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[WCfan]

3024 is still working the White Pine Job. I think 3000 is still around here, and maybe 3004 or 3007. Not sure I'd have to look.

Well after waiting a couple months, I have finally got a new camera! It's the Canon 50D. I got it for a pretty good deal, with all the savings I pretty much got a free lens. I hope to be up and running soon and getting some pictures on here. After the holiday season I'm going to be looking for some other lenses...

[EJE818]

Nice, now I gotta get something even better then that just to compete!

Speaking of competing, the J competition rolls on!  They may be in Stevens Point, Plover and New Brighton, but I got some on home rails around Joliet today.

First, 656 leads the JSW1 west near Minooka. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4174725209/

Then, 703 got a track authority to MP 6, which meant it leading the Smurfit job. Here it is coming up the hill in Joliet. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4175482882/

Then it was time for a quick trip to Homewood, where IC 1029 was sitting with M336. No yellow frame stripe! http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084206@N08/4175488154/

It was worth freezing over that kind of stuff! Yep, another crazy stunt pulled off just to shoot J power, and believe me, when I say it was cold outside that would be a understatement, it was downright nasty weatherwise!

[Noah Hofrichter]

 Neat shots from the Dells Robby. That must have been you that was down in the mini golf area for the Holiday Train. I was up on the bridge getting shots, but I didn't recognize you down there. Your angle definitely turned out better than mine.

Where was that shot with the 636 taken? I thought I'd shot everywhere around the Dells, but I can't quite put my finger on where that is.

Have fun with the new toy, Jordan! Though trust me, now that you've got an SLR, it'll be hard to go back to the point and shoot.

And take it from me, shoot RAW + JPEG for anything important from day one. Even if you just processes the JPEGs, it's nice to have the RAW around as backup. This is advice I wish I'd heeded from the get go...

Nice sunset Ty! I really dislike the fact that winter makes the shooting hours so short, but what are you going to do...

My apologies in advance for the following loooong trip report, but I did finally find some time to process a batch of photos. If you don't feel like reading all of it I don't blame you, but you can just scroll through the pictures and move on.

So I finally got around to some of that photo processing that I've been putting off. I went back to a trip I took on October 4th. That was the day the ICE ran a passenger special out of Dubuque to Marquette, IA and back, and I went with the goal of chasing the return leg of the trip. I also managed to run into some other goodies along the way. Hopefully the pictures look okay. I'm trying to process on my laptop monitor, which isn't always the best as far as color balance and brightness goes, so my apologies if something looks a little off.

The prediction for the day was partly sunny skies, but I awoke to find the sky actually pretty clear here in my home-away-from-home of Platteville. I made up my mind I was going to make the hour drive to Prairie Du Chien (PDC to us locals) and see what happens. As I was motoring westward I started picking up radio traffic around Cassville (south of PDC), that indicated there were a couple of maintainers out on the BNSF. Hmm, this could be a good thing or a bad thing. The BNSF is a double tracked main line, and sometimes if they have a large maintenance window to take care of they will "single track" a section for a while by running trains in both directions on just one main. This is good for the railfan as the trains call into the switch tender at either end and talk to the foreman in charge of the project, making tracking traffic easier. It appeared single tracking was the order of the day, but radio traffic told me I also wasn't going to be in position to capture the first two eastbound. Oh well, I just hoped there'd be more behind.

Just as I neared Prairie, I had a decision to make. I decided that if it was nice weather I was going to drive up to Wyalusing State Park on the bluffs above PDC to try some shots. The problem is the park has an entrance fee, and so it wouldn't be worth it if I didn't think I would be guaranteed trains and sun. But as I hit the river I ran out from under the cloud/fog cover, and at the same time a train started to get a new warrant and told the dispatcher he was just going through PDC. Okay, to Wyalusing we go! Having never been there it took me a minute to find the correct location, enter the park, and then figure out which overlook I needed to be at. I arrived with about thirty seconds to spare before this spectacular scene unfolded before me:



The train is crossing the Wisconsin River, and the mighty Mississippi is in the background. The town by the bridge in the distance is Marquette, IA. The only sad part is what you can see in the background: a cloud line (insert ominous music here...)

