Leaving the floor of the Caliente Valley at the conflux of the Caliente and Tehachapi Creeks, William Hood directed the rails of the Southern Pacific Railroad up the once thought insurmountable Tehachapi range. In order to maintain a reasonable gradient Hood's railroad took a serpentine course leaving Caliente on the climb up to Cliff, gaining 700' of elevation in 6 rail miles, the distance between the two points as the crow flies is separated by only one mile. Emerging from the daylighted tunnel 6 cut the containers on BNSF's eastbound Q STOCHI highlight the railroad's precarious perch high above the Tehachapi Creek, occupying a narrow right of way carved into the mountain side. For the eastbound BNSF stacks the battle is only beginning as another 20 miles of mountain railroad separate Cliff from the summit of the Tehachapi grade.
