Southwest Locomotive Utilization Power Desk. BNSF Ft Worth, TX in Tales of the Jointed Track

I was told one day, you need to break this person in on South Central Desk, for two days. Then on your third day, you'll move over to the Southwest Desk. This is still the old Santa Fe transcon mainline. Still hot, 65 and 70 mph intermodals were not uncommon. Most freights maintained 55 mph, due to the empty car restriction. They also, could be dropped to 45 mph, due to grade and tonnage.

The territory was to, but not including Belen, NM to Barstow, CA. Barstow to LA, Barstow to San Diego, CA. Barstow to Richmond, CA. LA to Long Beach Harbor. Out of Williams Junction, AZ the mainline also branched southward to Phoenix, AZ. I had several branch lines. There were 4 around the Gallup area, one was a feeder to a Electric Utility, two went to area coal mines, which are now played out.

Around Phoenix, the old branch between Matthie,AZ and Cadiz,CA, is now handled by the Arizona & California RR. The Santa Fe and now BNSF interchange California traffic for Barstow and beyond at Matthie. At Cadiz, CA,. traffic was for us in the general Phoenix area, or interchange with the former SP and and A&C RR traffic.

From Barstow and into the Southern California area, there were about 5 small branches, but depending on location, the Barstow, San Bernardino, San Diego and Los Angeles Terminals handled the power and crews out of there.

Barstow was a major maintenance base for certain EMD and all GE locomotives. LA had a shop and maintained their switch engines. EMD Commerce, just outside of the LA Diesel shop, bought the old LA Back shop, like in Chicago Corwith. EMD did the maintenance on the SD-60-M's,GP-60's, GP-60-M's and the GP-60-B's. This was a good safety valve, when EMD contract maintenance power would not make it back to Chicago, or vice versa.

LA to Long Beach,CA
This was the mainline to the wharves. This was Santa Fe's Southern California connection for the "Land Bridge". Santa Fe worked with the LAH or Los Angeles Harbor Railway, to move container traffic eastward. These were heavy and Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday were the Hot, traffic area . Yes this ran 24/7/365, but these were the peak of the operation. There were two major freight trains that ran out of here as well. The BARWAT and the WATBAR, these were a dedicated Barstow to Watson and return freights. They were heavy, had hazmat's, and general freight traffic in and out of the LA coastal area. Southern California, industrial traffic.

Barstow to Northern California. This was mostly High Desert Operation, till Mojave, CA and then we went over the trackage rights on the former Southern Pacific(SP), now Union Pacific. The Santa Fe left the SP track at Kern Junction, CA and went into Bakersfield, CA. The mid-train or swing helpers were based out of here. Cut usually were made off of the Barstow Bakersfield trains. Also Barstow DSF, would send power on the Boron local to set out for swing helper use at Edwards, CA. They were good dates, and they would return to Bakersfield for fuel and reassignment. Sometimes the helper crews would set the swings out at Edwards, and then deadhead back to Bakersfield. Another crew when needed, most like due to Hours of Service limitations, with the previous crew, would help a westbound from Barstow over the Techachipi grade.

Bakersfield to Fresno. This was flat running and fast. There was a yard here. All local and switch power was rotated in and out to Barstow as needed. A coal train came in from Interchange off the Union Pacific at Barstow. This was the Wasco coal set and went to Wasco and either the power stayed on till unloaded, or came back to Bakersfield, if there was problems. At Guernsey and Angiola, grain trains would set out the train to the silos, and run lite power to Fresno. There were two locals that ran out of here. One went to Fresno and returned back, another did the Bakersfield area, and the Sunset Valley Branch.

Fresno to Bakersfield and to Richmond, CA;

Fresno sometimes generated extra traffic, which propmted an extra freight train. There also was an inter modal facility as well. TOFC, (trailers on flatcars) This was the Q-FRCH on the Santa Fe and the Z-FRSCHI on the BNSF. It was known as the Q-FRENCH or the French on the railroad. Fresno to Chicago and was mostly refer trailers of fresh produce and trailers of wine. There were switchers here as well, they too were rotated in and out of Barstow. Westbound traffic was mostly crew changes for Stockton / Richmond area. There was a "Riverbank Local" that usually dead headed to the Stockton / Riverbank area, then picked up power and became the H-MODCHI and later the H-MODSEL, Modesto to Selkirk, NJ.

Stockton / Riverbank Numerous locals and switchers, again that power was rotated in and out of Barstow. It used to go to Richmond, CA for MO-3 and MO-6 inspections and running repairs. Well "wisdom from up above" said no, lets send this to Barstow for all repairs and inspections. We also received trackage rights between Keddie, CA and also to Provo, UT. I didn't have to handle Provo, but I had a local at Sparks, NV that I had to power. An SP crew operated it, but it had to be powered and the locomotive cab, per SP and union agreements. There was an inter modal facility here as well, but power usually came from Richmond, unless a P-Q or Z train was annulled there and the power wasn't needed at Richmond. It laid over and ran the next day, and the crew was deadheaded down from Richmond.

Richmond:

Like LA and Long Beach to the south, Richmond, in the Bay area was the far northern terminus for the Santa Fe. They had switch and local power, these too were rotated to Barstow. They originated the Eastbound program trains.

This is a general layout of the land. I'll start writing my memories on this end of the railroad.

Thanks again for reading.