Tehachapi was perfect! My first day at Bealville, a BNSF cop was parked in the distance and watching me for awhile. Eventually he came over to talk to me. Very cool guy! He is a retired sheriff's deputy collecting a pension and works salary for BNSF to keep busy and earn some extra cash. He's only been on the job for 5 months. He said he mainly keeps an eye on intermodal trains because gangs of thieves hit them up for their computers and televisions when they are stopped on sidings. He had recently found about $20K of electronics stashed on the side of the track that the gangs hadn't gone back to pick up yet. His police beat is 154 miles long from Corcoran in the north, all the way down to Boron in the south. It's just him and another guy on opposite shifts for that entire distance....plus the UP cops too.
He asked me to volunteer my driver's license info and my car's plate number so that if anybody calls in about me, he knows It's just me (a railfan) and won't have to waste his time driving 50+ miles for a false alarm (I had no problem with that). He also gave me his card so I can call in theft or tampering of trains. As you can see....I took a pic of his SUV as he left.
The next day (the 13th) there was 6 trains in a row going up the grade just in the morning alone. The day was packed with trains in both directions. There was track work going on at Caliente my whole trip there. As you can see from the pictures, there were construction crews at the loop. They were removing earth from above tunnel #10 (see pics) so I'm guessing they plan to either daylight it or will make a second track to the side of it. Although UP owns the tracks, BNSF runs 3 to 4 times more trains over Tehachapi Pass than UP does.
Finally ate at the Apple Shed restaurant for the first time in Tehachapi. Their in-house ground sirloin burgers were awesome and very thick. The same owners also own the Red House BBQ across the street and down a little. A Chinese woman owns them with her big Hawaiian husband (I was told...never saw him). The food at the BBQ was very good too (ate there the day before) and she hangs around there constantly making the rounds to tables to make sure everybody is taken care of. The nicest lady you'll ever meet. It's odd seeing this Chinese woman as boss over a crew of mostly tattooed rocker types and rock music playing in the background. I liked it. BTW.... I've never had a battered deep fried pickle in my life and they were awesome here. You dip them in ranch dressing....YUM!!
That last picture is some weird dome they put on the front of a wind turbine. After leaving Las Vegas, I went to Cajon Pass for a day. Got pics and video, but decided to just post the Tehachapi Pass pics and vids instead. Noticed a lot of BNSF GE ES44C4 locos on the trip (especially on Cajon Pass where they were 2/3rds of the GE locos running).
Overall a great trip. Hadn't been to these spots since 2008.
I wanted to travel light, so I simply brought along a 20mp Nikon point and shoot instead of my $1300 Sony HD cam. The video is only 720p and not the best quality, but it's OK. I just recently got a free copy of PowerDirector 13 Ultra from a friend, so I used that instead of my Vegas Pro to edit it just to see how decent it is. It's actually a pretty good video editor. I reduced the pics to 25% of their original size to save bandwidth on my free Photobucket account.
) . But when they bought Southern Pacific and it's tracks, apparently they are stuck with the legacy of SP's infinite contract to supply water to the Keene/Woodford area. The guy suggested UP build a water-line to Tehachapi, but guesses UP doesn't want to either spend the money or deal with the logistics of building such a line up the mountain grade. So... it looks like just call them the Union Pacific Water company also for the foreseeable future. 
It would be fun to not be there alone for once since none of my friends like trains. (makes an announcement over the PA system.....) "Pathetic loser.....party of one!"