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

@Mark Boyce posted:

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,

Mark- This is central Nassau County, one of the most populated suburban counties in the country. We are about 70'-80' above seal level and 30 minutes from mid-town Manhattan (traffic dependent).....

I was able to see the Twin Towers on 9-11 from the roof of our tallest building......

Thank you, Bob!  Yes, I see you would be able to see the tallest buildings in New York.

https://youtu.be/zXaqbok18bI

https://youtu.be/gsvEiOec79A

Took these today.

@p51 posted:

https://youtu.be/zXaqbok18bI

https://youtu.be/gsvEiOec79A

Took these today.

That second video was great Lee. How did you manage to pace the train and not get slowed down? Looks like you were doing about 40 mph?

I hope you had someone else driving...

@RSJB18 posted:

That second video was great Lee. How did you manage to pace the train and not get slowed down? Looks like you were doing about 40 mph?

Probably around 50. If I was driving and shooting, that'd violate WA state laws, so therefore of course I wasn't driving...

@p51 posted:

Probably around 50. If I was driving and shooting, that'd violate WA state laws, so therefore of course I wasn't driving...

Lee when I first started the second video I thought Erik Lindgren had taken his models to the video screen.  The first few seconds everything was perfect.

@RSJB18 posted:

That second video was great Lee. How did you manage to pace the train and not get slowed down? Looks like you were doing about 40 mph?

I hope you had someone else driving...

@p51 posted:

Probably around 50. If I was driving and shooting, that'd violate WA state laws, so therefore of course I wasn't driving...

@RSJB18 posted:

This communication never happened .   I never saw it.

@Erik C Lindgren posted:

Nice stuff as always ! ❤️😊😊

Recent stuff:

SBTFC-01 at Acequia,

This certainly makes me want to grab a canvas and paints Eric.   

Michigan Central Station, 🇺🇸 Gordie Howe International Bridge 🇨🇦 • Detroit Michigan

January 27, 2023 - This rail-fanning trip will start in my backyard. We will drive my F150 to the Michigan Central Station. This is just after a major snow storm. Notice the work crew on the roof. Adjacent to the station is the old YMCA Building and a party store.

YMCA and a party store receiving a delivery at the front door.

Behind the Michigan Central Station in the construction site for the Gordie Howe International Bridge. This bridge is expected to open in the fall of 2024.

This photo I shot this past September from my fishing boat on the Detroit River. To learn more about the Gordie Howe Bridge. (Click here)

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

That’s great they are working on the station.  The Gordie Howe Bridge will be excellent, what a tribute!  Pittsburgh has the Roberto Clemente bridge, which has had some renovations, but it is 100 years old.

Crossing on Front Street, W. Springfield, MA as the day came to an end.

In today's linked video, a crew tells me to stand back a bit.

I made another trip back to Pittsburgh to do some railfanning and get the car inspected. Today's trip was an afternoon on Norfolk Southern's line along the Ohio River, called the Bayard Branch on PRR maps and by modern railfans (the name is a subject of some controversy). I learned a few years ago that this line is the last in the Pittsburgh area (if west of Beaver and eastern Ohio count as "Pittsburgh area.") to have Pennsy-style CPLs in service.  The line sees regular service from local trains and the 62V/63V trash trains, but with one main out of service on the Fort Wayne Line in East Palestine for environmental remediation, several manifest and tank trains are detouring on the Bayard, making it much easier to get signal shots. Such is the case in this photo, where what I believe is 35N heads west through East Liverpool, OH, in a brief pocket of sunlight on this otherwise cloudy day. The train has what's become a fairly ordinary array of run-through power, as NS struggles to find enough power for its trains after downsizing its active fleet in 2019.

The Acoma in storage at Albuquerque 2021 at the Rail Runner facility. It is now in excursion service on the Sky Railway (the old Santa Fe Southern, and same train and location used in Breaking Bad) that runs between Santa Fe and Lamy. It crosses the same bridge where Walt, Jessie, and Todd broke into the tank car and pumped the chemical into a tank they buried in the ground.

I took this photo below before the line was sold to the new owners and repainted into the Dragon scheme that it is now.

