Teen Railfan Place - Winter 2010

[Noah Hofrichter]

Taking out 1400 feet of catenary sounds like a good blaze. General Explosion sums it up all right...

I suppose I could throw up another trip report. This one goes back to the 30th of January, when I made a trip along with a few friends to La Crosse for the train show. I've never been to the winter version of the show before, and I was pleased with what I found. I came away with five cars (Bowser, Walthers, and one Athearn) for $27 - not bad in my opinion!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We left fairly early from home with the goal of doing a little railfanning on the way to La Crosse. The CP wasn't really busy for the first hour or so of our journey, but at one point while traveling along the interstate I noticed a 487 (CP train that usually runs with IC&E/DM&E power) sitting in the siding at Mile Creek. We made a note of that for further down the line, since he would be going our way, and kept motoring west. When we stopped to pick up a friend in Tomah, the scanner started coming to life. A signal maintainer was looking to get on around Tomah and go west, and he was told he'd have to work around a couple of eastbounds leaving La Crosse, and the 487.

We set up for the first eastbound near Fort McCoy at a location I've always wanted to catch a train at. Here there are the remains of a CNW bridge that was a part of a line that ran parallel to the Milwaukee Road from Tunnel City to La Crosse and Winona. When the CNW's tunnel at Tunnel City collapsed, they abandoned the line and moved to trackage rights on the CP. Much of the RoW is now a bike trail, and this bridge is still around, making for an interesting photo prop. After a short wait, 280 showed up with a semi decent consist (at least it had a SOO engine!):

As you can see, the clouds and sun weren't really cooperating for us this morning. We decided to head a few miles into Sparta to see about shooting the second eastbound and the 487. Again a short wait yielded 298 with a pair of tractors:

It wasn't too long of a wait for the 280 and 487 to give each other roll bys on the double track, and pretty soon 487 appeared going the other direction. Our hopes for a solid blue and yellow consist were squashed when I looked through the telephoto and saw a red nose. But I guess at least it's a trio of SD40s on the main line in 2010, and the sun even came weakly out of the clouds:

With the CP traffic winding down and the sun disappearing again, we headed for La Crosse.  As we got into town a BNSF grain extra told the yard they had the light (over the CP diamond) and asked if it was okay to go. Cool, we've got a train already! We headed to the golf course in town to bag him. Again just three big GEs, but at least they aren't a solid color this time:

There was a 170 (another train with ICE power) working River Junction, so we headed over the river to see what was up. He turned out to have a ratty red CP unit leading one other SD40 type. He had quite a bit of work to do, and with just the red leader we decided to pass on a shot and head for the show. Someday I'll probably regret that, but it feels like we made the right decision right now anyway.

Like I said, the show went well, and after grabbing a late lunch we decided to check out the railroad scene again, though not a whole lot was happening. We arrived the CP yard in La Crosse just as a pair of SOO Geeps was taking headroom on the west end as another set of power rested in the distance (possibly the power for a 581):

We stopped at Grand Crossing (the junction of the BNSF and CP in La Crosse) and managed to catch a GAL-Northtown on his way into town. But being that he was horribly backlit won't bother posting the photo. The trip home was pretty uneventful, as the CP seemed pretty quiet the whole way.

So there you have it. Hopefully the pictures look okay, as it's hard for me to tell - I'm processing pictures on my crappy laptop monitor again. Not the best day of railfanning, but pretty good I think considering our primary focus was the model railroad show and not taking pictures. Now I just need to go re-do some of those shots with full sunlight...

Enjoy!

Noah

[ns3010]

Found a few photos (not mine) of the fire- ACES Fire

Nice, I really like the first shot! The bridge adds a nice background.

[WCfan]

Nice shots Noah! That first shot reminds me of a recent shot Ian Contreras did recently from the same bridge.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47783317@N00/4359738061/

He also found some new shots from Tunnel City which I'd like to try...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47783317@N00/4359736559/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47783317@N00/4364414478/

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder if cat. repairs were the reason Amtrak 84 was delayed 2 hours today...

[Noah Hofrichter]

 Thanks guys. The bridge does make a nice prop - why I wanted to GTS at that particular location.

 I saw Mr. Contreras' shots from there too, Jordan, (and Andy Cummings' shots) which is part of what inspired me to finally get around to processing that set of pictures.

