RARE Caltrain Breakdown Rescue Train ft. JPBX 503 and MORE!

Trainzguy2472
Trainzguy2472
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Published 2022-08-01
On the evening of July 25, 2022, I went out to see the Mission Bay Local pass through Hillsdale Caltrain Station. What I wasn't prepared for was what I heard on the scanner.

A Caltrain led by JPBX 909 (EMD F40PH-2CAT) was encountering engine trouble shortly after departing southbound from San Francisco. The engineer was able to limp to the passing track at Bayshore before shutting the locomotive down. There, all the passengers were transferred to another train and JPBX 503 (EMD MP15DC, built 1974 for Southern Pacific) was called in to haul the dead trainset back to the maintenance facility (CEMOF) in Santa Clara. Ironically, the 503's crew complained over the radio that it wasn't running well either! Nevertheless, after tying up the main tracks for several reverse moves, 503 was soon on its way south with the broken trainset. When the rescue train passed me at Hillsdale, it left a terrible burnt electrical smell in its wake. I reckon that's what killed the F40PH.

This incident delayed some trains for about 10 minutes but pushed the Union Pacific's Mission Bay Local back about an hour. This train used to run out of South San Francisco Yard, but due to ongoing work to reconfigure the yard, it's now based out of San Jose. The "dirty dirt" train once hauled contaminated dirt from construction sites around the bay to a disposal facility in Utah, but now it's been absorbed by the Mission Bay Local. The main contributors to this change in operations have been a company-wide policy shift (PSR) and a drop in construction activities due to recent events.
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