Once again, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief has become a hard-luck train. Amtrak train 3, with an abbreviated 5-car consist thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, departed Chicago, Illinois, on April 30 and had an uneventful trip until it was approaching Kansas City, Missouri, and one of the P42DCs (167 and 186) developed some issues. After a delay, BNSF Railway ES44AC 6260 was added to the train to assist it for the rest of the trip. Of course, being a freight locomotive, it cannot operate at the higher speed at which the P42DCs are geared and so the train continued to fall behind schedule – and then got stuck behind a disabled freight train, and the encountered signal issues in the La Junta, Colorado, area. And so, here we see the westbound Chief passing through the Prado Dam area in Corona, California, about 40 miles from its final destination of Los Angeles. (Corona*, California – May 2, 2020)
[* - NOT to be confused with Coronavirus, California!]
