TEEN RAILFAN PLACE-LET'S TALK TRAINS!

[trainboyH16-44]

$125 Canadian, whats that like $175 American. Sounds like somebody is trying to scam you. I'm looking at a lower-middle of the road 300mm for $450 American. For a good 500mm I would expect to pay well over $1000, so just be careful... I did a little resreach and the best I could find for a 500mm was the Telephoto AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/4D ED-IF II Autofocus for the grand total of $6,199.95 American. Admittly, this is top of the line lens but when you get to such a high focal lenght, you want a really good lens or its not gonna be very foucsed, let alone sharp... just my two cents...

With a lot of lookinog around, doesn't seem to be a scam....but I do realise IU'd probably have to pay ten times that for a really good quality lens, which I'm just not able to do. I thirst for telephoto, and this will be my cheap substitute for a good lens until I get a job...I found a review on amazon.com, but it never mentioned the quallity of the pictures, but the person did say that it seemed to have some quality control issues, namely that the focus markings are off (You can't set the focus ring to infinity, but I don't think that matters for me anyways) His aperature ring seems to be 'broken', the one that is "snappy" doesn't change the aperature, but the one that goes smoothly like a focus ring does. He remarked that the connection to the camera body was a bit loose, but his was for a Canon EOS / EF camera, and mine would be much more retro.
If it sucks, I'm only out $125.....only a month's work...

[wctransfer]

Not sure what you mean..... It was already on Railpics this morning.

Alec

[oskar]

Well that new CNW engine is looking good not sure which one is my favorite the last 2 looked good the other 3 well that was last year.

Went to see some trains saw 2 3-engine coal trains one had a C40-8 # 7501 the rest were AC44CW's, a CSX GEVO # 5367 and a SD70M # 4703 powering a rock train, 2 SD50-2's # 2493 and 2485, a CEFX ex BN Whiteface SD40-2 # 7092 and BNSF SD40-2 6735 working in NS's Nixon Yard nose to nose, plus in Martinez,GA a 2 trains were sitting there and they all had different power AC44CW 95, AC60CW 697, on the SB Coal, SD70ACe 4834 and CW40-8 7845 on the NB.

Also my current train pad just ended its life by running out of pages on the NB coal train so gotta start over. This pad lasted just over 2 years July 13,2004 - Cassandra,PA to July 15 Augusta,GA.

 

kevin

[Noah Hofrichter]

I've been purposefully avoiding looking at any photos of the CNW Heritage unit today, and trust me, it's been hard. I'm going to the Illinois Railway Museum tomorrow near Union Illinois, and supposedly the CNW unit is to put in an appearance. I'd rather get my first impression standing next to the unit tomorrow then though photos, so I've been holding off. I'll let you guys know what I think first hand of how the boys at Horicon did with the paint job tomorrow night or Monday morning.

Noah

[alstom]

Here is the long awaited CNW Heritage Unit. I cannot wait to see the SP one on August 19. But anyways, I ahppen to like this on the best, it is my all-time favorite Heritage Unit. I want to see this.

Rich

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[trainboyH16-44]

Rich...I think you've killed Noah....

[wctransfer]

Naw, he is breathing, but , ohh, wait, ohhhh NOAH!!!! Come on many BREATH!!!!!!!!!

Ok ya he is dead.

On a serious note! Rich, what were ya thinkin!!!!!!!

Hopefully he glanced and looked away right away.

Alec

[Noah Hofrichter]

It's okay, I only skipped a breath and I made it out alight. Don't worry, I didn't see it ahead of time, I was gone from the Place here by the time Rich Posted that. I never did actually get to see the unit in person today afterall though, it ended up going west on a Manifest Frieght with the two amigos instead of going to the Illinois Railway Museum. But now having seen the pictures I don't really mind....

I honestly just don't care for this scheme that much. It's not terrible, and certainly much, much better than the MoPac, WP and Katy Units, but I still think the DRGW unit was much better. I guess it'll grow on me though. And if you ever doubted that the UP wasn't doing this to renew the copywrite on the logos and colors, this just proved you wrong. I mean come on, putting three logos on the same unit in 6 foot high decals, you don't do that unless you want to keep the copywrite on them.....

I did have a good day at IRM though, saw a bunch of old diesel locomotives running around, and caught a Metra Scoot down near Harvard, Illinois. I'll have pictures to post in the next few days as I weed through them an upload them to railpictures.net and rrpicturearchive.net

Anyway, I'm pooped, I've had a long day out in about 95 degree heat most of the day. I'll be back tomorrow after a good night's rest....

