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

A couple from the past.

Empty coal train leaving Guernsey WY May 2011

Southbound train near Larkspur CO Nov 2 2013

Tenino, WA a few hours ago:

UP SD70M 1979.  Roseville, CA 2/11/23

Standing outside of the Pacific Street Cafe, this unit just started rolling by.  I didn’t get a chance to get into a better, unobstructed position.  I’ve only seen this unit one other time.

-Brian

Winlock, WA, less than ten minutes ago:

...then, these came along!

Great catches!

I may have posted this before but since I'm not going through 29 pages of videos...

South side of Pittsburgh under the 10th Street Bridge.

I took this video.

@p51 posted:

...then, these came along!

Lee are automobile headlights lighting the train just enough for interesting video footage?

@Christopher2035 posted:

Some recent ones -

Christopher your colors are fantastic.  What are you shooting your photos with?

Nice stuff as always ! ❤️😊😊

Recent stuff:

SBTFC-01 at Acequia, CO

SBTFC-01 at Bennett, CO

Union Pacific SD70 ACe 8779 on home turf passes over the Kiowa Creek Bridge a structure with numerous alterations since it was constructed for the original Kansas & Pacific Extension the first transcontinental railroad more than 150 years originally contracted for the Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific. A double intersection Warren Lattice steel truss built in the 1860s kept in service after a recent upgrade to the structure since 2019. In this frame SBTFC-01 with a full complement of military hardware is dashing on the K&P for Denver on the High Plains of Colorado after going on duty at Sharon Springs, KS at 0700 the 5th of February, 2023. A relief crew is called at Denver for 1345 for the trip south down the Colorado Joint Line to Fort Carson, CO. Interesting facts from Bill Marvel, 45 years ago, “in May, 1878, a flash flood swept a Kansas Pacific freight off the rails here burying the engine in quicksand. For years afterwards folks searched for the “lost” engine until 1989, when a Union Pacific archivist uncovered documents showing that the railroad had secretly recovered its engine, but filed an insurance claim -- and collecting“.

Coal Creek Canyon 2/23

AMTK 5 with AMTK 203 at Tunnel 3 MP.26

Winter Park Express 2/23 Crescent, CO

@coach joe posted:

Lee are automobile headlights lighting the train just enough for interesting video footage?

They're helping, to be sure.

@coach joe posted:

Christopher your colors are fantastic.  What are you shooting your photos with?

Thank you!  I'm using a pair of Nikons - D4S & D810 as the bodies & 3 Nikon lenses.  All the edits are done in Photoshop & Lightroom

Polar Express on the P&W Uxbridge MA, Nov 2022.

CSX at the 🇺🇸 Ambassador Bridge 🇨🇦 • Detroit Michigan • It’s Valentine’s Day, Take your significant other out “Rail-fanning” 💘

January 27, 2023 - We are at the Ambassador Bridge to check out the CSX line to Ash Grove Cement Terminal Detroit. It is a cold winter day and very windy. I parked at Riverside Skate Part and had to walk-in because the road was closed for construction.

Rail-fanning boots, never leave your train room without them!

Thanks for taking a look. Hope to see you out rail-fanning: Gary 🚂

Gary,

They look good.  Well worth the effort.

Question: Did TSA stop you or give you a warning?

Every time I go down there, about every three months or so on average, the whole area near the bridge is monitored by Border Patrol and TSA vehicles on patrol.  Inside that area, and closest to the bridge, is another section that is fenced off and secured.

In addition to patrolling for illegal immigrants I'm sure that they're also there to make sure that the bridge won't be the target of an attack.

They haven't pulled me over but I have seen them pull other people over.  Their message has been that railfans aren't welcome, especially if they bring cameras.

Speaking of security, if you've been near the Marathon refinery since its big expansion was completed, you'll see the same thing, but the folks on patrol there are private security, and they will overtly shoo railfans away even more visibly than the TSA at the bridge.

