Fading Warbonnets

[kevin_standlee]

Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) has trackage rights over the UP (ex-SP, ex-CP) main railroad line in front of Fernley House, including the right to service intermediate customers. Their "Little BN" switch job usually works the two-track yard across the street from us five days a week. Sometimes Little BN takes cars to and from Sparks (where the crews are based) and sometimes they tie up on the Fernley "House Tracks" and are taxied back and forth between Sparks and Fernley. (I assume this has to do with how many hours they work; railroaders aren't allowed to work more than 12 consecutive hours, and this is a very hard and fast rule, to the extent that a crew that goes "dead on the law" can tie up the railroad, so they can't let crews "die" on the road.) The current pair of locomotives that Little BN is using were parked overnight (and for a change, not automatically restarting and idling to stay warm, the way they do in the winter). I took an opportunity for a photo just as "Big BN" (one of the through BN freights that drops/picks up cars in Fernley for/from Little BN) showed up to make a deposit.


This pair of ex-Santa Fe GP60M locomotives — the one on the right is also pictured in the Wikipedia article to which I linked — still wear the famous Santa Fe "warbonnet," albeit that 122 is in the BNSF modified scheme, and both are further stenciled "BNSF" above their road numbers. They will presumably work out their lives this way, although some of their sister units have received repaints into BNSF's current scheme.

Later that morning, the Little BN crew arrived and fired up their units. Once Amtrak #5 came by (2 1/2 hours late, sigh), followed by a couple of Union Pacific freights, BN tied on to the cars that Big BN left them and set off to deliver them to their customers in the Fernley area. The yard was empty and the units weren't here when we got home from Reno this evening, so we assume they were able to work their way back to Sparks today.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

This may just be revealing my ignorance of trains, but I don't recall having seen before locomotives that look so much like lorries (road trucks), with the window of the crew compartment recessed from the front of the machine. Surely they don't keep an engine under that hood?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

That particular model (GP60M) has what's sometimes called the "comfort" or "safety" cab, first ordered by Canadian railroads, which makes it more obvious that there is a nose out in front of the locomotive cab. It makes the units more comfortable for the crews, and there is stuff down in that nose as well. What's specifically in there varies with each railroad's order with the manufacturers.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

There's 3800 horsepower worth of engine behind the cab, where a lorry would carry cargo.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I know what's behind the cab. That's why I pointed out that it will be silly to have one in front of the cab, where a lorry would have it.