Well, at least I'd accomplished one thing on the list for the day. But I wanted a few more shots from this location, and radio traffic indicated that there was a fleet of eastbounds coming. They wouldn't appear before I heard a horn on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River and received a text alerting me to the fact that there was an ICE train departing south. With the full 200mm and a little cropping, this was what the scene looked like from my side of the river as train 474 departed south:



I stayed put for the parade of BNSF trains, but unfortunately the cloud line moved in, and it was the last I'd see of the sun for the day. There are several different overlooks in Wyalusing, and I spent some time roaming around to see the different angles. Like I said it was practically a parade, with about 6 eastbounds in two to three hours: a railfan's dream on the River! If only I'd had sun...




(PDC is in the background here. If only someone would trim that tree on the right, it would be a really nice shot...)



This is definitely a place I must return, with good sunlight.

Having had enough from Wyalusing, I called a friend who had some intel on what was coming down the River at me. There were two more BNSF eastbounds due, and I decided I'd try a change of scenery and move down into PDC for a few shots. As I was making my way down, suddenly the ICE channel crackled to life across the river. Train 271, which had apparently come into town earlier that morning and had been making a pick up in the ICE yard, called the dispatcher, and told him he was ready to depart Marquette with eight engines and 3300 feet. "Eight engines?" The dispatcher replied. "Yep, eight," said the crew, "the maximum allowed." Wait, eight engines? Holly big consist, Batman! I started calculating how long it would take to get to Spook Cave Road a few miles on the other side of town, and even though as I passed the depot in PDC the BNSF detector went off to the north indicating the eastbound was on it's way, I decided to go for broke and see about catching that ICE train. Cloudy PDC BNSF shots can wait.

So I flew west, and found the spook cave road horseshoe. Turned out I had plenty of time, but going 60 down a gravel backroad was fun anyway ;-). The sun was flirting with holes in the clouds and I hoped I might get lucky, but after about 10 minutes the train showed up, moving a leisurely 10mph. Eight engines, the first five blue and yellow and the rear 3 red CPs:



It's hard to fit that many engines in a shot! I believe that's the most engines I've shot in one consist to date, or certainly the most SD40s. The first CP was 762, which I believe is one of the former SOO SD40-2s (though somebody correct me if I'm wrong).

Even with the red and the clouds this consist required one more shot. I zipped west, and while I couldn't find the location of a shot I'd seen before and really wanted, I did find a decent shot by walking out into a field, but again, it was impossible to get all eight engines in the shot:



If it had been sunny and in the afternoon I probably would have gone a lot further west with him, but with that I decided I should get back to Marquette. The passenger special was due in around noon, and I needed to stake out a spot. As I was driving around town I found B50, the Marquette yard/local job, switching some cars just south of the depot. He started moving, so I parked in a driveway and bailed out to get a shot I've always wanted. I think I'm starting to see things, because I see a pink elephant in this photo...



That one wouldn't have been very good if the sun had been out, so maybe the clouds were working out okay.

I found an okay shot for the northbound entrance which had also been scoped out by a number of notable railfans, and after we shot the breeze for a while the train finally arrived. I really like that old elevator as a photo prop:



They pulled into town to wye the train, and I got another shot as the backed around the north leg:



I set out to shoot the southbound departure at the elevator, but the shot from the south side isn't that great so I decided to abandon it. The chase began. The road doesn't really follow the tracks around this part of the river, so there are only a few available shots. Here's the best I got:

North of Gutenburg, IA:



Crossing the Turkey River and Turkey River, IA:



He had been cruising right along until Gutenberg, where they had to stop the train to pick up a camera somebody had dropped out the window on the way north...

While we were chasing we heard a 2nd-170 get a warrant out of Marquette behind the passenger train. Since there weren't going to be any better shots between Turkey River and Dubuque I decided to let the passenger extra go and instead wait for the freight to catch up. After about 45 minutes, it did:



I needed to go to Dubuque to get back to the Wisconsin side anyway, so I followed the train down. The dispatcher set up a meet with a northbound a few miles north of Dubuque, so I figured I had plenty of time to find a shot. I checked out the angles around the ICE yard, and finally settled on a bridge shot. I found a place to park and walked over to the bridge, thinking I still had a few minutes. But I was suprised to arrive at the bridge and find the train only a few hundred feet away and moving fast! I sprinted the last hundred or so feet and just got this frame off:



He had to stop and line some switches at the yard, as well as get permission from the CN dispatcher on their main line (the CN/IC and ICE/CP share a line through Dubuque that is controlled by the CN. ICE trains get on the CN on the north side of town and get off again on the south end.). He toned up the CN dispatcher in short order and the CN, having no other traffic, got him right through town. He had a good roll on them as he passed my location by the CN/IC yard office (which was once the Chicago, Central, and Pacific yard in town):



If it had been sunny I would have been off to Bellevue, IA in nothing flat, but it would take the train almost an hour and a half to get there and I didn't feel like adding more driving to the day. So happy with what I got I headed for home. It was a good day really, though it would have been nice if the sun had stuck around. I think I came away with some interesting pictures anyway (and some that would have been impossible with the sun) and now I know where I'm going for the next time I make a trip to the area. Sadly in the two months since I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to get out taking pictures on a nice weekend around this area. Hopefully that will change in the spring.

