A definite contender for Train of the Year

            In August 1996, a few weeks before Union Pacific acquired Southern Pacific, I made one last trip to the Modoc Line. At the desert oasis of Wendel, I encountered this westbound train. It was parked on trackage at the beginning of the branch to Susanville, which I had never seen done before.

It looked like at least one of the tracks in the yard was out of service, because its rail was being cannibalized. My guess was that this train was parked on the Susanville Branch to get it out of the way until a rested crew could forward it to Klamath Falls. At the time, Quincy Railroad was operating periodically on the line, bringing lumber loads over to Wendel from the big Sierra Pacific sawmill at Susanville.

Needless to say, this set of locomotives - a Burlington Northern SD60M, an SP SD40T-2, and a Conrail C40-8 - had to have been one of the most exotic lashups to roll over the Modoc in 1996. The BN unit had been a fallen flag since the BNSF merger the previous September. In less than a month, the SP unit would join the club, and the Conrail GE would be a fallen flag in three years.

Taken in: United States / California / Wendel (show map)

Taken on: August 17, 1996

Tags:

Burlington Northern

EMD

SD40T-2

Espee

Southern Pacific

Susanville Branch

Quincy Railroad

QRR

Wendel

California

Honey Lake Valley

Conrail

General Electric

C40-8

Freight Train « less

Sets appears in: • The Modoc Line • The Friendly Southern Pacific more » • Burlington Northern - a Quarter Century of Cascade Green • Foaming in the Desert • Trains « less

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Camera: Plustek OpticFilm 8200i (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Plustek OpticFilm 8200i
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 15.0 (Windows)
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