Post by thespcaboose on Mar 21, 2010 17:27:13 GMT -5
There is something about the simplicity of a unit train-whether it be coal, oil, grain or doublestacks-that is fasecinating to almost everybody. Seeing a unit train rolling across the landscape is hypnotic. Maybe it's the continuity of the cars or the fact they are all alike that puts one's subconsious to work and brings back the images of yesterdays passenger trains. Maybe it looks like it's alive-like a huge serpent in search of food.
One of the more unusual of these unit trains runs every day of the year except Christmas over the Tehachapi Mountains in California. The Southern Pacific's unit oil train, known as the "Oil Cans," runs from Bakersfield to Los Angeles and has captured the attention of many a railfan-but few know much about the train.
There are many areas around California where our pioneers found wealth. The first was gold, but later on that goo that got stuck to their boots bagan to attract attention. Oil was found around the Bakersfield area in the 1860's, and small scale production of oil started in 1864. The first uses for the tar-like substance were as lubricants and illuminating oils. It was twenty-some years later that oil was first used commercially as a fuel.
The Union Oil Company did some very successful testing on the use of oil as a fuel for steam engines in 1894, and the railroads began converting their locomotives to burn oil shortly thereafter. Being locally available, oil provided a hefty savings over coal at the time. This new fuel also put a boost in the already booming industrail revolution that was taking place in the United States.
The first "oil trains" began running out of the San Joaquin Valley at the turn of the century, and oil was shipped to all points in the Southwest. The Southern Pacific and Santa Fe together were shipping more than 4,000 carloads of oil a month out of the Valley by 1905. This required a tremendous amount of work to do all the switching at the many spurs that were popping up in the Bakersfield area.
At this same time oil was being discovered on the west side of the valley near where the towns of Taft, McKittrick, Buttonwillow and Maricopa are now located. The SP and Santa Fe formed a corporation and built a branch line into the area. The opening of the Sunset fields put a glut on the oil market that briefy slowed down the San Joaquin Valley's economy,but it soon rebounded and expanded robustly.
In the early 1970s, the U.S. experienced its first oil crisis, and everyone learned what it was like to skimp. The price of oil per barrel was in the daily news. The rising oil prices changed the way the major U.S. oil companies did business, but it didn't happen overnight. Domestic oil fared better on the open market creating little pockets of boom towns in the oil producing areas.
Shell Western, a subsidiary of Shell Oil Company of Houston, Texas, was very active in the pursuit of new crude oil for its refinery in Carson, California, on the south side of Los Angeles. In 1979 it purchased Belridge Oil Company and its large reserves of heavy crude oil in the Kern River Basin near Bakersfield. This heavy crude can be refined into certain products like tar and assphalt more readily than other crude oils, but it is also more difficult to extract from the ground. The most common method in use today is to force steam down into the well to heat the oil and float it up on top of the hot water and steam.
Developing an efficient method for getting the wells to a refinery took a lot of research. At first Shell used another company's pipeline and shipped the oil north to a Shell refinery at Martinez, near San Francisco. Some of that oil also ended up going by tanker back down the coast to the port of Long Beach, where it was then piped to the Shell refinery in Carson. This wasn't a very economical use for its new oil deposits, and Shell started looking for other means to get the crude to Carson.
Shell studied the cost of building a pipeline over the mountains from Bakersfield, and the more they looked into the matter the worse the costs and time span became. This was just the beginning of the era when everything that was done in this country required an environmental impact report. With all the delays that come with these reports, it could have been years before they ever broke ground.
With this in mind, Shell's senior management in Houston assigned a team of specialists to investigate other ways to move the oil. The idea that looked the most practical was by rail. It was being done successfully back East, but it was the finished product instead of crude oil. The crude would have to be heated to 140 degrees to be pumped into and out of the tank cars. Warming the oil created new problems: temperature changes could put thermal stresses on the tank cars and loading and unloading equipment.
After all the research and reports were in, Shell Western got their approval from Houston to study the feasibility of a unit oil train. Southern Pacific Transportation Company was asked for a long-term quote on hauling the oil to the refinery in Carson, and General American Transportation Corporation (GATX) was asked to adapt their "TankTrain" concept of interconnected cars for the transportation of crude oil. After talking to the railroad and GATX it became clear that this was indeed, possible. Shell Western submitted the reports to Houston, which reviewed them and authorized the funds for the unit train project.
A lot had to be done. Loading facilities had to build at Saco, north of Bakersfield on the SP main, and the yard in Carson, near the port of Long Beach, had to be completely redone to accommodate the twelve-car TankTrain blocks that GATX was contracted to build. The loading facility at Saco is very modest, merely a gantry of pipes with no storage tanks nearby. While driving past on U.S.99 at the north end of Bakersfield at Seventh Standard Road, it goes unnoticed if the tank cars aren't there. The oil is piped in from varous well and storage facilities in the surrounding region. As low key as Saco looks, one unit train will just about suck dry one of those huge storage tanks that dot the valley (there are 42 gallons to a "barrel"of oil, and a typical Shell TankTrain will carry 44,000 barrels per train).
