The Pacific Sun Railroad is a WATCO shortline that was established to take over local freight traffic from the BNSF on their former ATSF Escondido Subdivision and Miramar Branch. Seems like it’s the stuff that the BNSF didn’t want to be bothered with.
As near as I can figure, the pictures in the Pacific Sun Railroad Gallery on Laughing Frog Images represent half of the railroad’s locomotives.
From what I’ve been able to find on the web, these are said to be former Western Pacific GP40s that have been upgraded to -3 standards. These workhorses are somewhere between 43 and 49 years old. They’re working for at least their third owner – the Western Pacific was merged into the Union Pacific over 30 years ago. It’s almost hard to believe that the 40-series Geeps have been around that long! That means I’m…. never mind.
They’ve reportedly got two other units – said to be former Seaboard Air Line GP35s working for at least their fifth owner. I’ve only seen these units in the yard at Stuart Mesa.
I’ve seen the GP40s working at night several times, and most often parked behind a fence at a transloading facility along Miramar Road. This was the first time I’ve seen them in daylight and not behind the fence, so naturally that called for their portrait! It was late in the day in nice light – the deep blues were starting to set into the sky.
Once again, these were taken with my Microsoft/Nokia Icon. This is a .jpg image made from the original .dng file.
Here are two sites to check out if you want to learn a little more about the Pacific Sun Railroad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Sun_Railroad
http://www.watcocompanies.com/our-services/rail-services/psrr/
Now, to get the GP35s…!
Thanks for looking.