I believe that I can honestly say that I have never actually chased a train before. I know there was an attempt the first time I went to Gorham, Il with Rick, Wally and Thomas when I also first met Gary Ostlund. But that was short lived. That story goes that a Union Pacific special move came down to Gorham with one heritage locomotive on each end and three passenger cars between. Arrived at Gorham, stopped for a brief moment and promptly raced back to St. Louis. After we got our photos and decided to try and catch it up at Jacob, it was long gone. So no, not a true chase in my mind.
Well, once again my co-worker, Craig, was in the know about a special BNSF passenger move that was to happen on December 13th. It did help that he knew about it because he would actually be on the train. Its route of travel would be to leave San Bernardino and head up to Summit in Cajon Pass. Once there it would reverse down (once again having one locomotive on each end) back to San Bernardino where it would unload its first patrons and load again for a second trip.
A little note to what this special was; this train was brought down from Washington state as it is used up there as an annual Holiday train for kids of Military Families. So it’s really a pretty cool deal. I’m not sure who manages to bring the train down to San Bernardino but it is brought down and essentially used for the same purpose, but I believe this is just for under privileged kids and not specific to Military Families. Sunday December 14th, the train picked up kids battling cancer and other life threatening diseases from City of Hope, a cancer hospital, for a short excursion and Monday December 15th, the train picked up preschool kids from Victorville, CA and made a run all the way to Barstow, CA. I would have really liked to chase it that day as both locomotives were on point.
December 13th was a Saturday and as luck would have it, I had an open schedule. Let’s face it, my Saturday’s have been whatever I want them to be since I’ve moved out here. It’s pretty nice. So I figured what the heck, I’m going to chase a train!
The trick to this was that I had never really been up in Cajon pass before so I had no idea where I needed to go for photos or even where I could go since I don’t have an SUV or a truck. So Saturday December 6th I made a day of going up into Cajon just to see where I could and should go. So this day I made a couple stops but the first problem was there were no trains! I was in the pass for about four hours and there were no trains! NONE! I couldn’t believe it!
The second problem? Well, as luck would have it, while I am up in the pass scouting things out, I notice a white truck start approaching me while I was standing trackside, but it wasn’t a railroad truck, so I thought nothing of it. Well, the guy drives up and I notice its some security firm. He asks if everything is ok and I reply that everything is good. His demeanor quickly changes telling me I have to be 60 feet away from the track at all time. Yea, I know what that means, you will be watching me no matter where I go now. So luckily it was getting dark and I just decided to head back to Anaheim. But, I did get an idea for where I needed to be the next weekend, so it wasn’t a total waste.
Well, December 13th came and I find myself standing on the platform awaiting the arrival of this special excursion train. The weird part I first noticed was that trains were EVERYWHERE which I have never witnessed at San Bernardino before, but I just passed it off and continued to wait. Not long after, I see a sparkling clean ES44C4 peek into the sun approaching the platform. I take my pics, watch the commotion for a bit and head up Cajon Boulevard to find my first stop.
I soon found out why there were trains everywhere at the station, there were trains moving and held up everywhere “east” of the station! Within a mile I saw four trains, two moving and two waiting. This might be a great day after all! And the best part I noticed on my drive to San Bernardino was how brilliantly clear the day was. Yes, this would make for some great photos!
I make my stops at the spots I had found the previous Saturday and get some good photos of the BNSF special as well as various other BNSF and Union Pacific trains. I notice that I’m not the only one chasing this train, which is refreshing to witness; I’m not the only one running around with a camera getting looks of “why are you taking photos of a train?”
After getting back to San Bernardino five hours later, which turns out was over an hour behind schedule, I had the thought of going back over to San Timoteo Canyon to see what was happening on the Union Pacific. My thinking was that if Cajon Pass was this busy, surely San Timoteo Canyon would be! WRONG I camped out here for about 2.5 hours and only caught four trains. But, the last train was laying rail along the roadbed for replacement, so at least I found out why there wasn’t much traffic. And of course my camera batteries were dead, so I got to just watch the trains for the evening.
All in all, a successful Saturday and a successful chase. If I continue to do this sort of thing, I will most likely be looking into a better equipped vehicle for the task. As much as I like the Maxima, it’s getting along in age and miles, 240K actually. So who knows what the future holds there. But, until next month, I leave you with the photos of the chase. Enjoy!