Noah

[Anonymous]

you don't have to phyiscal use something to hold the copyright on it, you just need to have it regesiter, which last for something like 17 years (or is that patents). In fact, didn't the UP Vice President say that one of the reasons they did the whole project was because they held all these patents are were doing nothing about them, my two cents anyways...

on another note, I'm heading to Pittsburgh in a couple days for perhaps the hardest core railfanning of my life; two days in Altoona (overnighting with a friend), two days in Cumberland (overnighting with my girlfriend) and then my girlfriend's car to myself for three days! I'm a litte worried about bringing my girlfriend to take shots, hope she doesn't get bored and demand we leave (it is her car), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hope everbody is having a good summer thus far....

[trainboyH16-44]

Man, I just had the best day of my frigging life. I am so increidlby pumped. 2816 for 150 miles. I'll write a full report tomorrow, it's gonna be sooo long.
Here are the best parts -
-Steaming up a narrow canyon (Great stack talk) with everything going at full to maintain track speed
-Steaming through the Spiral Tunnels with other railfans in the vestibule
-Meeting the Royal Canadian Pacific at Banff (TWO TUSCAN RED PASSENGER TRAINS MEETING IN THE MOUNTAINS!!)
-Steaming down the plains at 75 or 80MPH with my head out the vestibule with a somewhat old friend, cinders blowing in my face
Man, best day ever.
Ever.
I used a total of 80 pictures on 3 rolls of film....

[Anonymous]

I've been working on benchwork last night and most of the day today- out in the garage with a heat index of 106 F. I've got pretty much everything cut and assembled, and it's all in the basement. Now I've gotta get it all set up. And I just found out I need one more sheet of plywood. no big deal. I have enough "modules" done that the entire mainline could be laid.

Going to decide what to model ASAP. (gonna do the 'ol "pros & cons")

[alstom]

Guys, would you chill out? I just stop in here quick and don't have time to read everybody's posts. I am sorry. I personally do like that unit, it is my favorite, even over the Katy Heritage Unit. Again, Noah, Matt and Alec, sorry.

Well, I got out railfanning yesterday at Greenwich, avoiding my girl trouble up at Berea. Which majorly sucks, because I love Berea. Anyways, here is what I saw yesterday: 9 trains, not alot, but worth it. A dumb maintenance truck came by and tied up two trains.

I saw five CSX ex Conrail SD40-2's, numbers 8808, 8811, 8825, 8830 and 8838. They were all in the YN3 paint scheme except 8830, which was nice to see. CSX 686 (AC6000CW) and CSX 4799 (SD70AC) came by pulling Q110 towards Buffalo and CSX 8838 and 8825 were pulling a M of W train.

On the way home, me and my friend got lucky because we caught the Wheeling & Lake Erie railway's Bellevue, OH - Pittsburgh, PA run - WLE's longest running train, yet the shirtest train in length. Power was WLE 6348 (SD40-2 EMD Blue colors) and WLE 104 (GP35 in Rio Grande scheme).

Rich

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[trainboyH16-44]

