Teen Railfan Place - Winter 2009

[BNSF & DMIR 4Ever]

 Proctor Yard is now sporting evil in the form of a SD38-2. EJ&E 666 has made its way to the yard.

[WCfan]

Well, it seems now that the Js are getting closer and closer to ore service. The Missabe requested 6 Js, and now they have all 6. If a few are showing up at Proctor, then they might be getting stright air. BNSF, do you have any pictures of EJE 662? I could tell if it has stright air or not.

[BNSF & DMIR 4Ever]

All I've got is what I could take from Railroad Ave. yesterday, and with the wife not in tow, I couldn't venture too far off the road. I'll have them up tonight when I can get them onto my PC at my permanent residence. I'm certain they were putting straight air in, as when I originally spotted the unit a few days ago, they had a few of the side panels open. 666 was in the same area earlier today, and now seems to have crawled into the shops.

[EJE818]

I say they'll for sure be in T-bird service in the future. By the way, CNW 8646 and 8701 are gone from IRM. It was originally thought they were going into storage at Proviso, but they are now back in service and looking better than ever! Sounds like some people at IRM fixed up the plows, reapplied the yellow reflective tape to both, and repainted the UP colored battery boxes into matching CNW paint. They also had some other touch up jobs done to them.

[B.Erdmann]

by the way EJE 674 made its way back down & now is in Wisconsin Rapids. working the taylor run.

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to ignore all the really great stuff I'll be missing (or did the Rochelle thing already happen, I wasn't paying attention?) by being thousands of miles away out here in Massachusetts...

Here's an older shot from my area... MBTA Orange Line Subway and commuter rail, from the 700' high Prudential Tower Skywalk in Boston.

Here's the full view, in all it's panoramic (literally, this is a panorama photo made of ten photos manually stitched together in Adobe Photoshop!) glory. 200mm lenses are useful! See if you can spot where I zoomed in to take the above photo!

[ns3010]

Tyler: Then I guess that's the car. Just so you know, Kearny Jct. is south of Secaucus Jct/Transfer and Portal Bridge. Also, nice panoramic of the city. I found where that first shot is, but I won't say it in case anyone else wants to try and find it.

[bubbajustin]

Hi all,

NS sure has been busy. Trains galore! Didn't have my camra though. Oh well, fun seeing them anyway. It looks like the J's are all over the CN system by now hugh? Just doesn't seem right to have a J shoving at the rear of an ore train. That's really dumb, but a fact that we can't controll sadly. If it were up to me I would rip off all the haead end power on the incoming CN trains on the J's trackage, and put the J unit's up on the had end! Mwahhhh! Take that CN! So basicly having the J's on the trackage thay know.

I know, I have really good Ideas!

Well, that might not be a bad Idea seeings how CN's junk keeps setting brush fires! That just P%^#@* off the local folks evadentaly.

[EJE818]

I like your idea! The Js will probably operate in pairs leading ore trains on the DM&IR, but I'd rather have them lead trains down an independant EJ&E.

I did end up making it to Rochelle after all today to catch the 4 heritage engines pulling into the display area. The Olympic duo also made an appearance. I guess 6 specially painted UP engines in one day isn't too bad! I will probably e going back Sunday for the heritage engines and motorcar trips. The heritage engines are sitting on a spur just east of the old CNW depot in downtown Rochelle.

[BNSF & DMIR 4Ever]

Well, this week, the weekly railfanning trip to Superior was pushed back to Thursday to coincide with my B-day. Things were somewhat quiet as usual, though the UP Itasca Yard was buzzing, giving me a chance to do some loco photos. First, I caught a C&NW Boxcar

 

First up, UP SD70M 4009

 

Another SD70M, this one 4709

 

Last, but not least, an SD40-2, and I want to say it's a Snoot, but I'm not positive on that.

 

Over at CP's facility near Port Terminal, I caught this nice looking GP40-2

 

 

On the Proctor side of things, it was quite an exciting week, with Minntac firing back up, and the J units making their way up. Here's the rundown.

 

First, B&LE SD40T-3 903

\

 

Had to pick up a shot of DM&IR SD38-2 212 since I haven't yet.

 

And finally, the only decent shot I could snag of EJ&E 662, given the position that it was parked.

[EJE818]

Nice catches there, especially the B&LE and 662!

Here's what I saw yesterday at Rochelle. I cut back the trip report quite a bit because it was mainly UP after UP, same thing over and over again. I went west of the diamonds for all of these shots.

One of the newest UP SD70ACes leads a stack train east west of the diamonds. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1630247

A UP GEVO heads east running solo with a manifest. The train also had a DPU on the rear, kinda weird for the UP to have one in front and one at the rear. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1630248

The Olympic duo heads west with IG2G3. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1630249

Then the main event, UP 1982, 1996, 1983 and 1995 pull out of Global Three heading through Rochelle. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1630250

The rarest of the heritage engines, 1983. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1630251

 

[Anonymous]

I've been going through a backload of photos from February, which I totally forgot about. I took these with my point-and-shoot since my SLR was off being repaired (it turned out to be a lens problem) and I didn't realize the weather difference over the course of a day, since I'm used to it up here... I love New England weather! These are the only good shots out of a bunch I took that day.

