The West Valley

Southern Pacific's West Valley Subdivision is undoubtedly one of SP's more interesting lines. This lightly used mainline was a secondary to the East Valley, which SP preferred for its direct connection to Roseville. Meanwhile, the West Valley completely bypassed Roseville, running an almost completely straight line for around 110 miles between Davis and Tehama. I should note that timetables show the West Valley as running between Davis and Dunsmuir, but from what I've seen over the years most people refer to the Dunsmuir to Tehama section simply as the Valley. South of Tehama is where traffic was scarce, with not many trains needing to be routed over this part of the line. However, some regular trains included MUG trains (empty lumber trains such as WCEUM), OABRT/BROAT (Oakland - Portland TOFC), LABRT/BRLAT (LA - Portland TOFC), some locals such as the Woodland Switcher, and the Coast Starlight. The line also would see unit sugar beet trains, a service which was one of many things SP was known for.

 

Not surprisingly, by 1990 the line was on a steep decline. Many of the regular trains had been rerouted to the East Valley, customers in the small communities were finding other means of transport, branches like the Colusa Branch were gone or just barely holding on, and SP didn't see a reason to continue holding onto operations of the line. Since there was still some need for rail service though, in 1993 a new shortline called the California Northern would start a long term lease from SP, acquiring three sections of track. These lines were the connecting Schellville and Vallejo Branches, along with the former NWP to Willits, the West Side from Tracy to Los Banos, and the West Valley from Davis to Tehama. California Northern was founded by the Park-Sierra Rail Group. The railroad quickly became known for their West Valley operations, along with being armed with a roster of former CNW GP15s painted into cream and green, which was the Park-Sierra paint scheme. Later in 2002, Rail America would buy the railroad, but it still stayed mostly the same. However, despite the shortline running everything, SP and later UP still had a presence on the line. Throughout the years there was an interchange of sugar beet trains until the last one to Woodland ran on December 28, 2000. (Look up GolfingJamiethephotog on YouTube if you want to see the last runs of the beet trains.)

 

In 2012 the California Northern was seeing changes. Genesee and Wyoming bought Rail America and quickly things started changing on the California Northern. Shockingly, all these years the old searchlights were in operation, but eventually the majority were either replaced with new heads, turned, or the heads were completely removed altogether. The old roster of GP15s also got sent off or retired, with the last three GP15s remaining on the property being 1568, 1569, and 1570, with 68 and 69 being scrapped in 2019 while 70 was retired earlier this year. Over the years, new power also arrived in the form of a GP38-2 and some KLW locomotives. At the same time, unit trains were making a return in the form of gypsum, and recently even those are seeing their own changes.

 

The gypsum trains originate in Empire, NV, which is on a spur off the former WP in Gerlach. These trains typically run to a couple places in the valley such as Fresno and Famoso, but a couple times per year would make their way to Hamilton City. The facility in Hamilton City is where Holly Sugar facility once operated, and was one of the places the sugar beet trains went to. As of recently, gypsum trains are now seeing a new destination on the West Side, another California Northern operated line. For the West Valley, however, these gypsum trains recently are now terminating in Artois rather than Hamilton City. The reason for this is due to the way the Hamilton City branch is set up, which requires a crew to pull cars on the main to the switch so a crew on the branch can take the cars to Hamilton City. These trains get well over a hundred cars and only about twenty to thirty can go up to be unloaded at a time, combine that with a ten mile per hour speed limit, and that's a lot of time and money to unload a single train. The solution was to have the trains terminate at Artois, while some cars get unloaded there, some are brought to Hamilton City. This cuts the time in half for unloading, which means less money spent on crews and a faster turnaround time for the railroad. So far this has been the second gypsum to operate this way.

 

The gypsum photographed here was an interesting situation. On recent runs, UP units have been leading both directions instead of being taken back to Davis immediately after arriving to their destination, which is what used to happen. This time around, the train was given a new leader, which had to do with a previous motor failing on the train. When the westbound left Empire, originally there was a third motor that was facing east, but the batteries were failing which caused the unit to struggle to stay online. After being dropped in Roseville, the train continued with two west facing motors. After arriving to Artois, the power had nowhere to turn around, it was about 100 to the nearest wye as the one in Tehama has had the east leg cut for many years, which left Davis as the only area to turn the power around. However, in case running long hood forward didn't already sound like enough of a pain, it gets worse. The AC44 rebuild that had to lead the southbound trip had no radios and no conductor side mirror. With empty cuts of cars blocking the main at Artois and UP putting a lot of pressure on California Northern to return the train, running the SD70M around wasn't much of an option either, besides UP needed the SD70M to lead over their own tracks anyways due to the AC44's lack of radios. But regardless of which unit led, there was also the problem that neither unit was equipped with rear ditchlights, meaning the train would have to run at restricted speed. Thankfully, the crew did not have to run like this for long since Cortena was only around thirty miles away. At Cortena, there was a genset which the crew put on point so the train could run track speed and not have to deal with the lack of visibility. Once the new leader was on, the SD70M was shut off and then the train took off for Davis.

 

The photo seen above is a an almost perfect scene of the West Valley, with a giant silo soaring above the flat land, telegraph poles lined up along the tracks, signals in the background, and a train, the only thing missing from the scene are the Sutter Buttes, which are visible for a good chunk of the trip. This shot is one I've wanted to do for years, but with a lack of a shoulder on the side of the road and how rarely I get out this way, it can make it hard to do a lot of these shots. I did manage to find a small area just big enough for my friend and I to park our cars as the train was throttling up. Making my way to the tack, I was met with a scene that looked better than I had imagined it would look, and this bucket list shot was finally checked off. Throughout this chase I did manage to knock off a few other bucket list shots, which mostly included turned searchlights. With two friends working the train (one helped build the train, the other is the engineer seen in the photo), a few people chasing, and lots of interesting shots, this chase was one of the best I've had in awhile.

Done