On the first day of the New Year, I headed down to Haysville for the first time since the removal of the MP 10.6 PRR signals. It was a day for intermodals (some of them quite short), Dash 9s and GEVOs, but there were a few bright spots. As noted above, there was a pair of ACes, one still mostly fresh, an SD60E leader, and the motley assortment common to the C28 local. Interestingly enough, all the Dash 9s today were in the older Thoroughbred paint scheme (plain NS letters, no horse, on the long hood side emblems), which is unusual. That said, if you tire easily of GEs, you may want to skip to NS's 55K grain train (3:31), which had the Pittsburgh District's resident railfan engineer at the throttle, and some scanner banter on the side.
Train 1: Westbound domestic stacks ES44AC 8115, C44-9W 9685 (THB), ES44AC 8030.
Train 2: Eastbound Intermodal (1:24) ES44AC 8045, ES444DC 7637
Train 3: Westbound Domestic Intermodal (2:18) C44-9W 9604 (THB) C44-9W 9674 (THB)
Train 4: 55K - Grain Empties (3:31) ES44DC 7616 (older cast KH5L?) C44-9W 9578 (THB) Engineer Troy gave a fantastic impromptu hornshow.
Train 5: Eastbound TOFC/COFC (4:56) SD70ACe 1052, SD70ACe/SD70IAC 1190
Train 6: Westbound Empty Oil (6:04) SD60E 6965, AC44C6M 4026, ES44DC 7673. Note that 6965 appears to have had its NS-designed cooling system (the grilles behind the cab that use to hang over the walkway) with that from a retired SD60 type.
Train 7: Westbound TOFC/Intermodal (7:56) C44-9W 9580 (THB), C44-9W 9412? (THB), C44-9W 9579 (THB)
Train 8: Westbound C28 (local) (9:06) GP40-2 3017 (Freezebeater) (old cast P5A), RP-E4C slug 710?, RP-M4C slug 622?, GP59ECO 4665
Thanks for watching and reading, by the way!
