HASSO HERING

Union Pacific’s locomotive No. 7160 leads this freight through Albany Monday evening.

It has been a few weeks since you last saw a train on this site. So let’s make up for lost time.

On Monday evening I heard the horn of an approaching freight as I rode my bike east on Seventh Avenue, coming from the Pacific Boulevard viaduct. I turned north on Madison Street and made it to the crossing just after the arms came down.

Railroad companies number their locomotives. You can google the numbers and, thanks to railfans across the country, see where particular engines have been over the years.

This one is Union Pacific’s No. 7160, and I watched it leading a relatively short freight south through Albany just before 7 o’clock.

Twenty years ago, the same GE engine was photographed pulling a coal train in Gary, Indiana. Six years later, in 2010, someone got a photo of it in St. Louis. And in April 2015, No. 7160 was working in Altoona, Wisconsin.

On a big railroad like the Union Pacific, these engines apparently see service all over the country.

Locally, on social media like Nextdoor, someone complains about the train horns from time to time. Too loud, they say. I can understand that. Nobody likes to lose sleep because a train is coming through.

To me, the sound of that horn means yet another opportunity to witness massive motive power thundering down the track. If, that is, I get there fast enough. (hh)