The refinery and unloading facility are in the city of Carson in Los Angeles County just north and west of Long Beach. The unloading facility is southwest of the intersection of Alameda Street and Sepulveda Boulevard, on the southwest side of SP's Dolores Yard. On the south side of the facility, Lomita Boulevard separates the communities of Carson and Wilmington.
When the train gets to Carson, Shell unloads it using nitrogen gas to push the heavy crude oil out of the twelve TankTrain cars connected with ten-inch flexible hoses. The entire process of loading or unloading the six blocks that make up a 72-car train takes only about four or five hours. All construction was to be completed by November 1, 1983, but as work rapidly progressed it became obvious that the project would be done sooner than that.
On September 11, 1983, the Shell oil TankTrain was off and running. It was initially symbolled the BKDOL for the loads and DOBKN for the empties, but later SP changed them to BKDOU and DOBKU ("BK" for Bakersfield and "DO" for Dolores Yard). The dispatchers simply refer to the loaded train as the "Cans" or "Oil Cans" while the empties are always called the "Empty Cans"-although on the radio they are usually referred to in the L.A. area as "Extra So-and-So" using the locomotive number, while the Tehachapi dispatcher will generally can them the "Cans."
During the first months of operation the trains were routed via Cajon Pass and West Colton and assigned the then-almost-new 8200 and 8500 SD40T-2s, with five on the point, six more in the middle and sometimes one behind the caboose. The pusher and midtrain units were cut out at Tehachapi. The Cans initially ran every other day using one set of 66 or 72 cars. Shell then changed to two sets of 66 cars and then on up to two sets of 72 cars, permitting a complete trip in each direction every day.
After running these two sets of 72-car trains for a while, Shell got another set from GATX for a third train. The third train was run for a time in 1988-89 and then stopped, at which point the extra cars were put in storage and used to protect the other two trains. In 1990 this third set was used to make two sets of 13-car blocks, and the rest were turned back to GATX. Thirteen-car block sets are the standard today. There are no extra cars for the train at this time, so if there is a delay, a domino effect will take place. For instance, if the Wednesday loads are late over Tehachapi, the Friday empties may also be late-perhaps even showing up on the mountain in daylight.
The Cans were initially routed over Cajon Pass because the SP wasn't sure the track on the Saugas Line was in good enough condition for the TankTrains tonnage. The route over Cajon was longer than the Saugas Line but in much better condition. However, from West Colton, at the base of Cajon Pass, the Cans were going right into the congestion of eastbound traffic that was trying to get out of the L.A. Basin. Once the Cans arrivrd at West Colton the loads simply stayed on the main and changed crews at Cedar Street, at the west end of the hump. The train would go west to City of Industry, where it had a choice of routes to Dolores Yard.
The Empty Cans would reverse that route and be given a class-A inspection in the departure yard at West Colton before continuing over Cajon. The longer route and time to do the inspection brought a route change for the empties. About 18 months after their inception, the lighter empties were routed through Saugas and Soledad Canyon. This change took place because it was difficult to make the spot time of 5:30a.m. at Saco by going over Cajon. After the route change, the inspection was done before departure at Dolores Yard. The loads continued going via Cajon for about three or four more months.
A derailment on the Palmdale Cutoff rerouted the loaded Cans through Saugas for a couple of days, and the SP discovered that the Saugas Line was, indeed, in good enough shape for the train. It has been over Cajon only a few times since, such as during the light rail construction in 1987-88 on the Wilmington Branch.
The Cans go through just about every type of terrain that California can offer. Starting just northwest of Bakersfield in the oil fields, they go through "town" (Bakersfield) before encountering the fields of grapes, potatoes, oranges and other row crops that surround the packing fields of Edison. Leaving the San Joaquin Valley behind, the train approaches the famous north slope of the Tehachapi Mountains with its breath taking vistas, numerous reverse curves and constant 2.2% grade. The most famous landmark on this part of the run is the Tehachapi Loop and, yes, the TankTrain will cross itself on the Loop.
The railroad crests at nearly 4,000 feet of elevation beneath the Route 58 overpass just east of the rustic community of Tehachapi at the top of the hill. With its many wind machines and desert appearance, the south side of the Tehachapi Range is a complete contrast to the north,but the grade is virtually the same 2.2%, and at 10,608 tons, the Cans are far more dangerous to control. After they reach the town of Mojave, at the edge of the
Mojave Desert, the worst of the grade is behind them. Until a few years ago when the cabooses were eliminated, approaching Mojave the crew of the Cans would usually radio in a lunch order to the Mojave operator, who gathered the grub from the Carl's Junior restaurant right across the street and hannded it up to the passing train.