Noon, Febuary 19, 2009. Icy cold and snowing HARD! The snow stopped falling a couple minutes after the train stopped. Just a typical New England snow flurry! (It was still really cold though!)

6 hours later; 6:14 PM, February 19, 2009. All the snow has melted and the day is clear and sunny! It got cold as soon as the sun went down though...

 

[ns3010]

Robby: Sounds like a great time in Rochelle! Wish I could have been there, but I was bored all weekend...

Tyler: Wow, that's some crazy weather!

I just found a card with a bunch of pictures from Steamtown, way back in December. I'll go through them this week.

[Anonymous]

I set out today to catch the NH Roger Williams en route to the Hobo Railroad for shop work (I'm guessing), but missed it by several hours... It left before dawn, which I realized later. I saw Pan Am Railways AYSE (Ayer, MA - Selkirk, NY) / CSX Q427, but was looking for PAR SEAY (AYSE's counterpart) / CSX Q426.

Nothing of note except for an ex-MILW covered hopper with patches and years of grime.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1633019

Last night I went through some of my older photos from this winter, specifically from my trip to Palmer, MA in December. This was the one where I only had fingerless gloves... That was a FUN trip! 

[Noah Hofrichter]

 And some people say they don't like snow! How can you not, when it can produce such nice effects as those. Neat stuff Tyler. Almost makes me wish it were winter again (almost...)

I've actually got something worth sharing again. Last Thursday, with school over and a little free time on my hands, I decided it was finally time to head out and do some railfanning again. It had been almost two months since I'd taken pictures of a moving train!

I left about 1:30 in the afternoon, got gas and headed for Wisconsin Dells. Just as I was rolling in to the Dells at about 2:00, the scanner suddenly came alive with a foreman giving CP 8791 west through a form B at MP 195 (Wisconsin Dells). When the crew tried to reply (which I couldn't hear), he told them they were broken up and that they should give him a call back when they were through Lewiston, a siding just a short ways to the east. We were in business!

 

I pulled over by Timber Falls golf course near downtown Wisconsin Dells and walked out into the bridge about thirty seconds before a one unit wonder rolled slowly over the bridge:

 

 

Well, at least I wouldn't be skunked completely! I had originally decided to go to Lewiston, as there was a shot there I wanted to check out. So I headed off, and arrived Lewiston West to find a westbound train in the siding, another one unit wonder manifest with a CEFX unit. It appeared he was waiting on a meet. Sure enough, a few minutes later the crew called the dispatcher to ask why there were stopped, and the dispatcher replied that they were "going to meet 498... no, 486 at Lewiston." 486? 486! I knew there was a reason for going! 486/487 is the ICE/DME train that was moved over to the Wisconsin main after the merger. While it's been almost seven months since the merger, I've yet to actually catch one with ICE power on it. This just might be my afternoon.

 

I decided to head over to Lewiston east, as I felt there would be a better side view shot for a eastbound there, even if it meant not catching the westbound after the meet. Sure enough, in just a few more minutes of waiting the dispatcher called ICE 6441 east to walk them by a malfunctioning crossing signal near Portage (which the maintainer quickly said he'd put back in service). I saw a headlight down the siding as the train approached, but I also noticed a advancing shadow from a cloud heading my way. Which would win? Thankfully, the beautiful sight of three Blue and Yellows arrived before the cloud:

 

 

 

Yep, it was worth the trip!

 

With the passage of 486 the maintainer called up to ask for Track and Time to fix a broken wire for that crossing circuit, and he was given a half hour.

 

After about an hour, the DS called a CP 8782 east to tell him he was going to have to wait at Lewiston for a bit. His new crew wasn't on duty yet, and 486 had the siding at Portage tied up still. Before long a ES44DC and a grubby AC4400 arrived at my location at Lewiston with a train. They sat for about 20-25 minutes before they finally got the green off the siding and proceeded east for a crew change at 14:35:

With that, traffic dried up. A call to Julie told me Amtrak 7 was running late, by a whole 1 minute, but there wasn't much else out there based on radio chatter. While the light was swinging around at Lewiston, I was still determined to try a "new" shot I'd scoped out. I There used to be a road bridge over the tracks here at Lewiston, but it was torn out a number of years ago. Because of brush situations I thought any shot from the old bridge approaches was now gone. However, in the last few weeks I saw a shot from there of a westbound, and I wanted to see exactly how it was done. It turns out one can do a shot through a tiny opening towards Lewiston East. With my 200mm lens I still had trees on one side of my shot and the wires that support a electrical pole on the other. But with a little cropping (and a whole lot of cropping on the first shot) I could get these shot of number 7:

 

 

 

I don't think it's a bad shot really, though it would be better with a freight that was curving out of view behind or going into the siding. With a long lens it's doable, though it's not as good as the shots were when the bridge was still in. Though if I could trim a couple of branches (or a whole tree) it would be an even better shot yet...

 

After Amtrak I went and sat at Bowman road until the shadows crept up to the curve around 7:00. I was hoping for a 487 following Amtrash, but nothing showed up.

 

Not a perfect day, but I consider it pretty successful. I was happy to finally catch an ICE train around here, and I'd been wanting to scope out that spot for a while. Now just to get one going through Bowman Road or over the River Bridge in good lighting...

 

Enjoy!

 

Noah