I agree on the need to do the Tunnel City shot (though I like Jerry Huddleston's view of the location better, cropping wise). Shouldn't be hard to find, and it's definitely on my hit list for the near future. Along with a few other shots and angles around that stretch of the world, and about 100 other places in the upper Midwest...

Noah

[B.Erdmann]

 i was on that bike trail the other day. me & the pops took a snowmobiling trip out to Monroe Country on sunday & we had some fun. started in wyeville then went all over & went along the UP line in Warrens & Millston. then went to Sparta where we crossed the CP a few times then rode the old UP line for a ways then into ft McCoy then to Tomah. it is a nice area & i now wanna for sure put that on my places to go to watch trains. the Bluffs are nice.then just climbing up the bluffs on the snowmobile was fun & seeing off in the distance i swear i seen Minnesota from 1 point.

unfortunalty i saw no trains. wait i lied i seen a UP NB asuming it was the PRSS at Wyeville with a ace leading which sounded like those horns the UP has at Dekalb in IL.

[Anonymous]

When my train arrived in Worcester today, I did my first railfanning of a freight train since October... MBTA train P526 departed for Boston, then CSX Q423 throttled up to Run 8 to drag a long manifest westbound towards Springfield - all shot against a beautiful sunset that my point-and-shoot excelled at blowing out completely!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6qi3EOpgP0

Enjoy!

[ns3010]

Very nice! If it weren't for the sky, that shot would be perfect!

TrainManTy

I wonder if cat. repairs were the reason Amtrak 84 was delayed 2 hours today...

I doubt it, considering that the fire was Saturday and 84 was delayed on Wednesday...

For all of Saturday night, at at least part of Sunday, I believe that tracks 3 & 4 were restored, but 1 & 2 were still OOS for a good part of Sun (could have been the other way around, but I don't think so).
Sat. night, the entire NEC (and therefore SEPTA [aka SEPTIC] R7 between Trenton and 30th Street, and R2 between 30th Street and Wilmington, probably even Newark [DE, not NJ]) was shut down between Wilmington, DE and Trenton! And the fire was in Morrisville (I believe near MORRIS Interlocking, to be exact), just over the river from Trenton!
I think they would have been better off just shutting down between 30th Street and Trenton (and cross-honoring on the Riverline, PATCO, and SEPTA between TRE and PHI, although you'd need to transfer at least 4 times, which probably wouldn't be worth it...) would have been better... But what do I know?

[EJE818]

Geez this place has been dead lately! Time to jump start it again.

First, another Naperville signal update, they lifted the second support of the new signal bridge at West Naperville into place Sunday, here is a shot of them lifting it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4378340541/

Also you can see the new signals themselves there on the left.

Now onto today, first IC SD70 1000 heads light through Crest Hill. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4385675397/

Then EJ&E 675 led JSW1 west, I have a video of that up, no photo yet. Then IC 6137 in CN paint headed east. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4385645839/

After that I went to the J yard to shoot 658, again the pic hasn't been posted yet.

Then later came the grand prize, a trio of BN cascade greens, two of which were SD40-2s! http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4386404206/

 So the count for the day was three SD40-2s, three BNs, two J's and a IC, pretty darn good!

[ns3010]

And it's still dead in here...

So yesterday, I made a trip to see the Comet IIIs stored in Bay Head. I've heard that some have possibly been scrapped, and who knows if I'll be able to see them again, so I wanted to grab this opportunity.
Anyways, before I even got to the yard, just as we were about to cross the NJCL on route 35, the gates, went down and 4372 crossed with a mixed comet bag of IIMs, IVs, and Vs (basically at least one of every type still in service), pulled by 4032. I won't post the photo because it came out bad.
Skip ahead 3 minutes to when we got to the yard. On tracks 9, 10, and 11 there were strings of CIIIs, I believe 24 total, because there were 8 cars on track 9, and the rest were not fully visible, but they looked pretty even:

Back in June, I saw 27 CIs stored here before they were brought up to the MMC for scrapping, including tiger stripe cab 5104. When the CIs went up, the CIIIs came down to replace them in BH.

