Railroad photograph
Photo by: Kevin Morgan
These fives units were mid-train DPUs on a westbound loaded oil train. The crew followed the train (in a van) to Colton, where the DPUs were de-linked from the oil train and the crew got aboard the five units and cut them out of the oil train. They were getting ready to return to Helper when they discovered PTC was not working on the lead unit, UP 8377. They called UP's "PTC Help Desk" to see if they could get an exemption to return to Helper without PTC enabled.

Unfortunately, the lady working the PTC help desk did not understand that these units were cut out here at Colton, about 20 miles west of Helper. The help desk said that they needed to swap units with one that had PTC operationally. As the crew explained (and as you can see in this shot) the other four units are facing west and could not be used as a leader. The crew went back and forth with the help desk for nearly an hour! At one point, the crew lost their patience and said "we've been running trains out here for 150 years...why can't we just get a PTC exemption to run 20 miles east". Finally, after speaking with supervisors, the PTC help desk granted them an exception to return to helper without PTC enabled.
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Saturday, May 03, 2025 at 13:17:51
image date



Location Information

City or County and State
Utah County, UT

Subdivision
Provo (UP)

Milepost or Control Point
CP RG645 (Colton (Crossover))




Train Information
Railroad
Union Pacific
Model
SD70ACe
Primary Unit Number
UP 8377

Paint Scheme
UP Nose Flags/Shield
Symbol
Train Type
Light Power



Photo Information
Camera Make/Model
DJI / Mavic 3 Pro [FC4370]
ISO
110
Flash
Did Not Fire

Focal Length
166 mm
Shutter
1/640 seconds
Aperture
f/3.4