The Cans cover the 40 miles of almost straight running across the western side of the desert to Palmdale in just about as many ninutes. Actually, it's called the Antelope Valley, the southern half of it now being a major bedroom community for the over crowded and over priced San Fernando Valley. From Palmdale, located at the southern foothills of the Antelope Valley, the tracks split, with the Palmdale Cutoff going east toward Cajon Pass and the Saugas Line going southward and up the short but steep Vincent Grade. The dispatchers figure the Cans taking one hour to get across the desert and up to the summit of Vincent.
From Vincent the Saugas Line heads down the flood prone Santa Clara River channel of Soledad Canyon. The loaded Cans can sometimes be seen in Soledad Canyon late in the afternoon if everything goes right on the Tehachapis.
Most of the time, though, the Oil Cans and Empty Cans will meet after dark at either Saugas or Lang. The returning empties are through Tehachapi around midnight and spotted before dawn at Saco.
The Saugas Line was the original SP route into the Los Angeles Basin. Built as the continuation of the route from San Francisco in 1876, the Saugas has gained and lost traffic over the years. Upon completion of the Palmdale Cutoff via Cajon in 1967, the traffic on the Saugas Line dwindled to just a couple of trains a day. The hotshot Portland (Brooklkyn Yard)-L.A. pig trains (BRLAT east and LABRT and LABRF west) still went this route, but the rest of the traffic went via the Cutoff. For the last couple of years, however, this trend has reversed itself. Now the chances of catching a train in the Soledad Canyon are very good. There are currently quite a few trains using the Saugas Line, including the hot little Portland-L.A. Pacific Coast Express (the May Trucking train).
One more note about the Saugas Line: It is dispatched by DTC (direct traffic control) with no CTC, and blocks will be given out on the radio by the Saugas Dispatcher, identified as "WR52." The Tehachapi part of the route is controled by WR51, the old Valley Mountain Dispatcher. WR52 also controls the track with CTC from Cameron (between Mojave and Tehachapi) to West Colton. The SP converted the entire Tehachapi Pass line to CTC in the 1940s. The Palmdale Cutoff was changed to CTC in the early 1980s.
After the 44.5 mile stretch from Palmdale to Saugas, the tracks go up a short grade and then through the 6,966 foot long Tunnel 25 to pop out into the San Ferenando Valley at Sylmar, where the helper set is cut out-when the Oil Cans were running via Cajon, the Bakersfield helpers were cut out at Tehachapi, but now the helpers run through to Sylmar. The railroad tries to get the helpers back to Bakersfield on the Hours of Service, but usually they get 'dog catched' either at Sylmar or Saugas. "Catching" them at these two locations puts the carryall right by Interstate 5 for the trip to Bakersfield. Sometimes helper power is put on the point of a westbound train to help it up the Tehachapis, but this only happens if the combined power is less than eight units.
The trip down to Taylor Yard in Los Angeles is 25 miles of virtually straight track from Sylmar through Burbank and Glendale. Burbank Junction (at Burbank) is where the on-again/off-again Coast Line connects to the Saugas Line. The SP's Coast Line is now host to four extended Amtrak San Diegans that go to Santa Barbara, as well as the two Coast Starlights. Freight on the Coast includes the Gemco trains (serving the General Motors Plant), the Surf Turn, sugar beets (in season) and at least four through freights.
After arriving at Taylor Yard, a new crew takes the Cans for the reamainder of the trip to Caron. The crew that has brought the empty train up from Dolores will usually take the loads back. Using only one crew helps make sure the empties are spotted correctly. Most of the time they go by way of the Wilmington Branch through Watts and Compton. Things on the Wilmington can be very conngested, however, and if track work is going on they may go to City of Industry and then down the Borg. This isn't the best area of Los Angeles, and care should be taken if you decide to go there for railfanning or photography.
Just south of Compton is Dominguez Junction, the throat of the very busy Dolores Yard. Dominguez is also where the new light rail system goes over the SP. Dolores is the yard that connects the new ICTF doublestack container facility to the rest of the world (the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility is a joint venture of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and is served exclusively by SP). The Cans go through Dolores on their trip to the refinery at Carson, which is just south and west of the yard.
The Cans have made the trip between Saco and Carson almost daily since 1983. The loaded Cans are brought into Bakersfield with their road power by a yard crew around noon, and the road crew picks them up there. (At the same time, the Empty Cans are being pulled at Carson and given their class-A inspection before departing up the Wilmington Branch.) Quite often the loaded Cans will be at the Bakersfield depot at Baker Street between 11:30a.m. and noon, tied down waiting for the road crew. After the road crew gets the train, the yardmaster will tell them to come across Baker Street, and once the rear has cleared the crossing the helpers are cut in. In the past, Edison (eight miles to the east) was used to cut in the helpers, but it is no longer used to put helpers on any train, either Santa Fe or SP.
