Trackside Lounge: 3Q 2010

[CNW 6000]

Hope you're trackside today Jim...CN's been running things like crazy.  Between 9 AM and the next hour I know of about a dozen 'through' trains that have moved through the Waukesha and Neenah subs plus a couple locals too...

[Deggesty]

CShaveRR

Headed out east to Lowell, Michigan, for our family reunion. Lowell was on two railroad lines back in the day (PM and GTW). Later, both were spun off to related companies, and I'm not sure if they're one railroad now or not--or even if anything's left.

Carl, you may know the answer by the time you read this, but according to SPV's atlas of the Great Lake East states, (2005 edition), both lines through Lowell are operated by Mid Michigan Railroad, a RailAmerica subsidiary.

Happy family gathering!

[zardoz]

CNW 6000

Hope you're trackside today Jim...CN's been running things like crazy.  Between 9 AM and the next hour I know of about a dozen 'through' trains that have moved through the Waukesha and Neenah subs plus a couple locals too...

Typical!!  I was obliged to a previous commitment today--wouldn't ya know it. 

My wife says that the CN has some way of knowing when I'm trackside, and that they hold all of their trains as long as they can waiting for me to go away.

[tree68]

zardoz

My wife says that the CN has some way of knowing when I'm trackside, and that they hold all of their trains as long as they can waiting for me to go away.

I think CSX uses the same detector here...    Sounds like Ms Mook might have one at her spot to.

[CShaveRR]

Thanks for that, Johnny! The ex-GTW was actually the Grand Rapids Eastern, after the Central Michigan got rid of the line east of Lowell (it went as far as Ionia at one time, but anything east of Lowell is used for equipment storage). After the C&O and GTW got rid of these lines, it was the crossing of the Mid-Michigan and the Central Michigan! We saw some covered hoppers at the King Milling Company along the main street (M-21) in town, and the line appears to still continue north of Lowell, and the ex-GTW line still goes into Grand Rapids.

My reunion was a great time. I got to introduce my grandchildren to their third-cousins (my cousin's grandchildren). And if I thought I could get worn out by watching three grandchildren playing, imagine five of them (all under six) plus a nephew who was a fantastic "big brother" to all of them, dealing with a wading pool and a garden hose! Being on a balcony above most of the action was no assurance of staying dry. And somebody taught Emily how to kink the hose to stop the water flow--and when to let go!

[Deggesty]

CShaveRR

My reunion was a great time. I got to introduce my grandchildren to their third-cousins (my cousin's grandchildren). And if I thought I could get worn out by watching three grandchildren playing, imagine five of them (all under six) plus a nephew who was a fantastic "big brother" to all of them, dealing with a wading pool and a garden hose! Being on a balcony above most of the action was no assurance of staying dry. And somebody taught Emily how to kink the hose to stop the water flow--and when to let go!

Somebody = nephew? Did Emily aim the hose at the balcony? It sounds like great fun.

[tree68]

CShaveRR

And somebody taught Emily how to kink the hose to stop the water flow--and when to let go!

But I'll be nobody got as wet as the folks who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time during one of the firematics competition events Saturday.

The event involves firefighters hooking a highly modified truck with a pump to a hydrant then tripping a target further down the course with a high pressure stream as pumped by the truck.

They start the event with no hoses connected to the truck, then must quickly connect the hose before the water arrives from the pump.  One team missed the connection, but the driver still started pumping, spraying lots of water out the side of the truck.

I was standing fairly close to the older couple and another fellow who got thoroughly soaked by the stream, but didn't get a drop on me.

 

[CShaveRR]

Yes, Johnny, I'm pretty sure it was my nephew who taught her that little trick. Her sister and her third-cousin were having more fun with the valve.

No, she wasn't the one who was squirting up at the balcony. That would also be the nephew, in retaliation for the large bowl-ful of water that was dumped on him by a nephew-in-law (I have only one of those!) when he got within range.

__________________

We're back home today, after buying more material, visiting more relatives, and attempting to shake up northwestern Indiana in search of trains. Saw a few, but never at a useful range. CSX was better at providing them than NS this trip. Nothing around Blue Island or Dolton Junction while we were passing through.

[CNW 6000]

Today was a very interesting day for me.  One of those "game changers" I'll be thinking about for quite some time.  Gotta think about which path to go at the proverbial fork.   Eventually I'll have to figure out whether I'll be 'fishing' or 'cutting bait'...off to ponder...will elaborate more when I can...sorry for the cryptic post!

[CShaveRR]

Well, Dan, I think it was Yogi who said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it! Good luck in whatever you come up with.

