Rail-fanning on The OGR Forum 🚂 Welcome: Pictures YOU have taken! • Hope to see you out rail-fanning.

Finally got out today with the kids after more than a month… it has been cold here..

Was able to catch an westbound CN freight headed to Port Huron (no pics) and the CSX locos headed to pickup cars in the CN yard in Sarnia.

Is this railfanning? Friday night I spent a bit of time on CNW 411 at IRM. We had to remove the roof rear hatch to access the HEP plant for some work. At left is MILW 33C and dome Silver Pony. At right is a UP doodlebug. Ahead is E9 BN3.

It was a fruitful afternoon between Bucoda and Centralia, WA today.

Note these three shots, those are all different trains, in the same spot:

Norfolk Southern eastbound between Elkhart and Goshen, Indiana on March 12, 2006.

At Harrold, Texas, I took these two photos in 2013.  The Bolton GP7 is still there, faded a bit but appears to be in decent operating condition, and is still in use.  Bolton receives unit trains of grain, and switches them, in small cuts of cars, to an auger pit, loading directly into trucks.

Although the old geep is still there, the grain silos are not.  We were driving down to visit family in the Dallas area a few years ago, in stormy weather, and, as we approached Harrold, there were emergency vehicles on the access road, as well as BNSF vehicles.  (Harrold is between Wichita Falls and  Childress, on the ex-Fort Worth and Denver route of the Texas Zephyr.)  A tornado had just attacked the silos 15 minutes earlier.  A corrugated steel one was warped badly, and the riveted steel ones, plus the other corrugated one, had completely collapsed, blocking both the BNSF main track and the CTC siding.  There was some grain on the ground, about enough to make a 15-foot high pile, but I suspect that there had been more, sucked up and spread all over Wilbarger County by the tornado.  Since Bolton no longer has silos, they have adapted that hopper to auger to truck method of doing business, using the rail cars for storage.  Apparently the tornado did not damage the locomotive, which was a few hundred feet west of the photo location.  Good thing we did not leave home 15 minutes earlier or we would have been very close -- too close -- to the tornado.

Got these this morning:

“Don’t worry Mike…pretty sure it’s just a passing fancy…” 🚂😉😺

@p51 posted:

Got these this morning:

Lee, looks a little hazy or foggy there, but a nice clean GE ES44C4!

@Number 90 posted:

At Harrold, Texas, I took these two photos in 2013.  The Bolton GP7 is still there, faded a bit but appears to be in decent operating condition, and is still in use.  Bolton receives unit trains of grain, and switches them, in small cuts of cars, to an auger pit, loading directly into trucks.

Although the old geep is still there, the grain silos are not.  We were driving down to visit family in the Dallas area a few years ago, in stormy weather, and, as we approached Harrold, there were emergency vehicles on the access road, as well as BNSF vehicles.  (Harrold is between Wichita Falls and  Childress, on the ex-Fort Worth and Denver route of the Texas Zephyr.)  A tornado had just attacked the silos 15 minutes earlier.  A corrugated steel one was warped badly, and the riveted steel ones, plus the other corrugated one, had completely collapsed, blocking both the BNSF main track and the CTC siding.  There was some grain on the ground, about enough to make a 15-foot high pile, but I suspect that there had been more, sucked up and spread all over Wilbarger County by the tornado.  Since Bolton no longer has silos, they have adapted that hopper to auger to truck method of doing business, using the rail cars for storage.  Apparently the tornado did not damage the locomotive, which was a few hundred feet west of the photo location.  Good thing we did not leave home 15 minutes earlier or we would have been very close -- too close -- to the tornado.

Cool bit of history Tom, thanks. Tornados, that's why I live to the west of the Rockies!! ;-)

@WesternPacific2217 posted:

Lee, looks a little hazy or foggy there, but a nice clean GE ES44C4!

Yep, every morning has been foggy here for a while. I'm hardly complaining, I love any winter day when it's not raining like mad or windy!

