HiDef: UP 6936 Centennial Chase (FRRS Dunsmuir Railroad Days Museum Train 2012)

(Still pics slideshow takes up the last few minutes)

On Tuesday, June 5, I chased UP's DDA40X "Centennial" #6936 and the 2012 Feather River Rail Society "Dunsmuir Rail Days" museum train down the Feather River Canyon from Keddie, CA back to Oroville. It was a great day and I had an awesome time meeting up with YouTubers MetalMike669 (Mike Haire) and cchan006 (Charlie Chan) on the chase, and a few others. It has been about 5 years since the DDA40X has visited the FRC for this occasion. The museum train ended up departing Portola yard around 9:15 Tuesday morning, then stopped at Sloat, a 7900 foot siding 18 miles west of Portola for a short visual ground inspection and a meet with the eastbound Canyon Crawler (LRC 68) before continuing to Keddie.

Dunsmuir Railroad Days (73rd year):
http://dunsmuirrailroaddays.org/

2012 FRRS/FRRX/WPRM museum train consist:
UP 6936 (Centennial)
UP 1996 (Southern Pacific Heritage Locomotive)
WP 2001 (GP20 locomotive)
FRRX 5653 (Baggage car/Mobile Gift Shop)
WP 841 ("Silver Plate" CZ Diner)
UP 105 (Business Car)
WP 64806 (Road boxcar)
UP 6406 ("Shorty" gondola)
WP 428 (Bay window caboose)
UP 25283 (Cupola caboose)
WP 484 (Bay window caboose - "rolling command center")

6/5/12
11:15 AM - Keddie Wye, Keddie, CA: It is here that I meet the special and its chasers already on the move. The monstrous 6936 brings the special slowly up onto the south leg of the wye where it comes to a stop and poses for the cameras. The dispatcher has an eastbound, BNSF 4314, lined northbound off of the UP Canyon Sub and onto the north leg of the wye and the BNSF Gateway Subdivision. The BNSF Gateway Sub dispatcher has just issued a track warrant for the northbound to proceed from Keddie to milepost 200 on the Gateway. There will be a meet before the museum special continues west, and the crew of the train takes advantage of the opportunity by climbing off to perform another visual ground inspection.

11:26 AM: Moments later the northbound BNSF Gateway Sub train comes out of tunnel 32 and heads around the north leg of the wye.
H-BARPAS1-04A
BNSF 4314 (C44-9W)
BNSF 5278 (C44-9W)
CN 5683 (SD75I)
+76 cars

12:00 PM: Special at Virgilia, CA

12:08 PM: Rolling through the curves at milepost 267.6 just west of Virgilia

12:40 PM: Coming out of tunnel 19 in the honeymoon tunnels area

12:52 PM: Tobin bridges west of Camp Rogers (approx milepost 253)

1:00 PM: Rock Creek trestle

1:07 PM: Past the retaining wall at approx milepost 246; west of Merlin

1:23 PM: East Pulga-Cresta area; CP F241

2:30 PM: West James siding above the horseshoe curve near CP F225. It took the special over an hour in the 14 miles exiting the canyon between Pulga and James; a distance that normally takes 30-35 minutes to cover. But they had apparently stopped somewhere deep in the confines of the Poe area to inspect after a maintenance-of-way crew in the siding at Pulga reported smoke coming from between the gon and the first caboose.

3:07 PM: Rounding the sweeping curve at Mitchell Avenue in Oroville at speed.

They didn't get too far through town before they were running on some yellows, though, as they stopped on the main at west Oroville to meet an opposing eastbound BNSF freight (which I completely missed as I was driving into the Oroville yard). I could see it didn't have any rare power, just a bunch of orange Dash 9s but thankfully it afforded me just enough time to get back on the lighted side of the tracks and my camera flipped on for one last run by of the day.
3:18 PM: Highballing west Oroville yard bound for Roseville for the night.

6/6/12
1:20 PM: Next day the huge 6936 thunders by with the 1996 and the museum train at Butte Creek near Durham as they are now northbound on the SP Valley Sub for Dunsmuir where many lucky Railroad Days attendees will enjoy and partake in the festivities and the displays over the weekend June 8-10.