Mike

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

Gary,

They look good.  Well worth the effort.

Question: Did TSA stop you or give you a warning?

Hi Mike: No issues to report on this visit to the CSX Line at the Ambassador Bridge.

Hope to see you out rail-fanning. Gary 😎

Amtrak Pontiac Michigan • Crossing gate • February 16, 2023

Filmed this about two hours ago. Was not even out rail-fanning. Caught the Amtrak on my way home. This video is narrated by yours truly. So hang onto your railroad hat as we check out the Amtrak. Train #350 from Chicago.

• Thanks for taking a look. Hope to see you out rail-fanning: Gary 🚂

A while back (almost a year to the day), I had posted some pix of a low RR bridge that the LIRR was planning to raise. This bridge eats an average of a truck a week......
Well, after several delays, the new span was erected this week. The LIRR has perfected off-site construction and uses massive lift trucks to roll the spans into place when ready.
The ROW will need to be raised approx 18" to meet the new clearance requirement above the roadway. The plan is to shut the branch down over the weekends in March to do the lifts in stages and swap the span on the final weekend in early April. I'll post progress pix as the job moves along.

The staging site is back off the road so it's hard to get close up shots.

The smaller scaffolding will be removed when they are ready to lift and move the span.

Bob

That’s an interesting project to watch, Bob!  Thank you for the photographs!

NP-marked bridge just outside of Elma, WA. I had never stopped to take a photo of this before, was showing it to someone after we left the model train swap meet nearby this morning:

@p51 posted:

NP-marked bridge just outside of Elma, WA. I had never stopped to take a photo of this before, was showing it to someone after we left the model train swap meet nearby this morning:

I'm saving this picture for future modeling opportunities!

Thanks Lee.

Winter Park Express Leyden, CO 2/19/23

crescent, CO tunnel 19 2/19/23

HPVODEN-01 BNSF 9/23/22

HPVODEN-01 Tunnel 1 Plainview/Coal Creek, CO 12/22

@trainroomgary posted:

Amtrak Pontiac Michigan • Crossing gate • February 16, 2023

Filmed this about two hours ago. Was not even out rail-fanning. Caught the Amtrak on my way home. This video is narrated by yours truly. So hang onto your railroad hat as we check out the Amtrak. Train #350 from Chicago.

• Thanks for taking a look. Hope to see you out rail-fanning: Gary 🚂

Thanks for sharing.  I have not seen video of the new Amtrak Venture cars in service.  Too bad there was an Amfleet car at the end.  I am curious to see how the Venture car profile aligns with the Viewliners.  It looks similar.

A lot of folks get into model railroading based on the love of the real railroad. That wasn't my route to the hobby, but rather I enjoyed AFX race cars through my teen years and when looking for a substitute as an adult, I found o-gauge trains. Yup, I started by highballing a train around a circle. I love the trains, but I do miss the steep banked curves of the racetrack.

Anyhow, watching trains in the basement has more recently translated into wanting to watch trains in the real world. So, 2023 is becoming the year of the railfan and fresh off some tips received in another thread, I made my way to Palmer, MA today. I spent 5 hours at the Depot Road location and enjoyed every minute of it.

I brought a newly acquired BC125AT scanner with me and despite not knowing how to use it was fortunate enough to have the scanner pick up a lot of CSX chit-chat. I can see the scanner is going to be useful. At one point I heard the crew say they were going to clear the tracks so Mass Central could get to do their work. I had never even heard of Massachusetts Central before, so this was the bonus of the day. Actually, the bonus of the day would have to be Palmer as despite living only an hour away, until I asked for railfanning tips on the forum a couple of weeks back, I had no idea the place existed.

Here is my first exposure to Massachusetts Central Railroad:

Here are some cell phone photos I took along the Vermont Rail System (VRS) lines this past Saturday, 2/19/23.

