Midweek Photos 4/8/2015

CP Alliance was quite busy while I was there on Monday 4/6/15.  Here are just a few of the many pictures I took.

 

Three BNSF Units lead an oil train off the Fort Wayne line onto the Bayard Branch.

 

 

 

 

There were also a few light power moves, two single engines and a six engine consist.

 

 

 Union Pacific power pulling ethanol and crude oil thru Pittsburgh this week.

 

   Also the NS Heritage PRR ES44AC at Emsworth, PA crossing.

 

 

Tim, hope you don't mind the second appearance of this photo--first posted last week in the "week-end photo fun" thread.

 

NS business train in downtown Augusta, GA on the way to the Masters, shot 4/1/15 by Joseph Johns:

 

 

Not much of a buffer car for a tank train???

 

 

Tim, you must be experiencing a little bit of bad luck/bad timing in your most recent visits to Taylor Yard.  I say that because the yard has been very busy and very full lately!

The reason I know this is that I listen to the CP Rail Sunbury Sub radio transmissions every once in a while via an on-line scanner ap on my iPhone.

I log a lot of time on the road (in my car) for my job.  Being born and raised in that general area, I still have an interest in the railroad activity there.  What can I say...sometimes I get bored with my music library or talk radio!

Coincidently, I was tuned in earlier today and the discussion was centered around how full the yard was.  In fact, somewhere around 10 AM or so, there were 3 trains switching cars at Taylor at the same time, CP Trains 458, 259 and the daily Taylor local D11.  As you might imagine, this led to tons of chatter over the radio!

Then around 4 PM, a rail-grinding train came up from the south and was asking for permission to tie-up at Taylor for tonight.  They barely had room to fit only 600 feet of train in there!

These are from years ago when I happened upon a diesel graveyard of sorts.

 

Even scrapped, the colors on this Alco really pop!

 

 

 

Took these this morning. My wife and I went to Hometown today, and took the two mile trip to Tamaqua, to kill some time until lunch at the Beacon Diner. Unfortunately, the station is closed on weekdays, and there was no activity on the line. I did hear a horn south of the station, but nothing came our way. there was a small cut of cylindrical hoppers on a siding at an industrial building adjacent to Wal-Mart, but the view was obscured by trees.

The brush hog in the first few pictures sure makes a mess on either side of the lines it services. Kind of like what PENDOT does to the sides of the roads. It looks like a tornado passed through! Luzerne and Susquehanna recently did the spur running behind our house. I wonder if they used this machine.

Don

Is that the sand used for fracking up north, or traction sand?

Don

I am two months older then the RS 1, glad both of us are still around.

There is a RS1 up here in North Virginia at the Coons Point power station, it was a coal fired plant that changed to gas. however the RS-1 that pushed the hoppers around at the plant is still there all by her lonesome, Wish I had a place to put her(and the money) to clean her up. The one below did the same job in Florida.

I went up to Columbia, Missouri to visit my Mom and thought it would be cool to ride the dinner train. Well that was not to be, the operation shut down last December.

I did locate the train and got permission to shoot it. The train sits at the Columbia Terminal Railroad transload facility north of Columbia. The history of the line is well represented, "Follow the Flag"!

 

Columbia Terminal Railroad, COLT, has one unit for power and it wears a Wabash inspired scheme. The COLT operates the Columbia Branch, from a connection with the NS at Centralia, MO down to Columbia. It was know for its mixed train which connected the University of Missouri with the mainline trains to St. Louis and Kansas City.  

 

 

The Columbia Dinner Train, another Wabash scheme, is "For Sale" Not only two F7's but an unusual articulated passenger set. possibly ex SP?  

More Nashville action.

A few poor pictures from one of my recent Youtube videos: An NS stack train in Sewickley heading west for Conway. Also, some pictures from a recent trip to D.C. The eighth photo down is a new Viewliner baggage and ACS-64.

Well I am late to the game. Where or what happened to  the middle of the week? I lost another day this week. Well I got my stuff together this week I have a new Computer that I am typing on now I have the Gopro ready with the apt, now I just need a good day with some Sun. well I did get a few photos today.

Rockville Bridge, Harrisburg, Pa.

 

 

 

Cape May, NJ train station on the Cape May Seashore Lines, or what's left of it.

From Milton, PA. PRR and P&R stations.

 

 

And two of the yard locomotives at the Milton ACF plant.

 

Scott. that switch stand in the third photo looks more like ex-BN than ex-Santa Fe.  Is this on the former Burlington?  C&NW?  Milwaukee Road?  What's the station name.

Those PRR position light signals are not things of beauty, but one has to give Pennsy credit for buying into block signals with no moving parts.  Most other railroads were 70 years behind them on that idea.  I would have liked to have been the exclusive vendor to PRR for signal light bulbs.  

Vonz Restaurant in the P&R station at Tamaqua, PA, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM

 

 

 

Caught some CP and CN action this afternoon

A trio of CP Rail SD40-2s with an NS C40-9W at NS Oakwood Yard in Melvindale, MI. Lucked out with the lighting

CN manifest in Ferndale, MI. The second engine is an Illinois Central unit

Two miles up the track I caught this CN intermodal in Royal Oak, MI. This train originated at the CN Moterm Intermodal facility in Ferndale.

Was going to post this yesterday, but I had some internet issues, so I had to wait until today.

 

Here is some Union Pacific action that I captured at the Amtrak (former Southern Pacific) station in Chico yesterday. 

 

UP #8088 and three similar units heading west towards the Amtrak staton.

 

 

The train was heading towards the nearby siding to wait for the Maintenance of Way (MOW) train that was coming from Durham. In the distance you can can see the red over yellow aspect displayed on the signal before the siding.

 

Roughly 25 minutes later, the MOW train (led by UP #5537 and KCS #3904) arrived in Chico pulling a work caboose, two service cars, and between forty and fifty flatcars with the old rails that were removed and replaced with new rails. 

 

 

Better look at KCS #3904, the work caboose, and several of the crew members as the MOW train stops at the station. The train sat at the station for around 10 minutes before backing down the track onto the same siding that the earlier train (UP #8088) had parked on. The men on the work caboose told me that a local train was inbound from Durham, so they were heading for the siding to let it pass.

 

About five minutes after the MOW had backed onto the siding and cleared the main line, the next train (led by UP #9912) moved into town towards the passenger station. Consist was mostly grain cars, with some lumber cars, boxcars, and empty bulkhead cars towards the rear of the train.

 

 

Last photo shows the 2nd and 3rd unit behind UP #9912 (#9919 and #9914) moving past the West 5th Street crossing just before the passenger station as the train heads east. There were three former Chicago and North Western (C&NW) grain cars that still bore their old logos, and the first car behind UP #9914 shows the faded, worn yellow colors along with the old C&NW logo.