Colton Diamonds - Early Morning

This latest trip to Southern California is off to an encouraging start. I flew into Ontario airport last night (and boy , were my arms tired...) and snagged a cut-rate room at the Colton Hampton Inn. Outside my window there were sounds suspiciously similar to train whistles, all night long. This boded well for the morning.

It's easy to be a morning person in the west when you're from the east. Just never change your clocks. I didn't, and was up at 5AM. It was still dark, though the whistles were still blowing. About 6:15AM the sunlight started to appear, so after a quick b'fast I ambled over to what I thought would be a decent spot to catch a few trains.

Within walking distance of the Hampton Inn is a place I'll call The Spot. The Spot sits in the NE quadrant of one of the busiest sets of railroad diamonds in the United States. At this point, the tracks trending east-west are owned by Union Pacific, immediately east of their enormous West Colton yard. These tracks are the famous Sunset Route, ably described by Debate Coach in a previous post. Eastbound lies San Timoteo Canyon, the Salton Sea, and Yuma AZ. The tracks trending north-south are owned by BNSF, and are the tracks the Santa Fe used to gain access to the Los Angeles basin. Just north lies the Santa Fe San Bernardino yards and depot, and beyond that the wonder of Cajon Pass and the high desert of California. Just south the tracks make a right turn on their way through the Anaheim Hills, to Fullerton and beyond. UP maintains trackage rights on this route as well, through Barstow to their cutoff at Daggett.

So, these diamonds hold some promise for itinerant railfans looking to see something not normally seen in New England - hot, frequent and fast train action! What happened on this random Sunday morning?

In 80 minutes I saw 12 trains. There were more coming, but after 8AM the sun angles are such that the entire UP line is in harsh shadows. Also, it's not cool to cross any of these tracks, so I stayed put in the NE quadrant. I had no complaints. From 6:40AM to 8:00AM here's what I saw:

• EB Metrolink (BNSF tracks, north) to San Bernardino, including a Utah Front Runner Bombardier coach.
  
• EB UP stack train (UP tracks, west) into West Colton Yard
  
• EB BNSF stack train (BNSF tracks, north), including a Santa Fe War Bonnet in position #2 of the consist
  
• WB BNSF stack train (BNSF tracks, south)
  
• Meet on the diamonds of an EB and WB set of BNSF stack trains. The EB included an NS unit in position #3 of its consist
  
• WB Metrolink (BNSF tracks, south) - the same set seen earlier, headed to Fullerton & LA Union Station
  
• AMTRAK Sunset Limited WB (UP tracks, west), which had held for all the cross traffic for 20 minutes. Its consist included two P42s and an AMTRAK California F59PHI, along with a baggage car and 8 Superliner cars.
  
• A WB UP general freight (UP tracks, west)
  
• A WB BNSF stack train (BNSF tracks, south)
  
• An EB UP stack train (BNSF tracks, north)
  
• A UP WB drag freight (UP tracks, west), including many, many gondolas of scrap metal (fluff). It appeared to be headed through West Colton yard toward Ontario.
  

At that point a UP WB was waiting just east of the diamonds, but just sat there. I left at 8AM, and on the BNSF tracks just south of the road crossing was a Sperry truck checking the westernmost rail.

More fodder for the next HAPT slide show.