Saw an interesting story this morning:

http://www.rtands.com/newsflash/clinton-iowa-celebrates-railport-with-groundbreaking-ceremony.html

It bothers me a little, though. I'm sure it's great and all, but what is a "railport", and what does it do in Clinton's case? Also, does it involve, complement, or interfere with plans for a new bridge over the Mississippi River? I think "railport" is a word that everyone's expected to know the definition of, but which hasn't yet been properly defined.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

And Carl Sandberg who chose the road less traveled, if I'm not mistaken.

As to "railport" - the allusion to "airport" to capitalize on the supposed good vibes of that concept is obvious, I suppose.  Beyond that, wasn't it Lewis Carroll who had a character say in Alice in Wonderland something to the effect that "a word means exactly what I say it means - nothing less and nothing more" ?

EDIT:  'Humpty Dumpty' in Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6. - PDN. 

- Paul North. 

[zardoz]

CShaveRR

Well, Dan, I think it was Yogi who said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it! Good luck in whatever you come up with.

Would that be Yogi Bear or Yogi Berra?

[zugmann]

 Two tracks diverged in a yellow wood. And sorry I could not travel both.  But the one was excepted track and I had hazmat, thus I had to take the track more traveled.

 

Story of my life...

[CShaveRR]

I thought it was Robert Frost, Paul.

And Yogi Berra, of course, Boo-boo, I mean Jim.

Snickers to Zug! I think the track more traveled would be preferred by me all the time!

And, speaking of well-traveled tracks, I'm hearing that the entire Northeast Corridor south of New York City was shut down this morning for a couple of hours due to electrical problems ("low voltage" was mentioned once). Don't know the cause yet. I'm sure this will prompt a Congressional investigation--but no money.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

zugmann

   Two tracks diverged in a yellow wood.

And sorry I could not travel both. 

But the one was excepted track

and I had hazmat,

thus I had to take the track more traveled. 

  You got the start of a gem there, zug - keep working on it. 

Carl - You're probably right on Frost - that's why I couldn't find it when I looked for Sandberg . . .  

And I grinned at your prediction on the Amtrak fiasco this morning.  It will be interesting to learn what it really was - the original problem was apparently remedied within an hour, which is pretty quick - but of course the repercussions will last all day . . .  There was a signal failure a week or so ago, and another power problem too within that time frame, I believe, so there's some 'splainin' to be done here . . .

- Paul North. 

[blhanel]

Did some internet digging and found another piece on the "railport":

http://clintonherald.com/opinion/x2137442612/Railport-ceremony-displays-reality-15-years-in-the-making

It provides alittle more explanation, anyway.

[Deggesty]

Paul_D_North_Jr

Beyond that, wasn't it Lewis Carroll who had a character say in Alice in Wonderland something to the effect that "a word means exactly what I say it means - nothing less and nothing more" ?

EDIT:  'Humpty Dumpty' in Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6. - PDN. 

Yes, Humpty Dumpty may have had much trouble in communicating with other people, especially if he gave words the meanings opposite to those understood by other people.

One such opposite meaning is given to the word "arguable"--which means that you can properly argue about something, yet some people use it with the sense of "inarguable," which means that the matter is plain and clear, and there is no possible argument against it. When either word is used, I have to examine the context carefully so I can know for certain what the writer/speaker means.

[zugmann]

Paul_D_North_Jr

zugmann

   Two tracks diverged in a yellow wood.

And sorry I could not travel both. 

But the one was excepted track

and I had hazmat,

thus I had to take the track more traveled. 

  You got the start of a gem there, zug - keep working on it. 

Carl - You're probably right on Frost - that's why I couldn't find it when I looked for Sandberg . . .  

And I grinned at your prediction on the Amtrak fiasco this morning.  It will be interesting to learn what it really was - the original problem was apparently remedied within an hour, which is pretty quick - but of course the repercussions will last all day . . .  There was a signal failure a week or so ago, and another power problem too within that time frame, I believe, so there's some 'splainin' to be done here . . .

- Paul North. 

 

 

That's OK, I think Robert Frost has turned over in his grave enough for one day. 

 

[CShaveRR]

Thanks for the link, Brian!

I think this doesn't have too much to do with the river link, as the editorial suggests, since it's 'way out in the boonies (sorry, Jeff, Larry, and other "Boonies"!). The location (44th St. South, presumably somewhere near the railroad) is actually nearer to Low Moor than it is to Clinton proper. So this may have more to do with building the crew-change point and a fueling pad there, things we've heard about in the past. This would be in anticipation of an eventual high crossing of the river, which would make the existing crew-change point problematic.

[jeffhergert]

I used mapquest and their spot for 44th St south is where they have been doing some work for a couple of months.  Mostly building culverts for a track connection.  This is east of Low Moor.

From what I understand, the new Low Moor yard is going to be on the west side of town.  I did hear some local Clinton person say something about work being done on the new industrial lead.  So maybe that is the new railport where the construction is going on.

