Day 7: Helper

Today, for once, I wasn't travelling. Woke up to a knock on the door; Mark and Courtney had come over to invite me to breakfast. A bit of snow had fallen overnight, but only an inch or so. Helper looked very pretty with its fresh dusting. Breakfast was a fairly drawn out affair and Courtney made me a plate-sized inch-thick pancake, which kept me going for most of the day!

By lunchtime I had finished most of the pancake and was ready to start railfanning. I went down to the railway yard to see what was happening, and as it turned out a big UP manifest had just arrived. As I watched they uncoupled the first 2 locos and put them to one side, then uncoupled the remaining 3 locos and put them in a siding and reattached the first 2 locos back on the train. Obviously the 3 locos had been an extra helper set added before its journey over Soldier Summit.

Large line up of locos in the Helper yard, the Book Cliffs clearly visible behind. Manifest locos on first row, manifest helpers on second row, and another set of helpers third row. It's not called Helper for nothing!

Manifest on its way again.

After that I headed up the hill to see what I could find, but nothing was happening and the radio chatted suggested nothing for several hours. I stopped on a little side road and had a nap (all this holidaying is exhausting!) for a while, then decided to head back to the motel and do a stakeout.

Back at the motel I was quietly surfing the web when I heard "Helper 75 highball" or something to that effect, "highball" means everything is ready it's time to hit the rails. Sure enough a minute late the bells started going and a BNSF manifest came roaring up the grade, so back in the 4x4 I jumped and headed up the hill.

Rounding the curve at Castle Gate, the famous rock clearly visible at right.

About to enter the first tunnel on the way over Soldier Summit.

The weather changed remarkably quickly as I went up the hill, from almost-sunny in Helper to great snow squalls 20 minutes up the hill. I pulled into Jane Park Road and got into position on the bridge for a shot of it rounding the curve, and got a friendly toot as the train went under me.

I watched the train go and just as the DPUs passed under the bridge, a down hill train came round the corner!

Meet at Jane Park Road – up BNSF meets down BNSF.

So after a very quiet morning train-wise I suddenly through a total fluke of luck has a two x BNSF train meeting. Not bad considering there are only 2 BNSF trains a day to start with!

I raced on and caught the train up again powering up a snowy bank, by now the snow was really coming down heavy.

Unfortunately I just missed catching the train at Soldier Summit, so cruised on to the Gilluly Curves, where I knew I would catch him. While I waited it started snowing really heavily, great flurries of the stuff so hid in the car for a while.

I left the train here and headed back down to Helper. Amazingly, by the time I got to the bottom of the hill it was clear and sunny! If I didn't know better I'd say this was NZ weather. As I arrived in Helper the sun was just setting, casting a lovely glow on Balance Rock and the surrounding Book Cliffs.

Unfortunately that was it for trains, the only other trains since then have been the Cal Zephyr and a coal empties that has just blared its way past the motel. Planning on an early start tomorrow to try and catch all the morning trains, a single chase in a whole day just isn't good enough!