A short tour description of my very first rail fanning weekend trip. This weekend I have been on my very first rail fanning trip, and what a pleasant experience. Even my wife enjoyed it, the silence, the beautiful scenery, the sun, simply wonderful. Unfortunately we didn’t see as many trains as I had hoped for, maybe because it was eastern Sunday. We spend most of Saturday in Barstow. Saturday morning, until around 2pm was spend looking at trains. We found a really nice place next to the engine facility, where the mainline comes in to the yard, and with a lot of activity. Then, after a visit to the ghost town, we drove on the old 66 to Victorville and spend the night there. This stretch of highway pretty much follows the train line, so I had to stop several times to jump out of the car to take pictures. Sunday we left Victorville around 10am, and drove up to Cajon summit, spend a couple of hours there, and then finally drove down to the “Cajon pass”. First I wasn’t able to find any really good train watching spots, since there wasn’t any roads going close to the train, there is only the I-15 freeway and the 138. After a while I spotted someone else watching trains, and they told my how to take the dirt road that goes right next to the tracks. First I was kind of reluctant to go there with my Mustang, it’s not really the right car for going on dirt roads and crossing streams etc. But I decided that I had waited for this trip for so long, so a little bit of dirt road was not going to stop me. So finally we found Sullivans Curve and parked there right next to the tracks, and then we waited and waited. We were there for 1 ½ hour, and only 1 train passed us in that time, and it wasn’t even going uphill . Around 3pm I decided to call it a day (to much relief for my wife) and go home. As I said, I wish there had been more trains going, but I still enjoyed the trip a lot, and so did my wife. I hope to go back to Cajon again soon (sometimes this year), and next time I think I will go on a Saturday instead of a Sunday. Also maybe I should rent a 4wd SUV just for the day, so I can “explorer” more of the pass. Jesper [ 03 April 2002, 15:12: Message edited by: jkristia ]
Jesper, I rode the old 66 from barstow to Victorville, and had to keep stopping to catch the trains! There are lots of good photo oppotunities on Cajon Pass, those south of 138 are mostly close to the line. A good spot is Swarthout Canyon road, which crosses the double tracks near a bend, which gives good photo oppotunities, like this one Also a pull-off near Blue Cut, where you can watch trains climbing towards you from the San Berdoo direction. Awesome!!! You were unlucky to pick a quiet time, when we were there, trains were passing every few minutes
Been to the Cajon area several times over the years and was able to navigate around ok driving a minivan / reg car, didn't need a SUV - just pick a dry day! LOTS of good spots to shoot from, usually LOTS of trains to shoot!
Thanks for info. Were you there on a weekday or a weekend ?. Do you know which day is better, saturday or sunday ? Jesper
i don't think there is such a thing as a "better" day , with the tracks through cajon pass traveled as heavy as they are , they are subject to " maintinace windows" to allow track crews to maintain the high standards required for heavy mountian railroading. when i was at cajon we saw lots of trains and the day we went to the "loop" we saw 1 train and 1 highrail sometimes it just pays to be lucky!!
Monday, then Sundays are the least busy days for Class 1 mainline action. Saturdays are usually good acc't usually no M/W work and rr's are moving traffic that originated on Thurs-Fri.
