I live 1/2 mile from CSX's Etowah Sub, which sees 20 to 30 trains daily. 7 miles from my home is CSX's Junta Yard, where both CSX's W&A & Etowah Subs connect. On a good day you can see 60+ trains head through town. If I travel 45 minutes south I can go to CSX's Tilford Yard, and NS's Inman Yard, which are parallel to each other just outside of Atlanta. I've seen ATSF, IC, CN, UP, BNSF, Indiana Railroad, Guilford, CP, KCS, Trona, and SP plus scores of leasers just in the past 2 years!
OT: Tribe's about to win!
Well, I had yesterday off for Columbus day so I headed to various locations, Homewood, EJ&E Yard in Joliet, Brookfield, Riverside, LaVergne station in Berwyn, and the bridge over Lumber Street yard in Chicago. Some of my favorite photos are trains with city skylines behind them, and here is a example that I took yesterday. The train is kinda small so you might have to click on the photo to see it. The line the Amtrak train is passing over, the CN St. Charles Air Line, will probably eventually cease to exist when the CN/EJ&E merge occurs, as abandoning that line was one of the reasons CN is going to buy them, so get your shots of the Air Line while you can.
My Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/JR7582 My Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcfan/
Finally got around to some photo editing between yesterday and today.
This last weekend the Iowa, Chicago, and Eastern ran a couple of "Fall Color Specials" from Marquette, IA to LaCrescent, MN. As long as it was looking sunny Saturday morning, a friend and I decided to head out in search of the train, and any other traffic we could find, hopefully with some fall colors on the trees. The color was a little lacking as it seemed a lot of the trees either will still green or had already lost their leaves, but we did end up shooting one BNSF train, and then spending the rest of the time on the ICE shooting a freight and the passenger special. The MILW 261 was also running last weekend, and we were within about a mile of around La Crescent, but we never did see it. With the recent sale of the ICE/DME to the Candian Pacific, we concentrated on them instead. After all, the MILW 261 will most likely be back again, the ICE special may not be.
A quick explaination as well; the ICE tracks run parallel to the Mississippi River on the MN and IA side of the river. The BNSF tracks run parallel to the River on the Wisconsin Side. Might help to understand some of what I'm saying.
Anyway, enough rambling, and onto the pictures. I apologize in advance to anybody on dial up.
First train photographed was a BNSF Z train at Genoa, WI:
We had heard a ICE train get a warrant from a ways to the North of where we were to a siding just across the river from us with the lead locomotive of DME 6094. I thought it sounded familiar, and after a little while it suddenly dawned on me; that was the DME anniversary SD40! We knew the train was to meet the Passenger special at Kains (the only siding on the ICE side of the river) and just as we got over there we spotted the passenger train heading North for the meet. We passed that up as the light was wrong though, and instead set up for a chase of the freight:
Around Lansing, IA
Harpers Ferry, IA (where the sun decided to hide under the clouds):
With that we grabbed a nutritious Kwik-trip meal of 2 for $2 sandwhiches in Lansing and headed for La Crescent to catch up with the passenger train. Just as we got there both he and the MILW 261 were turning, but the ICE train would depart first. The passenger special had the DME 4002, which is the GP40 version of the 20th anniversary engine. It felt good to catch both on the same day! The chase was on, with about a half dozen other railfans following the train as well (including a few people that I consider big names in the railfan world of the upper midwest. It's always interesting to see what sort of angles for photos that others will pick out, including on top of Bulldozers...). While we managed about 10 run-bys along the stretch we chased, here are the best of the bunch of pictures:
LaCrescent:
The classic shot South of LaCrescent:
North of Reno, MN:
Reno Bottoms:
New Albin, IA:
We'd been lucky with the clouds for most of the chase, but one decided to block out the sun for this shot south of New Ablin. I still like it though, so I thought it was worth posting:
Street running at Lansing, IA:
And the last shot was the best-lit going away shot of the day, of the DME Pioneer bringing up the rear of the train:
Despite only catching three trains all day and not seeing the 261, I still think it was a great day. Lots of good photos, got to see a few other railfans I haven't talked to in a while, and just plain a heck of a lot of fun. After all, shouldn't that be the point of railfanning?
Enjoy the photos,
Noah
Nice job Noah, love the first & third photos. Iowa's scenery (in my eyes) closely matches that of Georgia. Another CP came through today, but I didn't see it! Oh well, guess some other southeastern railfans got lucky.....
Guess I'll post some of my photos.
http://www.smmrailphotos.net/other/dg7514.html
http://www.smmrailphotos.net/other/dg1148.html
http://www.smmrailphotos.net/other/dg561.html
http://www.smmrailphotos.net/other/dg5932.html
All pics are from Cartersville, Ga. 1st is from Wyvern Yard, 2nd is from Wyvern Yard, 3rd is from Wood Yard, and 4th is from Wyvern Yard. I don't have any good photos of the Junta Yard, but if you look around on that site, you'll find some.
Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296
Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/
how is the BNSF depressing? 2 BN SD40-2s without noselights is always enjoyable. and that GEVO too.
Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.
Lionel collector, stuck in an N scaler's modelling space.
Oh, I don't know...I'd be happy to hae their new paint scheme running past me occasionally! Go Southern Belle!
Lord Atmo wrote:how is the BNSF depressing? 2 BN SD40-2s without noselights is always enjoyable. and that GEVO too.
Good pictures are depressing.
Thanks for the compliments guys.
K&A, some neat photos you've got there too. I always like seeing beat up BNSF GEs for some reason, and there sure are enough of them running around out there...
Matt, I think I sort of understand what you mean. Seeing good photos usually ends up making me wish I was out chasing trains instead of sitting at home....
KCS would be a nice change for me as well, though that's because the main stay of my railfanning up here is a parade of CP big GEs, ugly CN locomotives, and BNSF (which is tolerable).
Good to hear the 7525 has found it's home too. More reason to go down to IRM sometime next year...