There have been times when a third set of equipment was deployed for a short time to step up the amount of crude for Carson. When the third set of cars was used the departure times varied greatly. On major holidays (Thanksgiving, New Years and such) the train can be loaded very early in the day at Saco, so the entire trip to Los Angeles is done mostly during daylight hours.
The number of cars has changed over the years. Eleven, twelve and 13 car blocks have been used, but Shell and SP seem to have settled into 13 car blocks with six of these being put together to make a train. The helpers cut in four blocks deep. The head end power is usually four six-motors, and the helper set is either five or six more motors. In late 1990 and early 1991 a GP60 was seen ocasionally on the Cans, but the SP tries to keep six-motors on the train. There is no replacing tractive effort of the SD40-2 or SD45 when moving 10,608 tons of oil train.
The Cans are, however, the train of choice for moving power out of the San Joaquin Valley to the shops in Los Angeles, and it's not unusual to see SW1500s, GP9s and GP35s right behind the road power. The SP used to run these swithers m.u.ed with the power, but that practice led to problems while climbing the Tehachapis. One summer day in 1988 the Cans with a GP9 in Run 8 lit grass fires all the way up the mountain. Now older units are shut down. Cabooses came off the Cans in 1987 the first trains going over the Tehachapis to lose them.
The safety record from the Oil Cans has been very good, and there have been very few derailments that have amounted to anything. One reason for this record is the inspections done by the railroad. Also, Shell regularly replaces all the knuckles on the cars, greatly reducing the chance of pull aparts. On a regular maintenance schedule, the cars are taken to the GATX facility near West Colton Yard for a complete servicing, where brakes, bearings and all other safety components are checked over.
The loaded Cans derailed a half dozen cars on a sun kink at Warren, on the east slope of the Tehachapis in the mid 1980s, but no oil spilled. On July 12, 1987, the loads derailed in Lancaster in their worst accident to date. The train was going south between Rosamond and Lancaster near the east switch of Oban at 3:30a.m. An automobile had run off the road moments before the Cans arrived and knocked the tracks out of alignment. The four lead units (8362/7308/8232/9291) and first three blocks of cars derailed. Nine of the tank cars reptured, and more than 66,000 gallons of crude spilled onto the desert. With the resulting mess, it took the SP almost two full days to open up the railroad. The clean-up took much longer. Meanwhile, SP's trains were rerouted either via Barstow on the Santa Fe or down the Coast Line.
There was one major operating change early on that almost killed the Oil Cans. It seems that the SP was running a hot pig train (WCRVT) from West Colton via Cajon to Roseville, and management was having trouble getting the trailers in downtown Los Angeles onto the train. When the Empty Cans started going via Saugas, the SP saw a perfect opportunity to get the loaded pig flats to the WCRVT by simply putting them on the rear of the TankTrain. The Empty Cans would take the trailers up to Oban on the desert and set them out for the WCRVT to come and pick up.
Sounds simple, right? Well, as can happen in railroading, these L.A. trailers kept getting later and later, and the Empty Cans had to be held until they were ready. As a result, the oil train was often getting to Saco long after its spot time of 5:30a.m. One day, after the empties arrived at Saco at 11:30a.m., Shell let it be known that it wasn't very happy. The very next day the Empyty Cans went back to their old schedule of running straight through to Saco.
Even with all the precautions, the train will sometimes pull apart, and when it does a small amount of oil will spill out of the ten inch hoses that connect the cars. Oil can't flow from any of the cars themselves because valves are closed at each end of the car before the train moves. But with oil trapped in the hose between the valves, the poor soul who has to get under there and put in the new knuckle gets oil soaked. Oh, the pleasures of railroading.
The biggest operational problem the Cans have experienced has been stalling on the Tehachapi grades. Anybody who has frequented the Tehachapis know what I'm talking about. When you're at maximum tonnage and one unit goes down, not only is that much horsepower lost, but also there are 200 tons more dead weight. Just go through one flange greaser and you're stopped. The situation seems to be getting better, however, the Cans are stalling out less and less as time goes on.
As I've said, the Oil Cans are a day-in/day-out operation, shutting down only on Christmas Day. That performance is not absolute, however. In 1990 the unloading facility in Carson was being worked on, and the Cans stopped running for just over a month. Then in early 1991 some work was done at Saco, resulting in no train for a few more weeks but other than that sort of temporary interruption, the Cans have run continuously since 1983.
