From March through May of this year, everyone was under a stay-at-home order, so I didn't go railfanning at all. Starting in June, I cautiously began to venture out. This week, I finally got up the gumption to get back to Tehachapi. For me as an LA resident, Tehachapi is a gamble, since it's more gas than Cajon, but it's less predictable. There can be days where there's a work window and nothing's running, or traffic can just be down that day, but you've still spent a tank of gas to get up there and back without seeing much.
It was a fairly good day. When I got to Mojave, a unit BNSF grain empty eastbound was just coming off the hill. It had a "heritage" grain car with the Frisco logo:
The siding at Tehachapi sometimes has interesting work cars spotted on it. I was lucky this time:
The 50-foot flatcar with wooden sides, loaded with random junk, used to be sort of a model railroad cliche. But here we are in 2020 with just that cliche -- and not only that, the cars are freshly painted for D&RGW and MP, with post-2010 conspicuity reflectors.
At the end of the day, I caught a loaded BNSF westbound unit grain train with eight units, three at the front, three midtrain, and two pushing.
That's 35,200 horsepower. When I was young, I thought 15,000 was a lot.
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