'Monster train' caught on video

To Joe Perry, an information network engineer for a downtown Los Angeles bank and a railroading enthusiast since childhood, the arrival of perhaps the biggest train ever in California last week was an opportunity not to be missed.

He and his wife chased the nearly 3 1/2-mile-long freight carrier for hours, shooting videos and what he thinks may be the only photograph of the entire train, as it rounded a sweeping curve near the Salton Sea.

In the video above, Perry shot train as it climbed a grade near Cabazon by placing an iPhone on rocks next to the track. The Union Pacific train, with nearly 300 freight cars and nine locomotives, took 10 minutes to pass. At another spot, near his home in Ontario, the train was moving about twice as fast and took closer to five minutes to go by.

Read more here.

-- Rich Connell

Video: By Joe Perry of chasingsteel.com

Comments

[My opinon means nothing]

Cool video. But ten minutes to pass?! Suppose this monster had crossed at an intersection The Times has been reporting on that is dangerious, like Buena Vista and San Fernado Rd and there was an inciedent? Traffic would be messed up for hours until everything cleared clear to Glendale Station (or there abouts)and up to the City of San Fernando! I wouldn't want to sit in that traffic and any emergency vehicals needing to get to the scene and beyond would have to detour to Hollywood Way. I sure hope UP isn't planning anymore of these.

[Mike H]

Looks a lot better to me than 600 trucks on our local roads driven by high school dropouts.

[Anabelle]

No wonder Warren Buffet likes trains...it's looooooooooooooong.

[lwps]

I wonder what is in the containers. Nobody is buying anything. At 3 1/5 miles, I am guessing they are empties.

[Jonathan S]

Cool train. It's awesome Joe Perry has this much time off from Aerosmith to chase trains.

[glr]

You've got to love a good long train. I used to enjoy counting the cars on the trains in Colorado when I grew up. The coal trains coming out of Wyoming were the longest.

I've been doing research to see how many jobs there are in the railroad industry nowadays. Brightfuturespress.com is a good place to start if you're interested.

[CSUF Alum]

@ Mike H. No the drivers aren't HS dropouts, they're guys from points south of our border who took the jobs away from the dropouts. And more than likely these containers that come in from the ports with mound of rubber dog poo, illegals from China and other various crap sold in your local Wal Mart, swap meet or street corners for the holiday were emptied out somewhere along their designated routes. But I think this is the wave of the future- a super train replacing all the trucks that clog our freeways and streets at any given time of the day or night.
Another novel concept would be to restrict the hours the trucks are on the road to between 10 at night to 6 in the morning. It works in other states, it can work here.

[LJ]

This must be the train that passes close to my house every morning around 4:00 a.m. blowing their horn as they go by....Toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I hate them but they are a necessity.