This has been a very successful train for the SP, and the tonnage when you add it up becomes very impressive: one day, 10,608 tons; one week 74,256 tons; one 30-day month, 318,240 tons and one year 3,861,312 tons. Convert that over to gallons (one tank car holds 23,700 gallons), and it calculates out to 1,848,600 gallons per train and 672,890,400 gallons of crude oil per year. A true pipeline on wheels.
One of the more unusual of these unit trains runs every day of the year except Christmas over the Tehachapi Mountains in California. The Southern Pacific's unit oil train, known as the "Oil Cans," runs from Bakersfield to Los Angeles and has captured the attention of many a railfan-but few know much about the train.
There are many areas around California where our pioneers found wealth. The first was gold, but later on that goo that got stuck to their boots bagan to attract attention. Oil was found around the Bakersfield area in the 1860's, and small scale production of oil started in 1864. The first uses for the tar-like substance were as lubricants and illuminating oils. It was twenty-some years later that oil was first used commercially as a fuel.
The Union Oil Company did some very successful testing on the use of oil as a fuel for steam engines in 1894, and the railroads began converting their locomotives to burn oil shortly thereafter. Being locally available, oil provided a hefty savings over coal at the time. This new fuel also put a boost in the already booming industrail revolution that was taking place in the United States.
The first "oil trains" began running out of the San Joaquin Valley at the turn of the century, and oil was shipped to all points in the Southwest. The Southern Pacific and Santa Fe together were shipping more than 4,000 carloads of oil a month out of the Valley by 1905. This required a tremendous amount of work to do all the switching at the many spurs that were popping up in the Bakersfield area.
At this same time oil was being discovered on the west side of the valley near where the towns of Taft, McKittrick, Buttonwillow and Maricopa are now located. The SP and Santa Fe formed a corporation and built a branch line into the area. The opening of the Sunset fields put a glut on the oil market that briefy slowed down the San Joaquin Valley's economy,but it soon rebounded and expanded robustly.
In the early 1970s, the U.S. experienced its first oil crisis, and everyone learned what it was like to skimp. The price of oil per barrel was in the daily news. The rising oil prices changed the way the major U.S. oil companies did business, but it didn't happen overnight. Domestic oil fared better on the open market creating little pockets of boom towns in the oil producing areas.
Shell Western, a subsidiary of Shell Oil Company of Houston, Texas, was very active in the pursuit of new crude oil for its refinery in Carson, California, on the south side of Los Angeles. In 1979 it purchased Belridge Oil Company and its large reserves of heavy crude oil in the Kern River Basin near Bakersfield. This heavy crude can be refined into certain products like tar and assphalt more readily than other crude oils, but it is also more difficult to extract from the ground. The most common method in use today is to force steam down into the well to heat the oil and float it up on top of the hot water and steam.
Developing an efficient method for getting the wells to a refinery took a lot of research. At first Shell used another company's pipeline and shipped the oil north to a Shell refinery at Martinez, near San Francisco. Some of that oil also ended up going by tanker back down the coast to the port of Long Beach, where it was then piped to the Shell refinery in Carson. This wasn't a very economical use for its new oil deposits, and Shell started looking for other means to get the crude to Carson.
Shell studied the cost of building a pipeline over the mountains from Bakersfield, and the more they looked into the matter the worse the costs and time span became. This was just the beginning of the era when everything that was done in this country required an environmental impact report. With all the delays that come with these reports, it could have been years before they ever broke ground.
With this in mind, Shell's senior management in Houston assigned a team of specialists to investigate other ways to move the oil. The idea that looked the most practical was by rail. It was being done successfully back East, but it was the finished product instead of crude oil. The crude would have to be heated to 140 degrees to be pumped into and out of the tank cars. Warming the oil created new problems: temperature changes could put thermal stresses on the tank cars and loading and unloading equipment.
After all the research and reports were in, Shell Western got their approval from Houston to study the feasibility of a unit oil train. Southern Pacific Transportation Company was asked for a long-term quote on hauling the oil to the refinery in Carson, and General American Transportation Corporation (GATX) was asked to adapt their "TankTrain" concept of interconnected cars for the transportation of crude oil. After talking to the railroad and GATX it became clear that this was indeed, possible. Shell Western submitted the reports to Houston, which reviewed them and authorized the funds for the unit train project.
A lot had to be done. Loading facilities had to build at Saco, north of Bakersfield on the SP main, and the yard in Carson, near the port of Long Beach, had to be completely redone to accommodate the twelve-car TankTrain blocks that GATX was contracted to build. The loading facility at Saco is very modest, merely a gantry of pipes with no storage tanks nearby. While driving past on U.S.99 at the north end of Bakersfield at Seventh Standard Road, it goes unnoticed if the tank cars aren't there. The oil is piped in from varous well and storage facilities in the surrounding region. As low key as Saco looks, one unit train will just about suck dry one of those huge storage tanks that dot the valley (there are 42 gallons to a "barrel"of oil, and a typical Shell TankTrain will carry 44,000 barrels per train).
