About a week ago I saw a CN (Canadian National) unit mixed in with a few Pumpkins and a Warbonnet on the BNSF mainline between Fullerton and Riverside CA. How did a CN loco get so lost? A run through? I have occasionally seen some Norfolk Southern and some Rail Link locos. But until now, I have never seen a CN loco.
Posted by cajon (Member # 40) on :
Usually "foreign" power gets cut off at Barstow & sent back, but every once in awhile they get to LA. So power from all the other RRs has made it out here at one time or another. Hope you got pix! When I was working in Barstow saw lots of non-BNSF power-even an Alaska geep!
Posted by Eric (Member # 674) on :
I've seen CN, CSX, SP, CP, NS, Conrail, Mont. Rail Link, and an old Illinois Central unit. Yeah, eventually everything makes it out here!
Posted by Eric (Member # 674) on :
A KCS unit came through on a Z today, and three NS units and a BNSF Pumpkin were leading a merchandise freight.
Posted by PullmanCo (Member # 1138) on :
One disadvantage of the Peeple's Repulsive Repuplic of Kaliforny...
You get Uncle Peter, or you get BNSF...
Having abandoned California in 1978, after I graduated from Santa Barbara, I eventually landed in Kansas City.
Momentary Digression: Even in the late 60s, it was... You get Uncle Peter, or you get the Santa Fe, or you get The Octopus.
Nowadays, I live along the KC-Omaha-Lincoln line of the old CB&Q (now BNSF). Here, mix and match power is fairly common. Not unusual to see 1 BNSF and 1 KCS unit on a coal unit train.
Ditto older equipment. GP-30s are fairly common even now. In fact, as I write this I am realizing I've not seen any of the early high-hood SD units operating from Murray Yard in about a year.
It gets even more eclectic when I watch the old Missouri Pacific Line running the west bank of the Missouri River out of Kansas City Kansas. Espee and RG units from before the merger come by halfway regularly.
Of course, having four Class 1 systems, all with at least one yard, helps
John
------------------ The City of Saint Louis (UP, 1967) is still my standard for passenger operations
Posted by atsf3751 (Member # 1538) on :
Foreign power all the way to LA does come every now and then. Of late, NS seems to be the most common, but I have seen CN on a number of occasions as well.
Posted by Ken V (Member # 1466) on :
It is indeed rare to see foreign power on trains in many areas, but it does happen from time to time. Sometimes this is run-through power from connecting trains, but often, it involves pay-back for borrowed units.
A few years ago, just days after the proposed BNSF-CN merger was announced, I saw two BNSF pumpkins in CN's Toronto Don yard. It just so happened that BNSF owed CN some time. An interesting co-incidence .
