THIS MONTH’S TOP NEWS STORIES AND PHOTOS
The Triumphant Return of 844
Union Pacific 4-8-4 844 returned to service after a multi-year overhaul at UP’s steam shop in Cheyenne, Wyo. The big Northern, which has never been retired by UP since it emerged from the shops of Alco in 1944, last operated in 2013 when it was taken out of service for boiler work. It was later decided to do the mandatory federal 15-year rebuild earlier than required, necessitating a longer stay in the shop. Completed in time to power the annual train from Denver to Cheyenne for Frontier Days, the 844 leads the excursion train north at Sand Creek Junction in Commerce City, Colo, on July 23. PHOTO BY SAYRE KOS
BNSF RAILWAY JONATHAN QUINLEY
Intermodal Route New El Paso
In mid-June, BNSF started running an intermodal train between Chicago and El Paso, Texas, then to Ferromex (FXE) with most of the traffic going to Silao, Guanajuato. BNSF has been trying to develop this traffic for two years. It was originally announced that BNSF would run a Z-WSPFXE and Z-FXEWSP train, but instead the new trains are the Q-CHCFXE6 and Q-FXECHC6 running between El Paso and Cicero Yard in Chicago on BNSF. The westbound train out of Cicero is scheduled to depart at 2:00 a.m., and it runs west to Galesburg, Ill., via the former BN line. From there it uses the Cameron connection to reach the former Santa Fe and run on to Belen, N.M., where it turns south on the El Paso Sub to El Paso and a connection to the FXE at 11:00 p.m. on the second night for a 46-hour trip over BNSF. The train departs Cicero Wednesday–Sunday.
6 SEPTEMBER 2016 •
RAILFAN.COM
Eastbound, the train is due to depart El Paso at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday–Monday with arrival in Cicero at 1:00 p.m. the second day for a 47-hour trip. As of press time, these new trains were not very large, with some being only 15 cars. J.B. Hunt is the main customer using this new service.
Southwest Sulfuric Acid Unit Train
BNSF started running a new unit
train of sulfuric acid from Provo, Utah, to Rincon, N.M., across the former Rio Grande from Provo to Denver on trackage rights, where it gets on the former Santa Fe and goes south to Pueblo, Colo., La Junta, Colo., and Amarillo, Texas. From there it goes west to Belen, then south to Rincon. The train is then handed off to the Southwestern Railway where it goes to Tyrone, N.M., for the copper industry. So far, two of these trains have operated on BNSF with the first being the U-PVORIN1-07and the second U-PVORIN1-17. The trains have the small KCCX tank cars with four engines
operating in a 2x2 configuration. They also have buffer cars on both ends to
protect the engines from the hazardous cars. These trains have had 63 loads of acid plus the buffer cars and weigh in at over 8,000 tons. The reverse trip is the U-RINPVO. The trains go to Magna, Utah, after they are handed off to the UP at Provo.
Coal Traffic Up BNSF saw an increase in coal traffic
during June with about 50 train sets put back in service. The 50 sets signify about 10 percent of the total coal train sets on BNSF. BNSF has had nearly 500 coal trains sets in service at the peak of coal traffic and has been down to 200 trains in service recently.
Power Notes
BNSF got the rest of its new order of ET44C4s delivered during June, which included the 3795, and 3825-3838. This completes the order, giving BNSF Tier 4 engines now numbered 3764-3999.
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