The refinery and unloading facility are in the city of Carson in Los Angeles County just north and west of Long Beach. The unloading facility is southwest of the intersection of Alameda Street and Sepulveda Boulevard, on the southwest side of SP's Dolores Yard. On the south side of the facility, Lomita Boulevard separates the communities of Carson and Wilmington.
When the train gets to Carson, Shell unloads it using nitrogen gas to push the heavy crude oil out of the twelve TankTrain cars connected with ten-inch flexible hoses. The entire process of loading or unloading the six blocks that make up a 72-car train takes only about four or five hours. All construction was to be completed by November 1, 1983, but as work rapidly progressed it became obvious that the project would be done sooner than that.
On September 11, 1983, the Shell oil TankTrain was off and running. It was initially symbolled the BKDOL for the loads and DOBKN for the empties, but later SP changed them to BKDOU and DOBKU ("BK" for Bakersfield and "DO" for Dolores Yard). The dispatchers simply refer to the loaded train as the "Cans" or "Oil Cans" while the empties are always called the "Empty Cans"-although on the radio they are usually referred to in the L.A. area as "Extra So-and-So" using the locomotive number, while the Tehachapi dispatcher will generally can them the "Cans."
During the first months of operation the trains were routed via Cajon Pass and West Colton and assigned the then-almost-new 8200 and 8500 SD40T-2s, with five on the point, six more in the middle and sometimes one behind the caboose. The pusher and midtrain units were cut out at Tehachapi. The Cans initially ran every other day using one set of 66 or 72 cars. Shell then changed to two sets of 66 cars and then on up to two sets of 72 cars, permitting a complete trip in each direction every day.
After running these two sets of 72-car trains for a while, Shell got another set from GATX for a third train. The third train was run for a time in 1988-89 and then stopped, at which point the extra cars were put in storage and used to protect the other two trains. In 1990 this third set was used to make two sets of 13-car blocks, and the rest were turned back to GATX. Thirteen-car block sets are the standard today. There are no extra cars for the train at this time, so if there is a delay, a domino effect will take place. For instance, if the Wednesday loads are late over Tehachapi, the Friday empties may also be late-perhaps even showing up on the mountain in daylight.
The Cans were initially routed over Cajon Pass because the SP wasn't sure the track on the Saugas Line was in good enough condition for the TankTrains tonnage. The route over Cajon was longer than the Saugas Line but in much better condition. However, from West Colton, at the base of Cajon Pass, the Cans were going right into the congestion of eastbound traffic that was trying to get out of the L.A. Basin. Once the Cans arrivrd at West Colton the loads simply stayed on the main and changed crews at Cedar Street, at the west end of the hump. The train would go west to City of Industry, where it had a choice of routes to Dolores Yard.
The Empty Cans would reverse that route and be given a class-A inspection in the departure yard at West Colton before continuing over Cajon. The longer route and time to do the inspection brought a route change for the empties. About 18 months after their inception, the lighter empties were routed through Saugas and Soledad Canyon. This change took place because it was difficult to make the spot time of 5:30a.m. at Saco by going over Cajon. After the route change, the inspection was done before departure at Dolores Yard. The loads continued going via Cajon for about three or four more months.
A derailment on the Palmdale Cutoff rerouted the loaded Cans through Saugas for a couple of days, and the SP discovered that the Saugas Line was, indeed, in good enough shape for the train. It has been over Cajon only a few times since, such as during the light rail construction in 1987-88 on the Wilmington Branch.
The Cans go through just about every type of terrain that California can offer. Starting just northwest of Bakersfield in the oil fields, they go through "town" (Bakersfield) before encountering the fields of grapes, potatoes, oranges and other row crops that surround the packing fields of Edison. Leaving the San Joaquin Valley behind, the train approaches the famous north slope of the Tehachapi Mountains with its breath taking vistas, numerous reverse curves and constant 2.2% grade. The most famous landmark on this part of the run is the Tehachapi Loop and, yes, the TankTrain will cross itself on the Loop.
The railroad crests at nearly 4,000 feet of elevation beneath the Route 58 overpass just east of the rustic community of Tehachapi at the top of the hill. With its many wind machines and desert appearance, the south side of the Tehachapi Range is a complete contrast to the north,but the grade is virtually the same 2.2%, and at 10,608 tons, the Cans are far more dangerous to control. After they reach the town of Mojave, at the edge of the
Mojave Desert, the worst of the grade is behind them. Until a few years ago when the cabooses were eliminated, approaching Mojave the crew of the Cans would usually radio in a lunch order to the Mojave operator, who gathered the grub from the Carl's Junior restaurant right across the street and hannded it up to the passing train.
