Southern Pacific and Santa Fe on Tehachapi 1996

This was one of the Busiest weekends I have ever seen on Tehachapi. Just before the Southern Pacific/Union Pacific Merger and before the BNSF merger had really changed the Santa Fe very much.

Lots of helper action, tons of Warbonnets, plenty of Speed lettered and rebuilt eSPee power. It's all here. I've included the entire train when possible for the modelers out there. If you don't want to watch the whole train just fast forward to the next one.

About half way through, you'll see an SP train coming east out of the tunnel between Walong and Marcel that stops suddenly. For some reason, the dispatcher cleared this train on up the hill ever though there were three westbounds waiting for it at Marcel; a light helper and AT&SF train in the siding at Marcel and an SP westbound on the main. The conductor had to walk back to the rear of the train and they backed down the hill to Walong. This had to be one of the strangest things I've seen in all my years of railfanning and railroading.

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