11 locomotive Southern Pacific freight train exits Tennessee Pass tunnel 

You're looking at Mt Massive there. 2nd highest peak in CO.

@@tcp3059 Thanks for the info.

Very much so.

Yes its good for the lungs

That Conrail GE was a C39-8. Kind of amazingly there still is a C39-8 left in operation these days on the Pennsylvania Northeastern Railroad as there #8212 which still retains Conrail colors. That said it's the last C39-8 left in operation in the country. It's not likely to be going anywhere anytime soon so chances are it will be kept around since those who own it know it's significance. Hopefully at some point it'll end up in the hands of a museum. Time will tell though.

I have been reading reports but now something is finalized? Do you have any links it would be interesting to read about? This should be very exciting to see trains running on the line again.

@@travelingtom923 I live in Cañon, so it's real exciting for me.

Saluda by far. Tennessee pass had grades approaching 3% but Saluda had grades EXCEEDING 5% until minor roadbed alterations were made to drop the steepest part of the grade down to 4.7%. These days 2% is considered steep. I've worked for UP for approach two decades now and trust me when I say this that any grade at all is a problem. With the weight and length of our trains these days I can't even imagine trying to operate our traffic over grades exceeding 3%.

You are welcome. They put on a good show back in the day.

Traveling Tom You can say that again. have a great day Tom

There's a couple points worth mentioning in regards to your comments about UP. The SP was actually owned by the D&RGW since 1989. However the Rio Grande allowed the SP name and trademarks to remain in use for marketing purposes seeing how in the West the SP name carried a lot more weight then the RG would. Which the RG had fears that if the SP name was wiped away and replaced with a "new" name in the West (the RG) then it could cause a loss of customers or cause struggles in attracting new customers who were already very familiar with the SP and it's practices yet might be deterred from wanting to use rail service had the RG name taken over. So while the SP was around till September of 1996, it technically wasn't the SP. It was all RG owned. Another thing worth mentioning is that the SP was going to go away regardless due to horrific handling by upper management in the company dumping company profits into outside projects instead of reinvesting company money back into the company itself. Consequently towards the mid 1990's the SP was forced into a position of they were either going to end up going down one of two paths. The first being they would get absorbed by another company, in this case UP. The second path would have been much worse as SP would go bankrupt which would cause catastrophic damage to the local economies in the West as well as the national economy as well due to one of the biggest rail carriers in the West and for that matter one of the biggest rail carries in the country suddenly ceasing to be. To prevent this from happening local and federal jurisdiction would have stepped in, broken up SP's assets, and effectively auctioned them off to the highest bidder much in the same way the EXACT same thing happened when the Rock Island went bankrupt as well. This would have lead to numerous unproven new companies springing up out of nowhere in the West, all competing against one another, and likely dooming one another in the process much the same way the same thing was happening in the Northeast prior to government intervention with the formation of Conrail to save rail transportation in the Northeast. Likely there would have had to have been a similar movement to save rail operations in the West had the SP been allowed to fail. Which it's failure was all but inevitable regardless. To the UP it wasn't so much a greed given purchase to buy out the combined RG/SP system but rather one out of necessity to save Western rail transportation. But also a decision that had the UP not bothered to do, the Santa Fe, BN, or any other company with the financial backing would have done so as well and then they would have been the "bad guy" in the situation. The UP had everything to gain from the purchase and quite frankly was backed into a corner where had they not purchased the SP and allowed it to fail, substantial damage would have been done to the entire rail industry, as well as the local and national economy which would have significantly effected both the UP as well as every other carrier in the nation to some extent. Plain and simple while foamers don't like the decision UP made, they had to make it as it was the "better" of the two options and had SP's management cared more about the company to start with the situation wouldn't have came to be to begin with. I realize that's a lot to read, but it was a complex situation that foamers often times don't know the full story behind and consequently start spewing out opinion based ideas of why UP did what they did rather then understanding that it was a much bigger issue then most realize and had UP not did what they did, everyone including UP would have lost. Hopefully that helps to answer a few questions and clarify things a bit. -Over 19 years working for UP. Scary as that is to think about...

@@Henry5623 Sounds like you could make a interesting documentary on You Tube. You should share your long experiences with the railroad. People love to hear stories of working for the railroad. I will be sharing some stories of the SP and D&RGW while I was working for Union Pacific in a upcoming video, taking a look at the SD40T-2. Not sure if it will be done this year but it will be out sooner or later.

In Benson, AZ, there is a graveyard with 300 Union Pacific locomotives waiting for the day to be back in services.

@@DomAZ thanks. Just wondering.

Yes many of the big railroads have reduced their locomotive fleet by around 20% with many going into storage or sold. Part of the reduction was reducing the amount of DC powered locomotives which require more maintenance. Another big part is running much longer trains (usually two trains in one), which reduces crews and locomotives. Coal trains which previously were the bread and butter of many railroads are nearly gone. I would expect many more DC power locomotives 1995 and under to be purged next year.

@@DomAZ Yes I saw some of them from the highway a few years ago. Was a impressive site.

@@travelingtom923 Unfortunately the visitors are not allowed.

Yes they were still running manned helpers. I have never heard of them wearing a gas mask, but I would have to imagine they would be inhaling a fair amount of smoke. I remember reading the crews on the steam engines did wear gas masks when going through the old Cascade tunnel in Washington State. One train stalled right in the middle of the tunnel. The crew went running but were found all dead from the smoke. The caboose uncoupled and drifted downhill out of the tunnel.

Swing helpers (which is what you were referring to) don't have any crew supporting breathing gear in the cabs of the motive power. Windows are closed and the crews just deal with it as most of the smoke from the head end is cleared out by the passage of the cars themselves passing through the tunnel. They create quite a draft in doing so which helps to exhaust smoke so that by the time the swing helpers were passing through the tunnel the air is usually much easier to deal with. In the case of the Cascade Tunnel on BNSF's Steven Pass route the tunnel is just a bit under 8 miles in length and consequently enormous forced air systems are in place that blow smoke out from the tunnel due to it's substantial length. One end of the tunnel has a door which lowers and then powerful fans force air into the tunnel blowing smoke out of it. Ironically sometimes you can see a trains own smoke exiting the tunnel ahead of the train itself proving how much airflow is being pumped into the tunnel itself. Hopefully that helps to clarify things a bit. -Almost two decades working for UP.

@@travelingtom923 A bit of a add on to what you said but it wasn't uncommon on SP trains (back in the steam era) making their way through Oregon's numerous tunnels to actually have blocks of ice in the cab that would be placed between two wet sponges and then placed over the crews mouths cooling the air the crews would breath as to not collapse their lungs due to the super-heated air in the tunnels. It was actually even worse on passenger trains that often times had head end helpers whereas with freights would have both the length of the train allowing time for the air in the tunnels to cool down before the helpers would be passing through but also a great number of freight cars passing through the tunnel creating a draft to help exhaust fowled air. Passenger trains having all their power up front didn't get that luxury. I've worked for UP for nearing two decades now (scary to think about) and trust me when I say we don't miss the steam days as much as foamers do lol...

@@Henry5623 Thanks for the information. I could imagine those steam locomotives would be very hot in those tunnels if moving slowly.