The locomotive you are seeing is an EMD F-7A, one of the most iconic shapes for a locomotive to ever exist. Built between 1949 and 1953, one of the F-unit series of locomotive prime movers, was a common sight on rails around the U.S. Weighing in at over 117 tons and packing an EMD V-16 that displaced 567 cubic inches per cylinder for a combined total of 148.66 liters of diesel power that for decades moved whatever was coupled to it. Nowadays, the existing F-units live the life of museum pieces, but it isn’t a completely easy life. Maintenance is still required and repairs must be made if something breaks down. In this case from 2011, F-7A #913 from the California State Railroad Museum needed repairs, yet there was no direct line from the museum to the Sacramento Locomotive Works shops…which happened to be across a set of Union Pacific tracks. In order to not upset the timetable of the main line, a set of rails had to be erected over the existing rails to move the F-7A across the line. It is impressive that constructing two rails is just enough to move that much weight, and that there are no effects to the main line as a result. Check it out below!
(Thanks to SuperBuickGuy for the tip!)
If this had taken place in the UK in the 70s the track crew would have gone on strike due to having dirty mugs in their canteen or something like that!
That Amtrak train would have been STILL waiting at the station filled with the mummified corpses of its passengers…
That was a pretty cool video.
Looks like they are well practiced.
That Amtrak unit looks pissed… 🙂
The best part of that, IMO, is how they moved the train sideways at the equipment shed.
Damn it, now I want a locomotive