Crew change at the Amtrak Yard • Pontiac Michigan.  January 26th, 2022 • 14ºF

This is the crew change at 5:05 PM, train number 355 to Chicago. Notice the green arrows show the “Wheel Chocks” being removed by a Amtrak Yardman. The rest of the photos show the train crew preparing this Siemens Charger for a run into the “Wye Turnout” to turn the locomotive around.

Every model railroader started out rail-fanning!

Hope to see you out rail-fanning and posting your images on “Rail-fanning on The OGR Forum”. Any day and time. 😎

Gary 🚂

Those are great photographs of the Amtrak, Gary!  You don’t see that around here!  Once again your photo journaling is exceptional!

@Mark Boyce posted:

Those are great photographs of the Amtrak, Gary!  You don’t see that around here!  Once again your photo journaling is exceptional!

Thanks Mark: I live about ten miles from this station. I shot these with my iPhone 11 Pro. On the back of my phone I have the schedule for the Amtrak Pontiac. We have three trains departing & arriving per day. Along with CN freight trains.

I would also like to thank all the members for submitting photos. The best camera for rail-fanning is the one that we all have in a pocket. Camera phones. 📷

Gary 🚂

Some oldies from Fostoria and Rochelle railroad parks again... new oldies though............

In today's Class I rail fanning paradigm, where standard cab and interesting power from the 1980s and 1990s have steadily been overtaken by the same two widenose cabs, any sort of deviation from the norm, such as a horn show, inspires happiness for railfans. Some horn shows, such as those given by one engineer on the Norfolk Southern Pittsburgh District from 2019 through mid-2021, were truly exceptional. In this video, I compiled clips from the times when I was fortunate enough to be trackside for them.

The thumbnail and picture are from the last of these shows, when the engineer ran an extra NS move hauling retired SD70ACUs from Altoona to Progress Rail.

Traveling in style to the Super Bowl on 02-10-22 !   Tacked on to the SW Chief was the private car "Hollywood Beach". The car was built in 1956 and all the glass work was as built,  in lieu of a dome car, which would not meet clearance limitations.  Originally Seaboard Air Line Railroad.  Naperville, IL station.

The horn shows are really neat, Dan!

Took these today near Winlock, WA

@p51 posted:

Took these today near Winlock, WA

P51, Wow, beautiful day in southern Washington, great photos! You managed to catch the moon over BNSF 6525 ES44C4, very nice. Amtrak too, busy morning on the rails for a Sunday.

October 15, 2012, near Brooten, Minnesota, on the former Soo Line (now Canadian Pacific) route from the Twin Cities to Winnipeg.  When was the last time you saw one of these CITX locomotives?

Been quite a while (10 or 15 years?).  Presume Citicorp did not make money on that venture. Perhaps like Railbox !

@mark s posted:

Traveling in style to the Super Bowl on 02-10-22 !   Tacked on to the SW Chief was the private car "Hollywood Beach". The car was built in 1956 and all the glass work was as built,  in lieu of a dome car, which would not meet clearance limitations.  Originally Seaboard Air Line Railroad.  Naperville, IL station.

I've seen this car on the VRF cameras through the mid-west. Couldn't make out the name on the drum head.

It's early evening in summer, as BNSF 5218 West slows to 50 MPH, in order to take the crossover from Main 1 to Main 2, at Zita.  This location is at the geographic south (railroad west) edge of Amarillo, Texas.  As soon as the rear end clears, the exhaust from the big GE's will darken and the train will accelerate to 70 MPH, in its quest to get the trailers and containers to Hobart Yard in Los Angeles.

Some Powder River Basin action from 2005.

Two different takes on 145...the Phase III heritage unit leads the westbound Regional 96 this past weekend at Airport Road in Williamsburg, with a ham for a conductor (click the photo to see it full size).

This evening, I tried out full manual mode (focus, aperture, shutter speed) on my camera and did a long exposure of the unit leading the southbound train. Not bad, but I need to fix the framing, focus, and timing of the shot.

