Thanks to the angle of the sun this morning, black and white just felt right for the Zephyr, heading west on the main at Eisele (Clay) right on time.
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AMTK 51 and AMTK 157, running elephant-style, lead the westbound Zephyr through Eisele (Clay) precisely on time, if not a few minutes early.
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The only westbound manifest UP runs on the Moffat is the MNYGJ. Typically, it departs North Yard in the darkest hours of the night. However, for whatever reason, it apparently departed North Yard late today and took the siding at Rocky so that the Zephyr could overtake it.
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It would seem that BNSF has successfully captured a majority of the manifest traffic that runs over the Moffat. UP's MNYGJ and MGJNY are, more often than not, quite short these days. Such is the case this morning as the MNYGJ sits in the siding at Rocky with only 30 cars in tow.
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From slightly below track level, we look up at UP's MNYGJ, Manifest from North Yard to Grand Junction. It just about to start continuing the journey west after the westbound Zephyr overtook it here in the siding.
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Roster shot of UP 7052. Originally built as a C44/60AC, and designed to be upgraded to 6000 HP, it has now been rebuilt by UP and is designated as a C44ACM. After a brief push for 6000 HP in the 1990s, 4400 HP has pretty well become the standard horsepower for the last 25 years.
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UP 4363 is a Phase 1 SD70M. It was part of the largest single locomotive order at the time, one of 1,000 SD70Ms UP ordered from EMD. Many of those SD70Ms are now in long term storage, but many still roam the rails.
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UP 5559 is designated as a C44AC-CTE. It is essentially an AC4400CW that has some computer upgrades that UP got from Wabtec when ordering these units. Many of these units are being rebuilt by UP into C44ACMs, but UP 5559 has not yet had its turn at the shop.
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The engineer is throttling up UP 7052, resulting a bit of extra exhaust being kick up as the MNYGJ starts to bit into the roughly 2% grade on the climb to Big Ten Curve. This is the first daylight run of the MNYGJ on the east slope of the Moffat that I have seen in just over a year. The train almost always departs North Yard in the darkest hours of the night.
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One of my personal favorite perspective from Big Ten Curve. Three units, lead UP's MNYGJ, the thrice-weekly manifest on the climb around Big Ten.
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