Southern Pacific Railroad freight train symbol WCRVM at Bena, CA

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Train WCRVM is coming off the mountain on June 8, 1987. The train has engines 8365, 9307, 9345, and 9320. The sun is close to setting and because it is summer time it let me take a rare picture of the back side of the Simplot fertilizer plant at Bena.

Train 991 is at the end of double track and trying to get a run on the hill on May 30, 1978. The Southern Pacific began adding CTC to the mountain here at Bena in 1942 and finished the installation at Tehachapi in 1943. I think this installation removed all of the old semaphore signals between Bena and Tehachapi. Later during the 1950s the remaining semaphore signals in the double track sections were replaced with searchlight signals.

The railroad crosses many bridges. Train 2-928 is going over the first crossing of Caliente Creek. The grade is only one percent here but increases to 2.2% at Caliente. Train 928 handled Valley Division traffic to Barstow for reclassification. It was scheduled out of Bakersfield at 6:00AM.