It's an O-Gauge model of UP6915 DDA40X (not a real train). There is a real train in the background though.

Pere Marquette 1225 excursion out of Howell, MI.

Snow Day - Rail-fanning has been cancelled for today.

But never say never. Today February 18th, 2022 • 12ºF

1 The day started out by eating breakfast and watching the deer eat breakfast from my kitchen table.

2 Went out to get my F150 and had to remove the snow off the truck & driveway.

3 The main roads where snow covered, so I turnaround & came home to the man cave.

4 This is from last winter from the Detroit Windsor Railroad Tunnel. I would like to go back again this winter. I usually have my wife drive because parking is an issue. She drops me off and I go on foot.

Every model railroader started out rail-fanning!

Hope to see you out rail-fanning and posting your images on “Rail-fanning on The OGR Forum”. Any day and time. 😎

Gary 🚂

We don't have as much snow as you, Gary, but the temperatures did plummet last night.  Not today, but the deer do visit our feeders too.  That is the first I knew there even is a Detroit Windsor railroad tunnel.  I assumed they used a bridge.

@Mark Boyce posted:

We don't have as much snow as you, Gary, but the temperatures did plummet last night.  Not today, but the deer do visit our feeders too.  That is the first I knew there even is a Detroit Windsor railroad tunnel.  I assumed they used a bridge.

Hi Mark: This tunnel opened on July 26, 1910 and it goes under the Detroit River to Windsor Ontario, Canada. It is owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and it only has freight trains. The tunnel on the left was made taller in the 80’s to handle the taller auto racks.

We also have a auto tunnel to Canada. When we go to Canada we prefer the Auto Tunnel because it is faster than the Ambassador Bridge. The Auto Tunnel does not allow trucks and both the USA & Canada Customs work fast to keep traffic moving. They do not want cars stopping in the tunnel do to carbon monoxide.

Negotiations are now under way between USA & Canada to run passenger trains from Detroit to Toronto. This is being promoted by the construction on the Michigan Central Station and the Ford Motor Company.

Gary 🚂

@trainroomgary posted:

Hi Mark: This tunnel opened on July 26, 1910 and it goes under the Detroit River to Windsor Ontario, Canada. It is owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and it only has freight trains. The tunnel on the left was made taller in the 80’s to handle the taller auto racks.

We also have a auto tunnel to Canada. When we go to Canada we prefer the Auto Tunnel because it is faster than the Ambassador Bridge. The Auto Tunnel does not allow trucks and both the USA & Canada Customs work fast to keep traffic moving. They do not want cars stopping in the tunnel do to carbon monoxide.

Negotiations are now under way between USA & Canada to run passenger trains from Detroit to Toronto. This is being promoted by the construction on the Michigan Central Station and the Ford Motor Company.

Gary 🚂

Gary, Thank you.  I didn’t know there is an automobile tunnel either.  I can see a passenger run from Detroit to Toronto would be a good thing.  You might think living in Northwestern Pennsylvania I would have been to Michigan at one time or another; but no, the closest was Marblehead, Ohio

@Adrian! posted:

It's an O-Gauge model of UP6915 DDA40X (not a real train). There is a real train in the background though.

Adrian, that is no model, I know exactly where 6915 is displayed. It used to have a larger friend on display at the same museum, I wonder if anybody can guess what locomotive that was? ;-)

@WesternPacific2217 posted:

Adrian, that is no model, I know exactly where 6915 is displayed. It used to have a larger friend on display at the same museum, I wonder if anybody can guess what locomotive that was? ;-)

Oh yes it is definitely a model UP6915. It’s hard to tell with the other actual UP6915 in the background.

Inspect the porch area in the photo very closely. Yup I had to go all the way to Pomona fairplex to setup this photo.

