The quiet calm of a Spring morning in the Tehachapi mountains is interrupted by a labored roar, synonymous with Tehachapi's Hills for the better part of 140 years, the unmistakable battle cry hera... (more)

Its journey over the rugged and formidable Tehachapi grade nearly at an end BNSF's eastbound Z STOWSP drifts down grade at Warren, emerging from the Cache Creek narrows and conforming to the final... (more)

On top of the twisting curves needed to maintain a reasonable gradient leaving the floor of the Caliente Valley, Southern Pacific Civil Engineer William Hood's forces holed two tunnels through the... (more)

Passing through the rural oil rich fields of north Bakersfield in southern California's Kern County, SJVR's westbound 905 job rumbles up former Santa Fe iron (now the short-line's Landco Subdivisi... (more)

The serpentine curves which William Hood utilized in order to take the Southern Pacific Railroad out of the Caliente Valley and up the Tehachapi range, ultimately to link northern and southern Cal... (more)

Leaving the floor of the Caliente Valley at the conflux of the Caliente and Tehachapi Creeks, William Hood directed the rails of the Southern Pacific Railroad up the once thought insurmountable Te... (more)

Train time in Green River, WY….A westbound double stack train beginning the pull up Peru Hill, having just received a fresh crew, meets an eastbound potash train at CP G819 just west of town. In... (more)

Under a threatening sky Union Pacific's westbound ICBLB ascends Archer Hill led by rebuilt SD9043MAC 3666, a pair of Norfolk Southern 'thoroughbreds' round out the consist. The westbound stack tra... (more)

A westbound hotshot sails along Union Pacific's Laramie Subdivision passing the location of Fort Steele. Originally constructed in 1868 to protect Union Pacific's transcontinental railroad as it c... (more)

The scent of fresh rain still hanging in the air from a thunderstorm system mixes with the labored roar of a westbound Union Pacific 'shooter', illuminated by a brief break in the clouds as it asc... (more)

Having topped the Joint Line at Palmer Lake a northbound BNSF empty coal bucket slips down grade behind SD70MAC 9797. Pulling the grade up to 'the sag' a southbound BNSF manifest will soon be paus... (more)

With Southern Pacific daylight red and orange up front UP's eastbound empty Trona 'coal buckets' have ducked into the siding at Jim Grey to meet BNSF's westbound Boron local, very fittingly utiliz... (more)

With the rolling Tehachapi Hills dressed down with Spring wildflowers a 3 car Union Pacific inspection special departs Bealville behind new ET45AH 2617. The special included: Union Pacific's Mobil... (more)

Coming away from the second (of three) bridge crossings of the Mojave River, Union Pacific's eastbound West Colton, CA to North Platte, NE manifest slips through the heart of Afton Canyon. Origina... (more)

Nestled above the northern bank of the Mojave River the twin steel ribbons of Union Pacific's Cima Subdivision hosts the hotshot 'Denver Z' as it hustles through rugged Afton Canyon, dwarfed by th... (more)