Tehachapi Loop
Doug Harrop Photography • April 8, 1977
Santa Fe 5581 leads a well powered eastbound train through the world famous "Tehachapi Loop" at Walong, California.
From Wikipedia: "The Tehachapi Loop is a 3,779-foot-long (0.72 mi; 1.15 km) spiral, or helix, on the Union Pacific Railroad Mojave Subdivision through Tehachapi Pass, of the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, south-central California. The line connects Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley to Mojave in the Mojave Desert.
Rising at a steady two-percent grade, the track gains 77 feet (23 m) in elevation and makes a 1,210-foot-diameter (370 m) circle. Any train that is more than 3,800 feet (1,200 m) long — about 56 boxcars — passes over itself going around the loop. At the bottom of the loop, the track passes through Tunnel 9, the ninth tunnel built as the railroad was extended from Bakersfield."
Tehachapi Loop
Doug Harrop Photography • April 8, 1977
Santa Fe 5581 leads a well powered eastbound train through the world famous "Tehachapi Loop" at Walong, California.
From Wikipedia: "The Tehachapi Loop is a 3,779-foot-long (0.72 mi; 1.15 km) spiral, or helix, on the Union Pacific Railroad Mojave Subdivision through Tehachapi Pass, of the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, south-central California. The line connects Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley to Mojave in the Mojave Desert.
Rising at a steady two-percent grade, the track gains 77 feet (23 m) in elevation and makes a 1,210-foot-diameter (370 m) circle. Any train that is more than 3,800 feet (1,200 m) long — about 56 boxcars — passes over itself going around the loop. At the bottom of the loop, the track passes through Tunnel 9, the ninth tunnel built as the railroad was extended from Bakersfield."