Railfanning at the Tehachapi Loop
                               July 2, 1994

For your information;

     On Saturday, July 2, 1994, I had the opportunity to visit
Walong, CA. (AKA The Tehachapi Loop).

     To be brief, the best place I found for photography of the
loop and Tunnel 9 and 10 was at the west end of Tunnel 10 at
milepost 352.3.  The west end of Tunnel 10 is accessible by auto,
just be careful, and there is safe parking by the tunnel
entrance.  From this area I shot the entire loop with a 21-35mm 
lens.  A short walk down the road and I was able to use my 400mm
lens to catch eastbounds coming out of Tunnel 9, (I hiked down to
the east end of Tunnel 9, and there wasn't a good shot available
from down there.  Plus, it's a steep hike to the tracks with
camera gear, and vandals have been nice enough to take time to
spray paint graffiti on the tunnel entrance).

     I arrived at the Loop around 1:00 p.m. and wasn't surprised
to see about another 20 or so railfans already set up in the 100
degree heat.  Between 1:00 and 3:30 it was dead, probably due to
the track work at Marcel, but after 3:30 p.m. everything started
heading east.  From 3:30 to 7:30 I photographed 11 trains.  From
my location trains going east could be heard well before they
arrived at Tunnel 9.  Trains going west should set off a detector
at MP 355.2, but if you don't hear the detector, you probably
won't hear the power coming until it is in Tunnel 10, (except for
ATSF, which sounded their whistle before entering Tunnel 9 and 10
in both directions).  On that subject, while I was railfanning
there was a father and son also there at Tunnel 10.  I overheard
the son begging his father to take him inside Tunnel 10, and the
father finally agreed.  While they were in the tunnel, I was
relaxing on the hood of my car with all my cameras on tri-pods
pointed at the Tunnel entrance ready for that surprise westbound. 
Then I heard the son yelling, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!", and when I
looked over at the entrance at first all I saw was the father
running out of the tunnel with his yelling son slung over his
shoulder, and right behind them was a set of 4 SP helpers
coasting down grade right on their heels.  I started shooting as
soon as I could and haven't got my slides back yet to see if I
have a shot of the father and son barely making it out of the
Tunnel.  I can't describe the look on the SP engineer's face when
he passed me, and the father told his son, that's the last tunnel
we ever go in.  That incident shook the son up a bit and shook me
up a little bit also.
I also visited an area to the west of the Loop called Caliente
Curve.  In the late evening sun this area is best for eastbounds,
which there was zero while I was there, but the area has great
photo opportunities.

     If anyone would like more info on this trip or info on:
Cajon Summit, CA. area, Harpers Ferry, WV. area, Shenandoah
Junction WV. area, or Point-of-Rocks, MD. area, please feel free
to drop me a line.

     My next trip is to the Front Range/Moffat Tunnel area in
mid-July.