After the 50 Year Anniversary of the L.A. Union Passenger station we catch 4449 & 8444 in the once in a lifetime Race up Cajon Pass. The awesome Aerial video was all shot from a helicopter. I have no history of who the photographer was as I came across a copy of it at a railroad swap meet and the only info was in black marker about the engine numbers and LA Union station.

In researching the run up Cajon Pass I learned that it really wasn't a race, according to crew members both engine crews were in communication and adjusted speed so they could run up the pass together.

The reason for the excessive smoke from 4449 was because Taylor yard didn’t have heavy crude oil and substituted diesel fuel instead. The problem with diesel fuel is it has a lower BTU value and to get the heat out of the fuel they had to over fire the engine, also diesel soots a lot more and coats the flues resulting in reduced efficiency. To keep the flues clean they had to constantly add sand in the firebox to try and keep the flues clean.

Unfortunately 4449 had to stop near the summit with bearing issues which the crew was able to fix after a short stop.

Some people have complained about the audio. The original video only had the sound of helicopter turbine and rotor blade noise. I had to take audio from when i chased 4449 and dub it in. It’s not the greatest, but I’m sure you will appreciate that better than 28 minutes of music.

Sorry for the grainy video as this was shot in 1989 and video quality was very poor compared to what we have today.

NOTE: I have been informed that this video footage was shot by LA news crew for KNBC channel 4. They sent out a helicopter news team to document the event of the 50th Anniversary of the LA Union Station. They only aired about 20 seconds of about 1 hr video.

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