If you've read the trip report all the way through to here, thank you, and I hope you enjoy!

Noah

[Anonymous]

Scroll past a trip report from Noah? You've got to be kidding me! Nice shots!

I know what you mean about the shorter shooting hours - although it does make it easier to see nice sunsets because they don't come in the middle of or after dinner - when I'm almost always at home where there's neither trains nor a view of the sunset!

Congrats on the DLSR, Jordan! I had no idea you were using a point-and-shoot! What model? I just bought a Panasonic ZX3, which is an upgrade to the current point-and-shoot I carry everywhere except it has HD video with stereo sound plus a 12x zoom lens rather than the 3.6x one my current camera has!

[EJE818]

Noah, that first shot should seriously be on the BNSF calendar! Nice shots! Nice IC&E passing that interesting pink elephant too.

[WCfan]

Robby, you got some good catches! Looks like EJE 659 and 666 are spilt up here in Wisconsin; I'll still have to keep an eye out for them.

Noah, great pictures! Like Robby said, that first BNSF shot could be in their calendar! I can't believe that you got CP 762. I had no idea that CP sent one of the former SOO SD40-2s down there. I traced it, and it said it was interchanged to some railroad in Davenport in October. So I have no idea where it is now. Did you happen to come across Ian Contreras, he took some photos around the same area you did. (Looking at the comments I see you probably did)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47783317@N00/3985532665

I'm probably not going to be going back to that Kodak. I'll still keep it handy, just in case. But I think its use is going to be dramatically lowered. It's kind of sad to think about it. I've have been to many places, and have seen many trains with that camera. But it's all for the better.

Tyler, neat shot! I was using a Kodak Z712 IS. It worked pretty well, and served its intended purpose. I have heard that the new compacts are really nice, and come with a lot of features.

[Noah Hofrichter]

Thanks for the compliments guys, they are much appreciated. I really want to go back to the Wyalusing shot next fall and hope for even more color in the hills. It's a beautiful location even without a train, but add in a train on the bridge and it's fantastic! Hadn't really considered the BNSF calender possibility, but it's a thought...

Jordan, I did see Mr. Contreras (and Jon Roma was with him) a couple of times from a distance, but we never really had a chance to talk. They were always in the thick of the chase and set up a slightly different angle (which must be how he manages such great photographs!).

Noah

[ns3010]

I see I missed a bit the last few days, and I'm not going to catch up now. It's just after midnight, and I need to be up early. I can not make it through a long day (train ride, xmas tree, dinner, and then finish with a game) on less than 8 hours of sleep...

The Santa Train is in the morning. It leaves in just over 9 hours from now (9:20a.m.). I'll bring both cameras (the family one, for stills, and my dad's, for video). I'll get photo and video of the train arriving in Netcong, and video of the ride to Hackettstown, back through Netcong to Port Morris Yard, and then back to Netcong.

And it seems I will not be attending the Toys For Tots train. To make a long story short, and avoid a very long and violent rant, I'll jsut say that my dad doesn't want to "drive through traffic" to make a donation (and snap some pix). And I got mad, and he said I wasn't showing holiday spirit, when HE's the one who is being a female dog about a little bit of traffic. And I'll jsut leave it at that.
A great opportunity (catch a very rare train, and, more importantly, do some good) gone. Can't wait till I can drive and I can do what I want...

And they're scrapping the Comet Is!!!!!!!!! There have been tons already scrapped, with nothing of value having been taken out. I've heard that the 5120 (possibly) and maybe some trailers will be going to Whippany. Other than that, and all the Sliders out and about on other RRs (Whippany already has some, UTA, Metrolink, AMT, SEPTA), they'll all be gone soon. There's an extremely sad (as in almost enough to make you cry...) video on Youtube of the scrapping, but I can't find it at the moment.
Farewell, Comet Is! They were basically the model for all the modern single-level commuter cars, on just about every railroad...
(Note this is in E-L Maroon, since the CIs were originally bought by NJDOT for the E-L).