The Cans cover the 40 miles of almost straight running across the western side of the desert to Palmdale in just about as many ninutes. Actually, it's called the Antelope Valley, the southern half of it now being a major bedroom community for the over crowded and over priced San Fernando Valley. From Palmdale, located at the southern foothills of the Antelope Valley, the tracks split, with the Palmdale Cutoff going east toward Cajon Pass and the Saugas Line going southward and up the short but steep Vincent Grade. The dispatchers figure the Cans taking one hour to get across the desert and up to the summit of Vincent.
From Vincent the Saugas Line heads down the flood prone Santa Clara River channel of Soledad Canyon. The loaded Cans can sometimes be seen in Soledad Canyon late in the afternoon if everything goes right on the Tehachapis.
Most of the time, though, the Oil Cans and Empty Cans will meet after dark at either Saugas or Lang. The returning empties are through Tehachapi around midnight and spotted before dawn at Saco.
The Saugas Line was the original SP route into the Los Angeles Basin. Built as the continuation of the route from San Francisco in 1876, the Saugas has gained and lost traffic over the years. Upon completion of the Palmdale Cutoff via Cajon in 1967, the traffic on the Saugas Line dwindled to just a couple of trains a day. The hotshot Portland (Brooklkyn Yard)-L.A. pig trains (BRLAT east and LABRT and LABRF west) still went this route, but the rest of the traffic went via the Cutoff. For the last couple of years, however, this trend has reversed itself. Now the chances of catching a train in the Soledad Canyon are very good. There are currently quite a few trains using the Saugas Line, including the hot little Portland-L.A. Pacific Coast Express (the May Trucking train).
One more note about the Saugas Line: It is dispatched by DTC (direct traffic control) with no CTC, and blocks will be given out on the radio by the Saugas Dispatcher, identified as "WR52." The Tehachapi part of the route is controled by WR51, the old Valley Mountain Dispatcher. WR52 also controls the track with CTC from Cameron (between Mojave and Tehachapi) to West Colton. The SP converted the entire Tehachapi Pass line to CTC in the 1940s. The Palmdale Cutoff was changed to CTC in the early 1980s.
After the 44.5 mile stretch from Palmdale to Saugas, the tracks go up a short grade and then through the 6,966 foot long Tunnel 25 to pop out into the San Ferenando Valley at Sylmar, where the helper set is cut out-when the Oil Cans were running via Cajon, the Bakersfield helpers were cut out at Tehachapi, but now the helpers run through to Sylmar. The railroad tries to get the helpers back to Bakersfield on the Hours of Service, but usually they get 'dog catched' either at Sylmar or Saugas. "Catching" them at these two locations puts the carryall right by Interstate 5 for the trip to Bakersfield. Sometimes helper power is put on the point of a westbound train to help it up the Tehachapis, but this only happens if the combined power is less than eight units.
The trip down to Taylor Yard in Los Angeles is 25 miles of virtually straight track from Sylmar through Burbank and Glendale. Burbank Junction (at Burbank) is where the on-again/off-again Coast Line connects to the Saugas Line. The SP's Coast Line is now host to four extended Amtrak San Diegans that go to Santa Barbara, as well as the two Coast Starlights. Freight on the Coast includes the Gemco trains (serving the General Motors Plant), the Surf Turn, sugar beets (in season) and at least four through freights.
After arriving at Taylor Yard, a new crew takes the Cans for the reamainder of the trip to Caron. The crew that has brought the empty train up from Dolores will usually take the loads back. Using only one crew helps make sure the empties are spotted correctly. Most of the time they go by way of the Wilmington Branch through Watts and Compton. Things on the Wilmington can be very conngested, however, and if track work is going on they may go to City of Industry and then down the Borg. This isn't the best area of Los Angeles, and care should be taken if you decide to go there for railfanning or photography.
Just south of Compton is Dominguez Junction, the throat of the very busy Dolores Yard. Dominguez is also where the new light rail system goes over the SP. Dolores is the yard that connects the new ICTF doublestack container facility to the rest of the world (the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility is a joint venture of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and is served exclusively by SP). The Cans go through Dolores on their trip to the refinery at Carson, which is just south and west of the yard.
The Cans have made the trip between Saco and Carson almost daily since 1983. The loaded Cans are brought into Bakersfield with their road power by a yard crew around noon, and the road crew picks them up there. (At the same time, the Empty Cans are being pulled at Carson and given their class-A inspection before departing up the Wilmington Branch.) Quite often the loaded Cans will be at the Bakersfield depot at Baker Street between 11:30a.m. and noon, tied down waiting for the road crew. After the road crew gets the train, the yardmaster will tell them to come across Baker Street, and once the rear has cleared the crossing the helpers are cut in. In the past, Edison (eight miles to the east) was used to cut in the helpers, but it is no longer used to put helpers on any train, either Santa Fe or SP.