I also took advantage of the setting sun and was able to get a few shots of the signal before the sun went down completely:

I really like this next one. L382:


Also, we went to this really cool train restaraunt in (I think) Bayville. It is completely railroad themed, with various signs and pictures around the walls, in addition to two HO scale layouts, as well as two G scale tracks running around the ceiling and a third behind the booths. Not to mention that the food is great!
Here, an Amtrak train darts out of the tunnel on a clear signal. Please excuse the glare and really bad lighting (that place was NOT designed for photos!)


Enjoy!

[EJE818]

Agreed, it's been dead!

 Time for another jump start attempt trip report starring the EJ&E! A trio of J's, including a J-Ball leading went east with the Line Train. Here is the first shot from the Joliet cemetary. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387144395/

Departing Joliet, almost like CN never took over! http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387906182/

Here they are thundering up Joliet Hill, of course three J's warranted a trip to this famous J location! http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387906202/

I'll post the video from there too, ignore the dog! The sounds of three J's in full throttle brought back memories, there's nothing like it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRfhx9N5RB0

Here they are coming into Frankfort. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4388019844/

Now they sit at Frankfort, last shot. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4388019862/

On the way home, Bridge 198 in Joliet was down and Iowa Interstate was waiting to go east after Metra. Here they are between Joliet and New Lenox with a GEVO leading. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387458989/

So in two days, we had a pair of cascade green SD40-2s, a CN/IC SD40-2 hanging around and three J's on one train! Joliet is starting to get interesting again!

[ns3010]

So I saw X233 returning to Bay Head from the MMC today, and it was pretty neat. 4031, 4032, and 4029 (all PL42ACs) with a 6 car Comet salad of IIMs, IVs, and Vs. Unfortunately, it was coming off the Brielle Draw, so it was going pretty slow. Woulda been sick if it was going faster! 12,600 hp (assuming they're all online, which they probably weren't) with only 6 Comets, plus the PL42s' acceleration? That would be one epic (no pun intended) consist!

[BNSF & DMIR 4Ever]

EJE818

Agreed, it's been dead!

 Time for another jump start attempt trip report starring the EJ&E! A trio of J's, including a J-Ball leading went east with the Line Train. Here is the first shot from the Joliet cemetary. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387144395/

Departing Joliet, almost like CN never took over! http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387906182/

Here they are thundering up Joliet Hill, of course three J's warranted a trip to this famous J location! http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387906202/

I'll post the video from there too, ignore the dog! The sounds of three J's in full throttle brought back memories, there's nothing like it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRfhx9N5RB0

Here they are coming into Frankfort. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4388019844/

Now they sit at Frankfort, last shot. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4388019862/

On the way home, Bridge 198 in Joliet was down and Iowa Interstate was waiting to go east after Metra. Here they are between Joliet and New Lenox with a GEVO leading. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4387458989/

So in two days, we had a pair of cascade green SD40-2s, a CN/IC SD40-2 hanging around and three J's on one train! Joliet is starting to get interesting again!

 

Great stuff, but who in God's name thought that the J units would benefit from black trucks? The silver trucks looked so much nicer.

[EJE818]

The silver trucks do look better, but at least they're still orange!

[WCfan]

Joe, kinda sad to hear about the storagages. That reminds me when CN stored the SD40-2s.

Robby, 662 is misplaced. It should be pulling trains across Central Wisconsin.

I did some rail fanning yesterday (2/28/10) south of Wausau. I wasn't planning on doing a chase, but I had just got my car back after being down for repairs. I was less than pleased with the power, but I bet one of these days those Barns are going to look pretty tasty. Besides, the 588 was just about to leave anyway. First up is Rothschild, where the crew was getting their paper work. I didn't realize until later that my F-Stop was way too low. So the field of depth is very narrow. It does make for some kind of neat effects, but for the most part it was annoying.

The next spot is a little south of where the first image was taken. I always wanted to try this spot; it has a small grade effect that was appealing to me. I have a pretty bad case of CNitus. It's a rare disease caused by overexposure to common CN power under grey skies. The only cure is to be with blue skies, with classic power.

The next spot was at Weston, where I incorporated the new switch point indicator into the shot. But again my lack of awareness on my F stop killed that, so the next spot was Dancy. The 588 didn’t have any work, so we didn’t need to stop at Mathy. At Dancy, I got a nice bird from the conductor. That was a real nice way to end the day.

We stopped in at Junction City, betting on my hopes that the 199 or 198 would be through. But nothing was going on, so our chase had ended at Dancy.