Photo below is the employee entrance to the Albuquerque Amtrak Depot, and employees of the Rail Runner. Also where Saul Goodman parked his car to sell burner phones out of his trunk.

Metra and BNSF - UP in Naperville today on my lunch break.

@Laidoffsick posted:

The Acoma in storage at Albuquerque 2021 at the Rail Runner facility. It is now in excursion service on the Sky Railway (the old Santa Fe Southern, and same train and location used in Breaking Bad) that runs between Santa Fe and Lamy. It crosses the same bridge where Walt, Jessie, and Todd broke into the tank car and pumped the chemical into a tank they buried in the ground.

Photo below is the employee entrance to the Albuquerque Amtrak Depot, and employees of the Rail Runner. Also where Saul Goodman parked his car to sell burner phones out of his trunk.

I'll take a cue off of @Laidoffsick's post.  I had the pleasure of seeing SFSR 07 just outside Lamy back in 2016 while riding the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Flagstaff.  Here are a few pix from Lamy and also several pix from Albuquerque.  I can't see the employee's entrance at the Albuquerque depot in these but I'm sure that's its hiding in there somewhere:

Fill 'er up Mac.  High-Test please!

Thanks for the perfect cue @Laidoffsick.

Mike

Did some rail fanning at Dollywood

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W-NilCJKgGs

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

I'll take a cue off of @Laidoffsick's post.  I had the pleasure of seeing SFSR 07 just outside Lamy back in 2016 while riding the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Flagstaff.  Here are a few pix from Lamy and also several pix from Albuquerque.  I can't see the employee's entrance at the Albuquerque depot in these but I'm sure that's its hiding in there somewhere:

Fill 'er up Mac.  High-Test please!

Thanks for the perfect cue @Laidoffsick.

Mike

The employee entrance and parking lot is directly to the right of the fuel truck. Also where the fuel truck enters and leaves from. You can see the tire tracks behind that fuel truck coming in from the street and making the left turn.

Here's some photos of the ATSF turntable at the ABQ Shops back in 2018. Recently the crew of the 2926 restoration has cleaned up the turntable and got it operational again. They have some videos of all the work and moving the TT on their YT channel. A lot of dirt was shoveled out of the pit, weeds removed, trash cleaned out, gears greased, and motor serviced after years of neglect.

The plan is to use it as an attraction for the city as part of the Shops restoration project and to run the ATSF 2926 over there and turn it. The city also wants to rebuild the smoke stack that used to be there. Not sure what they mean by "rebuild" it because it has been gone since the 80s. They will have to build a new one from scratch.

This entire area has been fenced off by the city as private property and filming studio location. BNSF employees used to be able to drive right in and around there but not any more. Now we have to walk quite aways when building the vehicle and baretable trains.

Doug, nice shots of the turntable.  Yes it does sound like building from scratch instead of rebuilding.  Regardless what they call it, it is good news they plan to do something!

In Chicago Heights 3/15/23 just west of the Ford stamping plant.  John

Not your typical “railfan” pics, but I ran across this neat thing yesterday. GP20 with an 8cyl turbo engine and AR10 alternator.

Hard for me to believe these were both taken 10 years ago now. Things like this make me feel old; feels like I took them yesterday.

Railfanning at the Station in Palmer MA today!

Rail-fanning Tip

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

I dropped one of our cars off for some repairs this morning.

Not everyday you can railfan at your local garage..... MTA LIRR Hi-rail dump. The dump bodies rotate so that they can drop their load (typically ballast) off to the side of the rails.

I didn't know that the hi-rail wheels had brakes. I assumed that the regular truck brakes would do the job.

Bob

While house-hunting back east, my wife & I stumbled across some vintage diesels at Belington, WV.  They are part of the fleet for the Durbin & Greenbrier RR operation.  
     My first sighting of a BL2, wonder how many still exist ?  

Rich from SD

@trestleking posted:

While house-hunting back east, my wife & I stumbled across some vintage diesels at Belington, WV.  They are part of the fleet for the Durbin & Greenbrier RR operation.  
     My first sighting of a BL2, wonder how many still exist ?  

