As the hills of Cuesta Pass wear their annual coat of summer brown, Amtrak's northbound Coast Starlight prepares to ascend the grade of the GoldTree Horsehoe curve as it crosses the Stenner Creek trestle. While not uncommon to see leading the southbound Starlight, Dash-8 leaders on the northbound train are fairly rare as the yard crews in Los Angeles normally make the extra effort to put a P40/P42 on the point if the previous day's #11 arrives with a Dash-8 leader. Seeing 503 on the point of 14 has become almost too common this past week, however, following the collapse of Tunnel 11's ceiling up in the Cascade Mountains. Due to this closure of the line, the Starlight's have been turning at Klamath Falls with the train's power running around the consist prior to pulling it back south. Once in Los Angeles, yard crews turn the train on the wye that inadvertently places the 503 to be the leader of the following days #14 each time.