[wctransfer]

The 762 originally was sent down to the IC&E because four DME 63XX's were stored. They sent "replacements" and in one of the classic railroad moves, the four DME's were pulled from storage and the replacements were stored instead. The 762 has a bad order or two anyway so its not a surprise. The 762 was the last road-operating ex SOO of its kind until they stored it in Canada. Its revival was short lived, but from what I hear its just sitting at Nahant.

Alec

[WCfan]

Well good thing those replacements didn't work out. The ex MILW SD40-2s are my favorites.

I'm kind of reluctant to post this, as I know Robby is going to rip on me.

As many of you know, the EJ&E units are becoming more common in the Wisconsin area. I have been keeping tabs on most of them, as it is nice to see some different color other than CN. EJ&E 659 and EJ&E 666 had been running in a pair, and when I traced them they still were in a pair. Last night I check in on them, only to find out that EJ&E 666 was in Wausau. Today I woke up extra early to check out the yard. Sure enough EJ&E 666 was trailing GTW 5849. This is Robby’s favorite unit. I'm sure we all remember the little crossing gate incident that happened when 666 was still in Illinois. So I'll post this shot just for Robby.

That picture was taken with my Kodak camera. I didn't have a memory card for the 50D yet, so I couldn't take any pictures with it. Afterwards I picked up a 4GB CF card.

I left the scanner on at home to see when the 588 would be leaving. Around 11:15 the dispatcher gave the 588 a warrant. I headed down to Weston in hopes of beating them. I saw the lights just north of where I was. Thinking I had plenty of time, I took my time setting up. Before I knew it the 588 was right on top of me. My video turned out crooked, but it'll still be worth posting. Here is one of my shots.

Please forgive the cropping. This is very different from what I was shooting to before, so the editing might not be the greatest, please bear with me.

[WCfan]

Today was the day I was suppose to do a chase with a beautiful GTW and EJ&E consist . I was greeted with something, completely different...

My plan was to get to the yard around 10-10:30, but some other unexpected events happened. I didn't get to the yard until 11:30, and by that time the 588 had already left. Looks like it was time for catch-up. Down at Mosinee I caught up with the 588 just as they were leaving. Seeing the head end I saw a CN SD75i, and a dirty SD40-2W (Hey at least it was a SD40-2 trailing!). I was just about ready to give up and head to Stevens Point, when I realized that I could try a new angle at Mathy. The 588 slowly makes it's way around the curve at Mathy.

I gave them a chase, there were a few new shots I wanted to try. Down by Lake Du bay, I wanted to try a new shot just south of the Bridge. The snow made it difficult to park, so I decided to head into Dancy.

I'm not sure how I like this shot...more practice...maybe a different subject...

That's where I gave the 588 up. Now it was time to head to Point. Not much traffic was heading through, so I went off looking for EJ&E 665. We found them at the Whiting Mill. Please excuse the backlit shot.

Nothing was going on, so I called it a day. At Wausau, I took a picture of this months switchers. IC 3110 and CN 9418?.

 

[Anonymous]

Nice shots, Jordan! I really like that first one!

Here's an older shot from me. This is the New York City subway though, not Boston...

[BNSF & DMIR 4Ever]

 Some Twin Ports tidbits:

 

-First off, for those who may have heard about the NSSR car storage issue, I won't cover that, as I don't have a great deal of info on it.

-DM&IR 215 is currently at Proctor after experiencing loading issues while in Two Harbors. EJ&E 674, which previously was working the Mixed Rail Freight, was sent to TH to cover 215's switching duties. HOWEVER, due to the lack of a pacesetter, 674 was returned to Keenan. It would seem she won't be a candidate for T-Bird service.

-The two CN GP9s that have been switching Proctor Yard(at least the actual CN portion of the traffic) may soon be replaced. The main issue seems to be the large cuts of cars, plus the fact that the GP9s are RC equipped, but due to Missabe regulations, RC equipment isn't allowed there. EJ&E units are the likely choice to replace them.

-Minorca signed with CN once again, ending a few months of speculation as to whether CN would stay with Minorca.

-The new ore cars continue to struggle in the cold weather, with some trains taking upwards of eight to ten hours to dump.

[ns3010]

Uh, I'm having computer issues, so don't expect anything from me... I have a few pix from Saturday up on RRPA. Youtube was being a PITA and not letting me upload the video (which is on my computer, which is currently unavailable), but I'll try again once I get my computer back...

[Anonymous]

You have a lot of computer problems, Joe!