There have been times when a third set of equipment was deployed for a short time to step up the amount of crude for Carson. When the third set of cars was used the departure times varied greatly. On major holidays (Thanksgiving, New Years and such) the train can be loaded very early in the day at Saco, so the entire trip to Los Angeles is done mostly during daylight hours.
The number of cars has changed over the years. Eleven, twelve and 13 car blocks have been used, but Shell and SP seem to have settled into 13 car blocks with six of these being put together to make a train. The helpers cut in four blocks deep. The head end power is usually four six-motors, and the helper set is either five or six more motors. In late 1990 and early 1991 a GP60 was seen ocasionally on the Cans, but the SP tries to keep six-motors on the train. There is no replacing tractive effort of the SD40-2 or SD45 when moving 10,608 tons of oil train.
The Cans are, however, the train of choice for moving power out of the San Joaquin Valley to the shops in Los Angeles, and it's not unusual to see SW1500s, GP9s and GP35s right behind the road power. The SP used to run these swithers m.u.ed with the power, but that practice led to problems while climbing the Tehachapis. One summer day in 1988 the Cans with a GP9 in Run 8 lit grass fires all the way up the mountain. Now older units are shut down. Cabooses came off the Cans in 1987 the first trains going over the Tehachapis to lose them.
The safety record from the Oil Cans has been very good, and there have been very few derailments that have amounted to anything. One reason for this record is the inspections done by the railroad. Also, Shell regularly replaces all the knuckles on the cars, greatly reducing the chance of pull aparts. On a regular maintenance schedule, the cars are taken to the GATX facility near West Colton Yard for a complete servicing, where brakes, bearings and all other safety components are checked over.
The loaded Cans derailed a half dozen cars on a sun kink at Warren, on the east slope of the Tehachapis in the mid 1980s, but no oil spilled. On July 12, 1987, the loads derailed in Lancaster in their worst accident to date. The train was going south between Rosamond and Lancaster near the east switch of Oban at 3:30a.m. An automobile had run off the road moments before the Cans arrived and knocked the tracks out of alignment. The four lead units (8362/7308/8232/9291) and first three blocks of cars derailed. Nine of the tank cars reptured, and more than 66,000 gallons of crude spilled onto the desert. With the resulting mess, it took the SP almost two full days to open up the railroad. The clean-up took much longer. Meanwhile, SP's trains were rerouted either via Barstow on the Santa Fe or down the Coast Line.
There was one major operating change early on that almost killed the Oil Cans. It seems that the SP was running a hot pig train (WCRVT) from West Colton via Cajon to Roseville, and management was having trouble getting the trailers in downtown Los Angeles onto the train. When the Empty Cans started going via Saugas, the SP saw a perfect opportunity to get the loaded pig flats to the WCRVT by simply putting them on the rear of the TankTrain. The Empty Cans would take the trailers up to Oban on the desert and set them out for the WCRVT to come and pick up.
Sounds simple, right? Well, as can happen in railroading, these L.A. trailers kept getting later and later, and the Empty Cans had to be held until they were ready. As a result, the oil train was often getting to Saco long after its spot time of 5:30a.m. One day, after the empties arrived at Saco at 11:30a.m., Shell let it be known that it wasn't very happy. The very next day the Empyty Cans went back to their old schedule of running straight through to Saco.
Even with all the precautions, the train will sometimes pull apart, and when it does a small amount of oil will spill out of the ten inch hoses that connect the cars. Oil can't flow from any of the cars themselves because valves are closed at each end of the car before the train moves. But with oil trapped in the hose between the valves, the poor soul who has to get under there and put in the new knuckle gets oil soaked. Oh, the pleasures of railroading.
The biggest operational problem the Cans have experienced has been stalling on the Tehachapi grades. Anybody who has frequented the Tehachapis know what I'm talking about. When you're at maximum tonnage and one unit goes down, not only is that much horsepower lost, but also there are 200 tons more dead weight. Just go through one flange greaser and you're stopped. The situation seems to be getting better, however, the Cans are stalling out less and less as time goes on.
As I've said, the Oil Cans are a day-in/day-out operation, shutting down only on Christmas Day. That performance is not absolute, however. In 1990 the unloading facility in Carson was being worked on, and the Cans stopped running for just over a month. Then in early 1991 some work was done at Saco, resulting in no train for a few more weeks but other than that sort of temporary interruption, the Cans have run continuously since 1983.
This has been a very successful train for the SP, and the tonnage when you add it up becomes very impressive: one day, 10,608 tons; one week 74,256 tons; one 30-day month, 318,240 tons and one year 3,861,312 tons. Convert that over to gallons (one tank car holds 23,700 gallons), and it calculates out to 1,848,600 gallons per train and 672,890,400 gallons of crude oil per year. A true pipeline on wheels.
Appreciate the time and effort on this excellent thread.
