Remarks: When the Southern Pacific constructed the new hump yard at West Colton almost four decades ago, they set it up to operate eastbound. Westbounds thus find it necessary to circumscribe a balloon track next to the west leg of the wye off the Palmdale Cutoff. In a scene from the early 90’s, a mixed quartet of SD’s descends out of the departure yard onto the balloon track and meets its own tail-car just as the headend achieves the mainline. Please excuse the wind noise in the opening 17 seconds (it vanishes after that), it could not be filtered beyond what it was without compromising the sound of the SD’s transitioning into dynamic braking.
