Gately (BNSF) - April 3, 2011

Today, Saturday April 3, 2011, turned out to be a good day for shooting Amtrak San Joaquins and Capitols, as well as the BNSF O-11 out of Richmond, California. I met up with Tom Schmid at 10am today. Since this location at Gately oversees the Cal-P as well as the BNSF mainline, we were never waiting for trains very long. The O-11 local was bringing some empty baretables from the UPS facility, and storing them on the Gately siding. Normally this is a routine maneuver. Not today. The two Santa Fe locomotives, one a GP-60-m in the classic Santa Fe Warbonnet paint scheme, and the other, the lead locomotive, a GP39-2, decked out in BNSF's Yellowbonnet paint scheme, came eastbound from the Richmond yard, picked up the baretables and proceeded toward our position on the mainline. Then the switch for entrance into the siding was thrown and the train began to back its cars into the siding. Again, normally a routine maneuver. Today, however, the truck in the last baretable derailed, and it was fascinating to see the crews place wedges on the track just in front of the disabled car. With the wedges in place, a radio call to the engineer (about 1/2 mile ahead) started the train moving slowly forward. No luck. The truck went on the track and derailed again. The second time was successful, as the engineer eased the throttle open more gently and the truck went on the track and stayed. It was a beautiful day for shooting, and I only wished I had stayed longer to catch Amtrak #5 coming down the Cal-P at 3:20pm.