Rich from SD

Great find Rich. I think # 81 is at Baltimore Railroad museum (excuse the butchering of the name).

There is another pair, former Bangor and Arostook, somewhere in upstate NY.

When I'm at  computer tomorrow I can search for more info. 

Bob

@rsjb18, I only have real experience with smaller (i.e.pickups) type hy-rails as far as operating them goes, but the smaller ones don't have brakes on the hy-rail wheels themselves.

As the tonnage of the truck and payload increases, additional braking power is a good idea. The contact of wheels or tires to the rail is so small in perfect conditions that extra braking power would be effective, but my limited experience is my only guide.

My other concern with a dump-truck with a rotating dump body would be over-tipping sideways off the rail! Having experienced a derailment of a hy-rail in wet weather, I don't recommend it.

But I'm straying off the subject, so will close for now.

          Don Francis

Here's dump truck and a sulky behind it, as seen in Brattleboro Vermont last November 6th.  The dump body did spin sideways. I saw a slight rotation when the operator lowered the body. I could not follow the sulky after they hooked it up without a trespass....but that would have been cool. I have yet to see a train on this (passing???) track, which they spent most of the fall rebuilding.

In West Virginia, we also found some preserved WMRy depots.  Brick one is at Elkins & the wooden one is at Parsons.  I can see how the lure of the WM can pull you in, it ran in some beautiful country.

Rich

Rich, That Elkins station had been restored beautifully, for sure.  I would like to have built the O scale model of it, but I just don’t have the room.

Bob, Endless Tracks, I have never see a dump truck on the rails of the B&O, B&P, Bessemer, or CN in my area.  Lots of pickups and other work trucks though.  Thank you for the photographs

Amtrak Station • Student Engineer • Pontiac Michigan

March 10, 2023 - Amtrak Station, Pontiac Michigan. During the shooting there was snow falling. This is my favorite location for rail-fanning because it is close to my train room and in the summer I can ride my bicycle to check out the trains. The crew member throwing the switch is a student engineer. Notice the flame being used to keep the switch points from freezing. This train just arrived from Chicago. I also had an opportunity to talk to the engineer and a rail-fanner from London England. The engineer ask me if I was Train Room Gary, he recognized me from my YouTube Channel.

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

@Dave Ripp. posted:

Metra and BNSF - UP in Naperville today on my lunch break.

Wow Dave.........no moss growing on those wheels.

What is the speed limit through there ?

One of the reasons it was practical to ride the Metra express from Naperville into Chicago - somewhere around 25 minutes.  You know they are flying with the high pitched whine.  70 is the max speed for passenger trains in the corridor. 

Yesterday:

https://youtu.be/LnAi4WN-boQ

https://youtu.be/ZFGWdiEf6FY

https://youtu.be/FS0Z9VfMaHg

@Mark Boyce posted:

Rich, That Elkins station had been restored beautifully, for sure.  I would like to have built the O scale model of it, but I just don’t have the room.

Bob, Endless Tracks, I have never see a dump truck on the rails of the B&O, B&P, Bessemer, or CN in my area.  Lots of pickups and other work trucks though.  Thank you for the photographs

@Mark Boyce,  apparently the WM station at Thomas is long-gone, Wiki said a tornado took it out in ‘44 ?

Rich, traveling the heartland.

there is another BL-2 on the "Stourbridge Line" in NE PA.    It was running last year - don't know about now.

More BL-2 Info for @trestleking

https://www.trains.com/trn/new...-moving-to-new-york/

https://dieselera.com/emd-bl2-...ley-railroad-museum/

@trestleking posted:

@Mark Boyce,  apparently the WM station at Thomas is long-gone, Wiki said a tornado took it out in ‘44 ?

Rich, traveling the heartland.

Yes, it was heavily damaged then, but rebuilt and used until the ‘70s, I believe, when it was razed.  I did get the kit for it, which I built. I have partially researched the interior, with the intent of putting in an interior.  I can’t post the prototype photographs here because they aren’t mine, but the Western Maryland Railway Historical Society website has them.  I will have to get on the computer to post a few photographs of the model, since I deleted them from the smartphone.