Mojave (Tehachapi Jct.)

Mojave sits at the eastern foot of Tehachapi Pass, where two of America's busiest freight railroads converge and split. Union Pacific's Mojave Subdivision carries Tehachapi traffic south toward Palmdale and Colton, while BNSF's line peels off southeast toward Barstow. The BNSF junction lies directly beneath the Highway 14 overpass, about half a mile south of the Hwy 58 intersection — a vantage point that puts you at cab level with passing locomotives.

The Mojave Yard flanks the west side of Sierra Highway (old Route 14) through town. It's a compact facility used mainly for staging and crew operations rather than major classification. UP occasionally parks helper sets here for Tehachapi westbound assists, and the yard handles interchange traffic from two branch lines: the Searles (Jawbone) Branch heading north, and the Oak Creek Branch serving the CalPortland cement plant west of town.

The atmosphere is unfiltered desert railroading — no fences, no crowds, just trains and open sky. Sound carries exceptionally well in the dry air, so you'll hear approaching trains well before they appear. Westbound trains throttle up hard leaving the crew change area to attack the 2.2% ruling grade toward Tehachapi, while eastbounds drift down in dynamic brake. Nighttime is as active as daytime, with yard lighting casting a glow over passing consists.

Mojave sits at roughly 2,735 feet elevation on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, where the Tehachapi Mountains rise sharply to the west. The terrain is a broad, sandy basin with sparse creosote bush, sagebrush, and scattered Joshua trees. Modern wind turbines dominate virtually every ridgeline — the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area is one of the largest wind farms in the United States, and the turbines provide a distinctive foreground for train photography.

Skies are typically cloudless with extreme visibility. Summer afternoons routinely top 100°F with visible heat shimmer rising off the rails, while winter mornings can bring frost and occasional dustings of snow on the surrounding peaks. The Mojave Air and Space Port sits directly east of town, and you may spot experimental aircraft on approach while watching trains — an unusual juxtaposition of 19th-century rail engineering and cutting-edge aerospace.

The Tehachapi corridor averages roughly 36 freight trains per day, making it one of the busiest single-track mainlines in the world. Both Union Pacific and BNSF operate over this route under a trackage-rights arrangement dating back to 1900, when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe negotiated access over Southern Pacific's line.

Traffic is virtually 100% freight. Expect double-stack intermodal trains bound for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, mixed manifest freights, grain unit trains, and occasional special moves. BNSF trains heading to or from Barstow diverge from the UP main just south of town, adding variety to the consists you'll see. The Searles (Jawbone) Branch still connects with the Trona Railway to the north, and UP Distribution Services uses spur trackage at the Mojave Air and Space Port to transload wind turbine components. Progress Rail also operates a wheel shop on the airport property, generating additional rail car movements.

The Highway 14 overpass south of town offers an elevated perspective on the BNSF/UP junction, where you can shoot trains diverging or converging. Winter mornings provide excellent low-angle light on southbound and eastbound movements. Look for the large S-curve where BNSF trains approach from the southeast — it frames nicely against the desert hills.

Along Sierra Highway through Mojave, the small yard is accessible for roster shots of parked locomotives, especially in morning light during summer or winter. Telephone wires can be an obstacle, so work your angles carefully. North of town, where the Searles Branch crosses Highway 58 at grade, there's a team track area used for wind turbine component unloading that can yield unusual photos.

Two miles north of Mojave on the UP main, the tracks swing through a broad S-curve that works well for panning shots of uphill trains with a 70-200mm lens. The open desert terrain means 50-200mm covers most compositions, but ultra-wide can emphasize the length of a train snaking through the landscape against the wind farm backdrop.

Mojave began in 1876 as a Southern Pacific Railroad construction camp. The SP reached Mojave on August 9, 1876, completing the line over Tehachapi Pass and creating the first rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The town was briefly an SP division headquarters (1888-1894) and a terminal point where passengers transferred between SP and Santa Fe services.

The Mojave depot housed a Harvey House that served meals to railroad passengers — the Harvey House system operated only on Santa Fe trains, but Mojave was a transfer point between the two railroads. The Harvey House lunchroom remained in operation until 1933, according to East Kern Historical Museum records. During World War II, several local women worked in SP's roundhouse maintaining locomotives, and the yard funneled significant military traffic.

The SP merged with Union Pacific in 1996. The Santa Fe's successor BNSF continues to operate over the Tehachapi under the original trackage-rights arrangement. Several SP-built employee houses still stand on the west side of the railroad yard, tangible reminders of the town's railroad origins.

Mojave's appeal lies in its status as a true railroad crossroads — not one line, but three directions of traffic. You can watch UP trains heading west toward Tehachapi, UP trains heading south to Palmdale, and BNSF trains diverging southeast to Barstow, all from a compact area. The helper operations for Tehachapi's 2.2% grade add extra locomotive consists to the mix.

The juxtaposition with the Mojave Air and Space Port creates an experience found nowhere else: century-old desert railroading meets cutting-edge aerospace, with commercial aircraft boneyards, experimental spacecraft facilities (including Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic), and the National Test Pilot School all within sight of passing freight trains. Wind turbine transloading at the airport's rail spur adds a modern industrial dimension to the railfanning.