was a cinderblock."
Incidentally, the special was named for it’s host, Thomas F. Jacobi, Union Pacific vice president of the Western Region. Here is a link to a video clip of the special at Soda Springs, CA (This is a large video file, one should be using a high speed connection to view):
http://webpages.charter.net/nvrails/Jacobi_Special1.wmv
Here is the special at Mogul, NV
Here it is near Boca, CA
[img]http://webpages.ch
Front and rear of the Jacobi Special at Soda Spring.
Nice shots, I missed a UP passenger twice in 36 hours here this week, dang it!
Well I didnt even have a chance to take pictures, I was working on scratchbuilding a bridge(pics to come later) down at the Depot that we use for our club layout and I heard the train coming so I looked up to see it and there went a bunch of passenger cars behind a couple of SD70MACs. And that was it. It was snowing and the interstate was close becasue of a wreck so I couldnt chase it.