Several VRS locomotives and some leased power were idling near the south end of the VRS yard in Rutland, VT…

VRS M.O.W. equipment sitting on a siding in East Dorset, VT.  This is along the Rutland to Bennington, VT mainline…

I seriously need to get the Rutland!!  Meanwhile, on the other side of Vermont where NECR and Pan Am Sounthern creep around, I took the attached just before Christmas with an iPhone 14 Pro.  I was able to holler back and forth with the engineer. The MEC was running under Pan Am Southern through Brattleboro and on to Bellows Falls where I took the pic and the video. I believe they were switching local and they only had 4 cars. CSX locos can also be spotted more recently.

After watching NECR weekly for several months out my hotel window, it seems they have recently  gone from 3 or so trains per week with 70-100 or more cars to daily freights (Mon-Fri) arriving southbound in Brattleboro every morning between 6:30 and 7:30. Most I saw was ~35 or 40 cars under what seems to be new operating rules (PSR???). They head north every night sometime after 7:00.

If you're from Pittsburgh, or even if you've just been interested in the NS heritage units, you've heard of the Monongahela Railway, and the fleet of GE B23-7Rs (B23-S7s, or Super 7s) that the road purchased from GE in their last few years of operation before their absorption by Conrail, and subsequently NS and CSX. According to a secondhand account in the Ohio Central Facebook group, most of the fleet was stored and slatted for scrapping in the early 2000s, when a senior railroad employee and enthusiast convinced execs that the units might find homes on shortlines. Two were purchased by Providence & Worcester, two more by the Arkansas and Oklahoma, and most of the rest by Jerry Jacobsen's Ohio Central. Today, while 2216 remains in Connecticut, most of the rest (including the other P&W unit and one sold to New Castle Industrial) are on the Ohio Central, now owned by Genesee and Wyoming.

But, time is once again running out for the units; the EPA recently found that G&W was not operating enough locomotives that met minimum emissions standards, and ordered to road to invest in Tier 1(?) compliant units and disable many locomotives in its current fleet. Just over half of the Super 7s are on the list.

I have already made two trips out to Ohio to see the Super 7s, first in 2021 when rumors first circulated of their demise, and then again this past summer. On both trips, I ran into OHCR 3185, painted in patched CSX paint, and on the expedition filmed above, I ran into OHCR 4096, one of three units in various states of decaying Conrail paint. I'll be making one more trip next month, and will hopefully get at least a few more of the units I haven't seen, before they are sidelined in accordance with the mandate.

Went out for a trail walk in a wildlife management area in Longmeadow, MA just south of Springfield. Unique area that sits between I-91 and the Connecticut River and has nesting bald eagles, swans, beavers, muskrats and ... Amtrak trains! A few of the roads/trails in the park cross the tracks so when the train goes by it is up close and personal. I went for the eagle, which I saw, but the train was easier to video.

Not really railfanning…this is from my former office while double-heading on the Georgetown Loop, back in 1997.

Lake Benton, MN

I managed to catch the RCPE (Rapid City, Pierre, & Eastern)  RR running a plow a few days ago, after the latest blizzard.  I followed it from Volga, SD to Lake Benton, MN.  I got a few nice shots I guess.  The RCPE runs these plows at 20 mph so it's not as dramatic as the BNSF running them at 30 mph.  Still, I'm always up for some plow action.  Most people who live here are read for spring, but I'm hoping for at least one more heavy snow fall.  I keep that quiet though.

Kent in SD

@Two23 posted:

Lake Benton, MN

Kent in SD

This is fantastic! Absolutely beautiful Kent.

Weekend # 1 of bridge raising. The LIRR's contractors will begin lifting the bridge this weekend. Here's some of the equipment staged for the job. The bridge will be lifted with hydraulic jacks placed on the bulkheads. I'm assuming the large timbers will be set in place once the lift is done. The RR has it's MOW equipment further east to reset the track after the lift is complete.