Adrian, I see what you are saying. There are 2 DDA40Xs in that picture. LOL

Dan Weinhold

@Mark Boyce posted:

Gary, Thank you.  I didn’t know there is an automobile tunnel either.  I can see a passenger run from Detroit to Toronto would be a good thing.  You might think living in Northwestern Pennsylvania I would have been to Michigan at one time or another; but no, the closest was Marblehead, Ohio

Mark,

Yunz need to come out our way for a visit some time, if you're up to it.  We're fortunate to have a large array of rail-related and historical facilities and sites that are both common and unusual at the same time, like the tunnels.  All are definitely interesting regardless.  @trainroomgary does a good job of highlighting many of them.

But even better, and something else you may not know, is that we also have a large community of immigrants from southwestern PA who came here in a big wave nearly a hundred years ago now, when Henry Ford started offering a $5-a-day wage for assembly line workers.  The Warrendale community in the city of Detroit was/is heavily populated by these folks, including my late grandfather (from Dunbar, PA) and my late grandmother (from Footedale, PA), who never new each other back home, but met and married here in 1927.

There are many of us here with roots in your neck of the woods, and ties that still link us to what my grandmother always affectionally called "Pennsy".

Mike

@Adrian! posted:

Oh yes it is definitely a model UP6915. It’s hard to tell with the other actual UP6915 in the background.

Inspect the porch area in the photo very closely. Yup I had to go all the way to Pomona fairplex to setup this photo.

I have good eyes and I still had to blow up the photo to see the model on the front porch! Very clever Adrian. I've been to the Pomona Fairplex and visited the Railgiants museum and went to the Winter Nationals at the dragstrip, and I live in northern California. A bit of a drive! When I went 4014 was still at the Railgiants before UP took her away to Cheyanne.

The wife and I spent the President's Day weekend in San Diego and on Sunday, took Amtrak's Surfliner up to Los Angeles, had lunch, then took it back to San Diego. This was our first ride with the new Siemens Charger locomotives. I never get tired of taking that ride. Just beautiful.

@Yellowstone Special posted:

The wife and I spent the President's Day weekend in San Diego and on Sunday, took Amtrak's Surfliner up to Los Angeles, had lunch, then took it back to San Diego. This was our first ride with the new Siemens Charger locomotives. I never get tired of taking that ride. Just beautiful.

Nice photos! I didn't know that Amtrak and Caltrans had partnered on the Surfline. I really need to go out and photo some Siemens Loco's of the Amtrak Capital Corridor passenger trains here in San Jose.

Hi Folks,

I was able to get out to the local CN yard last two weekends with the kids.  Nice sunny days!

Last weekend was a bust with nothing but a couple of graffitied cars…

This weekend was a little better… nothing going or coming from the tunnel under the St Clair river, but lots of switching action to keep kids entertained.

The first photo is a couple of road engines headed to the yard ‘wye’ to turnaround and head to pickup their freight (that we never see leave .  The lead loco is a Citirail engine or former citirail… CN 3942. Even got a ‘toot’ for the kids.

The next photo is of the engine / yard slug / engine combo working our end of the yard before departing to takes some cars to one of the local refineries.  CN 7264, CN281 and CN 7068. 7264 and 7068 are GP9RM. According to the web 7264 was built in 1959 which I find amazing.  You cannot see the numbers in the photo… not great… you can see a few switching engines in the background that I cannot identify.

Kept the kids entertained!

I see in one of the previous post folks talking about the Windsor tunnel.  The original Sarnia tunnel was opened in 1891 and a newer tunnel replaced the current tunnel in 1995.  Wiki link here.  I remember seeing a video where CN used a ferry to take cars across the St. Clair River that could no longer use the tunnel… the pilings for the dock are still visible… before the newer tunnel was completed.

Interesting history here in this little town!

John

PS thank you all for your posts with great and interesting photos… really enjoy seeing everything!

Here's some photos I took back in June 2008 of Dixiana two truck Shay. Roaring Camp is in Felton, California in the Santa Cruz Mountains. They have two Shays, the Dixiana #1 two truck Shay, and Sonora #7 a 3 truck Shay. Don't expect to go very fast, top speed is around 8 to 9 mph, but they climb a 8% grade pulling a full consist of open passenger cars.

Blow down.