17-06-21b PHOTOS: Nevada West

So you should know the drill by now.  This is my third trip eastbound on the California Zephyr and I'm trying to cover all the remaining gaps I missed in my 2012 and 2014 surveys.  In this post I will be covering the former Southern Pacific Nevada Sub that runs eastward out of Reno.  Since 2015 all of the old Searchlights were removed from the western end of the subdivision, however the eastern end was re-signaled by the SP in the 1990's and UP decided to keep it in place when adding the necessary PTC components.  As luck would have it, two previous dinner-periods each disrupted full surveys of this portion of the route so I was actually able to add something useful to my existing record.

There isn't much train wise in this set as we pretty much ran across the desert without meeting any opposing traffic.  Train traffic these days tends to move in waves and I guess that late afternoon is not one of these wave periods.  You can view the entire set here.

Let's start out with something for those power systems nerds.  In the town of Argo, NV, the Path 65 HVDC line crosses the UP Nevada Sub.  The line carried hydro power from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California via a 1 Gigavolt pole-to-pole HVDC system.

In my previous posts I mentioned the drought reversing wet winter the Sierra Nevada region had experienced.  Here are some pop-up oasises that popped up along the tracks in what is ordinarily a salt pan.

Traffic still crosses the Nevada Sub at highway speed at the US 95 grade crossing where a an accident a number of years ago left three Amtrak passengers and crew dead and the train on fire.

In the Southern Pacific re-signaled zone, PTC antennas had been added, but little else had changed.  Incidently, the chosen PTC solution was sold on the basis of not having to touch each and every signal location, unlike a cab signal based system because wireless.  Looks like the system was being oversold.

The large town of Lovelock does not feature a controlled siding, but does have a number of industrial tracks .

A UP MoW truck was hanging out just past the downtown trackage that had a 40mph PSR on it.

Back on the open road and passing through empty desert scrubland.  Note the old Nevada Sub alignment still visible to the right.

The historic Humboldt House and ranch, in Humboldt, NV, looks like a small Oasis of trees standing in the middle of the scrub.

A few GRS vintage modular signals were the most "vintage" appliances left in service on the line after the PTpocalyse.

TheAmtrak Winnemucca station platform.  In 2014 my already late train was delayed over an hour here because the crew that came off the 8 hour delayed eastbound Train 5 still needed time to complete their hours of service rest.  This year it was just another ordinary station stop.

UP SD70M #3779 was the only other motive power we encountered on the trip over the sub.  The town of Winnemucca hosts a lone engine like this for local work and protect service.  Otherwise the only source of power would be from Reno, 3 hours to the west, or Elko, 3 hours to the east.

The turned head on the still standing classic cantilever signal at Winnemucca is the only searchlight signal left in service on the route.

At WESO interlocking the WEstern Pacific and SOuthern Pacific railroads joined forced to create a single two track main line from a pair of single track main lines.  Each line was assigned a direction and outfitted with single direction ABS signaling.  The Western Pacific served eastbound trains so traffic had to execute a crossover maneuver at WESO.  Anyway, with the re-signaling project the old WESO crossover was completely removed (except for the old relay hut)!

The new interlocking uses longer 30+mph turnouts.

A sign for westbound trains announces the end of ABS territory so maybe the Elko Sub hasn't been completely re-signaled yet.

Unfortunately I didn't see the little sign until post production and I bailed out after the first Darth distant.

Here are a few parting side shots of the flooded Humboldt River.  All this water flows downhill to the Great Salt Lake or other such body as the Great Basin lacks an outflow to any ocean.

Next week we'll wake to a Mormon Morning in Utah!