More info about the project here

@RSJB18 posted:

A while back (almost a year to the day), I had posted some pix of a low RR bridge that the LIRR was planning to raise. This bridge eats an average of a truck a week......
Well, after several delays, the new span was erected this week. The LIRR has perfected off-site construction and uses massive lift trucks to roll the spans into place when ready.
The ROW will need to be raised approx 18" to meet the new clearance requirement above the roadway. The plan is to shut the branch down over the weekends in March to do the lifts in stages and swap the span on the final weekend in early April. I'll post progress pix as the job moves along.

The staging site is back off the road so it's hard to get close up shots.

The smaller scaffolding will be removed when they are ready to lift and move the span.

Bob

Really a great study in a solution to the truck crunch issue.  Thanks for posting this Bob.

( I would have thought the highway would have been re-graded before this bridge would undergo surgery. )

@Two23 posted:

Lake Benton, MN

I got a few nice shots I guess.        Kent in SD

Yup Kent........ I'd say you definitely got a nice shot here.    

( this photo would be an excellent shot for you to post on the " IMAGINEERING IN O GAUGE PHOTOGRAPHY "  thread Kent. )

@trainroomgary posted:

CSX at the 🇺🇸 Ambassador Bridge 🇨🇦 • Detroit Michigan • It’s Valentine’s Day, Take your significant other out “Rail-fanning” 💘

January 27, 2023 -

@trainroomgary posted:

CSX at the 🇺🇸 Ambassador Bridge 🇨🇦 • Detroit

January 27, 2023 - We are at the Ambassador Bridge to check out the CSX line to Ash Grove Cement Terminal Detroit. It is a cold winter day and very windy.

rail-fanning:

Boy Gary.......still considering the " BOOT " photo with the caption but the photo of the "  CSX AT THE BRIDGE  "  should be posted on that  "  IMAGINEERING IN O GAUGE PHOTOGRAPHY "  sir .......

......... (  or at least in some book showing Norman Rockwell paintings . ) 

East Deerfield (MA) Yard on Friday morning. All sunshine before the evening snow and rain.

Spring seems to be coming early to northern Virginia, regardless of what one of my former home state's most famous residents has said. The main body of deciduous trees are a long way from the greenery shown here on Norfolk Southern's Pittsburgh Line this past summer, but it will not be long now, with the magnolias at work and near my apartment already blooming, and the Park Service predicting peak cherry blossom bloom (i.e. DC tourist season) in just a few weeks.

On this particular day last summer, I was between summer travels, and attended a baseball tournament with my family. I watched one of the later games, but spent some time on the nearby Norfolk Southern mainline for the first time since May 2021. The action was what constitutes a normal day on NS these days, with most GE widenose units, but there was some variety in the form of manifests and a BNSF ES44 in the older H2 paint (about a hundred units received this paint before BNSF transitioned to the "Heritage 4" paint one sees on most everything else.

@Dallas Joseph posted:

Really a great study in a solution to the truck crunch issue.  Thanks for posting this Bob.

( I would have thought the highway would have been re-graded before this bridge would undergo surgery. )

The area around the bridge is already low and tends to flood in heavy rain. I'm sure it was considered but the drainage issues would have been more work than raising the bridge.

There's a reason it's called "Cherry VALLEY Road"......

@RSJB18 posted:

The area around the bridge is already low and tends to flood in heavy rain. I'm sure it was considered but the drainage issues would have been more work than raising the bridge.

There's a reason it's called "Cherry Valley"......

Always great to have a knowledgeable forum member with good information on an issue.

Thanks Bob.

@RSJB18 posted:

The area around the bridge is already low and tends to flood in heavy rain. I'm sure it was considered but the drainage issues would have been more work than raising the bridge.

There's a reason it's called "Cherry Valley"......

I am guessing there is a lot of low ground on Long Island, though I have never been there.  Is this in a populated area or farther east I. The island.  I am also guessing Long Island is a world unto its own,