It was a warm day, but the heat distortion is caused by the 17,600 horsepower of BNSF ES44DC 7870, Dash 9-44CW 4595, AC4400CW 5658 and ES44C4 7012, combining to pull Priority UPS-LTL Intermodal train Z-LACALT7-12L east from Los Angeles CA to Alliance TX. This 83 car (all loads; the equivalent of 166 tractor/trailers) 6,214 ton, 7,842-foot train is on schedule, and by the time it gets halfway between Barstow and Needles this afternoon, it will, shockingly, be 1 hour ahead of schedule! (In fact, by the time it passes through Cadiz, in California’s Mojave Desert, just after 8:00 pm [20:00], the train will be 1 hour three minutes ahead of schedule!) Sometimes one wonders how the railroads get anything across this country, yet other times railroads are so efficient one wonders why long-haul trucking is even a thing. (Fullerton, California – August 12, 2021)
