Another Evening at the Office-- Day shift shots added 5/15

Your passion for trains never ceases to inspire me.  You live it at work and then you go home and live/love it in O gauge. 

The perspective from the cab that I'm trying to capture with a GoPro is your view at the office every day.  

Stay safe out there! 

Let me borrow your GoPro and I'll take it for a ride  ... we'll capture a cab ride alright.

The layout time suffers because of my changing schedule at times, and sometimes it just gets to the point where.... "I've had enough trains for a couple days"

Also why I don't buy anything orange with those 4 letters on it  

It's also a ton of work to pack up my stuff, drive to San Diego, unpack, run trains all day, pack them back up, and drive home 100 miles. It's a lot less work just to go to work...... but that's a lot less fun.

Nice pics thank you!!!

When I had our hobby shop many years ago in Louisiana I had two customers/friends who had opposite situations that always amused me. One worked for NS at their huge yard in eastern New Orleans. He hated trains and flew RC airplanes as a hobby.

Another guy had a great HO model RR in his garage modeling the MKT primarily. He hated airplanes but was a corporate pilot for Freeport McMoran in New Orleans and flew the 727 back and forth to the mine in Jakarta Indonesia. Poor guy had to lay around on the beach there and in Hawaii when on layovers while on call.

Their paths didn't cross until well after a year of each hanging out at the shop and we all had a great laugh when they eventually encountered each other one afternoon and compared notes!

The orange with those 4 letters is almost all I buy! My favorite road name.

Thanks for the pics of the real thing.

Doing some 12" to the foot modeling again, eh Doug?

The denizens of the Isle of Denial are not pleased with your passion for pumpkins.

However, Doug has a place of honor there.   

Yup sure was.... like the weathering technique of washing the oil and hydraulic fluid off the concrete pad in photo #4?  Now that's what you use kitty litter for  

I actually own 2 pieces with those 4 letters...

MTH GS-4 #4449 in the black Night Light scheme from when they leased it for an employee appreciation train, painted it black, and put the original round logo on it.

and the MTH Dash 9 Cab #4449 because they brought that diesel in to run with it for that employee train

other than that... I won't even work on other people's engines if it has those 4 letters. The ONLY pumpkin I like is pie at Thanksgiving time  

What can I say, I live near the largest pumpkin patch in the land and there are smaller patches scattered all around. May the denizens show some mercy! Or they have possibly had no mercy and already gotten me (see last paragraph to Laidoffsick below)?

Only my engines are pumpkins, I leave the rolling stock whatever color it comes in. An awful lot of it has the 4 letters on it regardless of color though. Guess I won't ask you to help me with any Kadee conversions then.

Hmmm...come to think of it I have been having some strange things happening around here since I got that new SD70MAC a couple weeks ago. It just happened to be pumpkin color with 'those 4 letters' and it has given me trouble since I took it out of the box. Maybe it is the color and/or the lettering? But, it really is a nice looking engine.

I don't buy anything BNSF either.  But . . . I do watch the BNSF when I am near the tracks, and I take photos of BNSF.  Like you, I have no axe to grind with BNSF.  I had a good job there from merger day until retirement.

On my model railroad, though, time is turned back to the early 1950's. The Santa Fe is the railroad, just like it was when I was young, and the enjoyment I get from it is re-living some of the best years of the Santa Fe Railway - the Fred Gurley years.  It's my escape.

And, boy, oh boy, has the San Bernardino A-Yard ever changed since I was a boy Engineer on a wide-open Alco-GE S2 switcher, dragging a heavy cut of freshly iced and pre-cooled reefers upgrade to the top end so they could be switched into the nightly turns that went down the Third and Fourth Districts and switched all the citrus packing houses.

I just happen to have mine with me. If I had more time, I would gladly let you take it for a ride. See you next week!

I took this picture from the door of the westbound Southwest Chief, June 15, 2005.  I hope to see it again some day.

The Sightseer lounge for our train was bad-ordered and replaced with a coach-lounge (a poor replacement), and my traveling friends felt like we owed ourselves another trip.  Haven't gotten around to it yet.

Know that feeling. It's about 80 miles from my place to AGHR, but it's fun when I get there. Going to the office is close -- not by that much, but a lot less fun than running trains.

Really cool Doug.

Ron

Rob you need to come back to see it, looks a lot different since it got a face lift a few years back.

Here's some shots on "The Ramp" during the day shift.

Looking east from Mt Vernon Bridge

Northward view of the stack and Mt Vernon Bridge

Standing on the west side of Mt Vernon looking east. The Depot in the background.

Looking east under Mt Vernon. Notice the 3 bridge supports at an angle, this is where the tracks used to lead to the turntable back in the day.

It looks the like original wood planks are still there. Just been covered over on the top side with a more modern surface for heavy vehicle traffic.

Most of the old track designation numbers are still on both sides of the bridge. Most people don't even know what those numbers are for.

Just about the location of the intermodal crane (center) is a view of where the RH and TT was located, and the power house directly forward in the shot, which is now the TTX mechanical company that does all the work on the cars.

A few years back, BNSF wanted to remove the Mt Vernon Bridge. The city said NO. BNSF wants to be able to move cranes from one side of the bridge to the other. Currently they have to assemble a crane on 1 side or the other, and then it's stuck there for good.

The future plan is to RAISE the bridge so they can drive the cranes under the bridge from 1 side to the other. Then they would have to stretch each end (the approach) out to lessen the grade. BNSF has bought and trying buy up property around the yard for future expansion... the 10-15 year project. The yard already does 3-4 times the volume that it was intended and built for. 

Another vehicle bridge is already under construction over the flood control channel behind the A Yard office building, and another lead to the B Yard has been started.