My turn to spoil the suprise, he's decided to IANR for reasons that I cannot fathom. And he'll NEVER decide with me constantly telling him to model CGW!
Now for my long, long report on that one hundred and eighty glorious miles.
We left for Golden at 7:30, got there just before eleven, and waited for several hours. The railway west of Field runs on pacific time, and it's not until Roger's Pass that the rest of the world switches over, so the moment 2816 left Revelstoke, it was already an hour late by our tickets.
When it did arrive, it arrived in a very non-dramatic fashion. It ambled down the grade (Slight grade, but enough that you don't have to steam) and stopped about half a mile to take on water. Meanwhile, a group of us who are waiting for it are talking about CSXsucks.com.
So that's when the meet with the RMR is announced over the scanners. I get ready to take a shot as it swoops around the corner that brings it out of the canyon. Wait for a couple minutes, then 2816 starts moving towards us, and that's when the RMR appeared! Take two pictures, start to wind on the film for when 2816 comes (On the track BEHIND the RMR) and - OUT OF FILM! Swear loudly a few times while hurridly ripping off the camera case and rewinding like my life depended on it, put a new roll in and wound it on - Fastest film change of my life. With time to spare, too, since 2816 steamed up a minute later. We waited while people were unloaded and sent across 3 tracks to where we were, then we waited for the handicapped people...I'd been standing there for three hours, my patience was starting to wear thin....then they got the handicapped people from our group on....then we all came forward. I'm just sitting here waiting for a grain train's AC4400s to come down the mainline and make some chunky salsa. Eventually, we got loaded on the train. The exact consist was 2816-tender-canteen-302x GP38-tool car-tool car-2x lightweight ex-VIA coach-lightweight sleeper-heavyweight observation. Turned out we were only allowed in the two lightweight coaches, the best cars were crew cars.
We started up, so smoothly! We went up the canyon, and despite the intercom's warning, we were in the vestibules leaning out the dutch doors. Going up through the canyon was sweet, sheer cliff faces, light blue river, sun, tunnels, bridges, and then we got to Glenogle, where there is the centerpeice of the highway rehabilitation project - They had just got up a 150 foot high concrete pier for the new bridge that would circumvent that twisty road cut into the cliff. The #1 highway, speed limit 40Km/H.
We continued up the canyon, but I let other people look out the dutch door. Near the top of the canyon, the railway goes over a hump to circumvent a large V bend in the river. We chugged up that grade, the GP38 clearly working hard to keep up what was nearly track speed. By then I had discovered the front vestibule was much less crowded, and you could hear the stack talk better from there. We come around the point, descend into the now-flat river valley, and chug up the mild grade towards Field, 15 miles away. That's when the old conductor guy comes in and tells us that we have to get out of the vestible for the tunnels, but we're like "Eff that, they're 20 miles away!" That's when he admits that he doesn't really know where he is, anyways...we stop at Field, and the second coach's air conditioning, which hadn't worked for the whole trip, was clearly needed, as it was roasting there. Fortunately, the vestibule had a nice breeze through it. Of course, we're not allowed off the train...I see a CP Holiday Train AC4400 off to the side, take a picture, swelter some more. But then we're off. A totally different staff member comes back and tells us that we can stay in the vestibule, but we better not open the door while we're in the tunnels. So we chug up, and everything's working hard, it sounds like the geep is in notch 8. We chug through the two small tunnels, then we get to the lower spiral. By this time, most people in the rear vestibule thought of me as their guide, because I not only knew about the railway, but also about the surrounding mountains. So we go into the lower spiral while I'm explaining to some people what it is, and it's not too bad in the vestibule. Just a bit dark, but it was like that everywhere. Then near the end of the tunnel, smoke starts pouring in - Not from 2816, but from the GP38! Soon we popped out, and the diesel exhaust was cleared away. Same thing with the upper spiral. We came out of the top of it to find breathtaking views up the Yoho Valley. We crest the top of the pass, and drift downgrade. We go through Morant's Curve - I take three pictures to use up another roll of film. Go back inside the coach, take the camera case off, and OPEN THE FRIGGING BACK! Close it quickly, rewind, and hope that at least one of the pictures from the curve works out...So. New film. I have 36 pictures left for the remaining 112 miles to Calgary. Met another train at Eldon, then went through Mile 100, pics, then we stopped for a while in Banff, where some railfans were telling me to use Kodachrome while I still could. Then we met the Royal Canadian Pacific!!! Man, not since the fifties has there been such a sight, two sets of gleaming tuscan red passenger coaches, one pulled by a Hudson, meeting in the mountains on the mainline....from then on, me and a person I know from my MRR club were hanging out the dutch door all the way to Calgary. We met a few more trains along the way, used up that roll of film, and when we got out of the mountains on the Morley Flats - Straight track, with rail laid the week before - We must have hit 85MPH! At this point, I took my glasses off for a look at what might have gone in my eyes - A quick search revealed quite a bit of stuff, grains of sand, and about 20 cinders. Or whatever the black, solid remnants of burned Bunker C oil is. We slowed down to the passenger speed limit of 65MPH for the corners, but when we had a straight, we really let it rip.
Then we got to the Morley dump. By now we're deep into the Sarcee Indian reservation. Apparantly our Natives haven't been taught how to run a dump yet...it was just a big pile of trash, with a small fence around it with a ton of less-dense garbage stuck on it. The plume of plastic bags and other things like that continued for kilometres, covering the landscape, sticking to trees, rolling across the plains....but eventually we saw the last of them, and continued on, along the Ghost Resivior, which was beautiful, though the Bow valley, which was beautiful, through Cochrane (Meet) which was okay...and then the last 20 miles to Calgary were so beautiful, it made me want to live there. The huge curves in the river, the rolling, green hillsides cut with ravines, oh, it was WODNERFUL. Then, just before we reached Bearspaw siding, mile 15 - CP DETECTOR MILE ONE SEVEN CP TWO EIGHT ONE SIX AXLES FOUR NINE TWO ALARMS AXLE TWO AXLE FIVE - Two hotboxes! We slowed down to about 30 MPH, and made a run for home. (Incidentally, those axles were the trailing axle on the lead truck and the last driver) We made it back alright, leaping for home. By then, the second tool car had got a flat spot for some reason...and all through the trip, it was just leaping around, we thought the coupler was going to give! We pulled through Calgary at the passenger speed limits, triumphantly stopped wth the setting sun and the Calgary tower in the background, successfully finishing off my 3td roll of film and taking my 80th picture of the day.
Now how's that for a reply?

[Anonymous]

My turn to spoil the suprise, he's decided to IANR for reasons that I cannot fathom. And he'll NEVER decide with me constantly telling him to model CGW!

*sighs* You win. CGW it is. I've got more eqipment for 1968 anyway.

Now how's that for a reply?

I didn't even know you could post such few charaters

[Anonymous]

but then again...