Rolling through the Metrolink station in Orange is Union Pacific train LOA32, the local that originates in the railroad's West Anaheim Yard and then heads south, some of it on Metrolink trackage (as seen here) to Santa Ana to serve several industries there. (The old Southern Pacific trackage used to extend a bit into Costa Mesa to deliver paper to the Los Angeles Times printing plant there, but ever since it closed these trains no longer cross that city line … but the train is still often referred to as the Costa Mesa. Old habits die hard, I suppose…)
Just one locomotive is powering the 12-car Costa Mesa this day: UP GP40R 1529, which was built by EMD in September 1967 as Louisville & Nashville GP40 3015. This Geep later became Seaboard System 6811, then CSX Transportation 6811. This diesel ended up at Morrison-Knudsen in Idaho and was rebuilt into Southern Pacific GP40R 7294 (the 2nd SP GP40R 7294, it should be noted, as the first was destroyed in a 1991 wreck in Arkansas, and M-K supplied a replacement using the frame from CSXT 6811, released in 1992. After the SP was consumed by the Union Pacific, it became UP 1529, which UP classes as a GP40M-2. (UP comes up with some rather unusual classes.) I've not found a record of which locomotive's body was put on that frame to create this diesel.
Given this locomotive's "Frankenstein's Monster"-ish origin, all the tagging is kind of appropriate!
