I've heard that there is a prototype for everything we do in model railroading, but who da thunk there would be a prototype for a staging yard? I was sent on a service call to Yermo, Ca. to repair a U.P. refrigerator car. I knew U.P. had a yard at Yermo, but I thought it was a classification yard like the BNSF yard at Barstow, a few miles West of there. I found out when I got there that the only purpose of the U.P. yard at Yermo is to stage trains until they have clearance to go to the BNSF mainline to get down Cajon Pass. The U.P. got S.P.'s Cajon Pass trackage in the merger, but those tracks go from Cajon Pass through Mojave to Tehachapie. They don't go East at all. The only way the U.P. can get to the exS.P. main on Cajon is to go onto the BNSF main at Barstow (just West of Yermo) and then switch over to the exS.P. main at Cajon Summit.
