loaded_baretable
Shady Creek, OR
The MRVHK 17 crosses Shady Creek trestle, surrounded by the colors of fall. On its way north out of Klamath Falls on this morning, the train broke knuckles on 2 separate occasions, additionally breaking 2 air hoses during the second instance. The engineer made it very clear to the dispatcher and corridor that trip optimizer was in use "to its fullest extent" both times the train broke. Problems like these on the Cascade sub seem to be the new norm. The previous day on this trip, we had hiked into this same spot for a southbound, and only a couple miles away from us, a trailing unit failed from crankcase overpressure, leading to hours of troubleshooting and work to set the unit out, tie down, and later get the train moving again with a different crew and another locomotive. If I actually got any shots to show for it, I would do a more detailed write-up of that story. Last time I was on the hill during snow back in march, the situation was similar to this with frequent locomotive failures and other problems. In more demanding and remote territory like this, UP's lack of maintenance and other attempts to save money like TO and getting rid of the helpers really cut the operation deep, to the bone, it's pretty disappointing to see.
Shady Creek, OR
The MRVHK 17 crosses Shady Creek trestle, surrounded by the colors of fall. On its way north out of Klamath Falls on this morning, the train broke knuckles on 2 separate occasions, additionally breaking 2 air hoses during the second instance. The engineer made it very clear to the dispatcher and corridor that trip optimizer was in use "to its fullest extent" both times the train broke. Problems like these on the Cascade sub seem to be the new norm. The previous day on this trip, we had hiked into this same spot for a southbound, and only a couple miles away from us, a trailing unit failed from crankcase overpressure, leading to hours of troubleshooting and work to set the unit out, tie down, and later get the train moving again with a different crew and another locomotive. If I actually got any shots to show for it, I would do a more detailed write-up of that story. Last time I was on the hill during snow back in march, the situation was similar to this with frequent locomotive failures and other problems. In more demanding and remote territory like this, UP's lack of maintenance and other attempts to save money like TO and getting rid of the helpers really cut the operation deep, to the bone, it's pretty disappointing to see.