Looking at some of the articles I could find on line, they mention how much potential there is because of the highway, rail and river transport available.  This spot is 2 or 3 miles from the river.  All the hoopla made me think the railport was going to be a spot where loads could transfer from one mode of transport to another.  Going to be hard to transload between rail and barge if that's where they're actually building it.

Carl, you may have retired at the right time.  The Illinois side is being invaded, or maybe infested, by some Iowa guys.  I talked to one of them this morning.  About 20 or 30 borrow out trainmen.  I knew there was a bulletin out, but had heard they were thinking about cancelling it.  The hope was the trainmen would be coming out of the Boone terminal, the largest on the district.  Instead the senior bidders mostly came out of the smaller terminals, in many cases off of yard jobs.  Too much local knowledge temporarily lost.

Still, your probably would've been safe on the hump.  They will probably keep the borrow outs out of the yards and on the road.

Jeff           

[CShaveRR]

jeffhergert

Carl, you may have retired at the right time.  

Congratulations, Jeff! You're the first guy to say that to me! I was sure I'd have to wait until the Labor Day picnic.

Haven't had the opportunity to go back and see how they're getting along without me, but I heard some pretty wild tails about an MYO that the guys got the number of pretty quickly. He'll probably get the lack of respect that it sounds like he deserves.

[Deggesty]

CShaveRR

Haven't had the opportunity to go back and see how they're getting along without me, but I heard some pretty wild tails about an MYO that the guys got the number of pretty quickly. He'll probably get the lack of respect that it sounds like he deserves.

Carl, you may spoken of an MYO before, but I do not remember what this is.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Me neither - since UP has some unusual titles for its mid-level officials . . . "Mid(night ?)-Yard Operator" ?    More likely, "Manager - Yard Operations", what other railroads woudl call a "Yard Master" or YM ?

- Paul North.   

[CShaveRR]

Yes--Manager of Yard Operations. He could also have been an MTO--Manager of Transportation Operations. Either one used to be known as a trainmaster.

The General Yardmasters are, at least when they're considered to be in the management ranks, SYOs. No one knows whether that stands for Supervisor of Yard Operations or pSychotic Young Officers (the older guys know better!).

[CShaveRR]

I don't think I'll be looking for things to do for a while....

I have these files on my dungeon computer, affectionately named the Macasaurus, with great information on the freight cars I've seen (lettering schemes originally applied, who leases them, when and by whom they were built, reletterings and renumberings, and all kinds of other goodies that can't be found in Equipment Registers. There is at least one such file for every reporting mark I've seen over the past, say, 50 years. Some reporting marks, such as those for major leasing company, may have hundreds of separate files.

So?

Well, the Macasaurus holds them on floppy discs in a language that can't be read by modern computers. As things stand, the information is unusable to anyone but me (computer has no printer any more). So I have to translate the files into an interim language on the Macasaurus, ship the translated files on floppies to the laptop, open them, get rid of all of the extraneous junk, and store them. Eventually, a presentable layout will have to be restored, but at least the data will be recognizable.

These are not static files--every time I see something of interest (that used to be about a hundred sightings a day, when I was at work), it has to be incorporated, checked out, and cross-referenced.

Once the files are on this computer, they can be laid out, then stored on CDs. From there, information can be looked up quickly, printed out, sent in e-mails, and whatever else may be helpful. And, better yet, information from outside can be incorporated quickly. If I have the laptop along on one of my train-watching trips, the notes I take need last only until the next lull in the action. And if I have wi-fi available to me, refined files can be quickly sent to someone who needs them.

In the future could come a detailed indexing system (soon as I figure out how to use spreadsheets!), and, just possibly, incorporation of digital photographs.

So if you need me, you know where you'll likely find me (unless I'm somewhere else!).

[zardoz]

CShaveRR

So if you need me, you know where you'll likely find me

Directly above the center of the Earth?

[CShaveRR]

Crawled up today and took a shakedown run out beyond Joliet. Temp was in the upper 80s, and we had to give our car's recently-repaired a/c a test (mechanic wouldn't take our money until he knew we were happy with it!).

We drove up Route 53, past the entrance to the industrial complex that holds Global 4, but didn't venture in. At Braidwood, we stopped for dinner at the Polka-Dot, a definite holdover from the era of Rock and Roll. (The walls in the Men's Room are covered with Marilyn Monroe photos--Pat didn't check out the female counterpart.) We found a couple of songs from my second-cousin-once-removed (Del Shannon) on the jukebox, and a westbound Lincoln Service Amtrak train blew by while we were in there. I twanged the strings on a guitar being held by a life-sized Elvis statue before we left.

On the way home, we observed some positive evidence of Global 4's existence--we went under the CN on Route 53, and the bridge held two trains on it--both intermodal, traveling in opposite directions. Between those and the coal trains UP gives them, this is going to be one busy stretch of railroad pretty quick!

File updating is going very slowly. Haven't found the perfect combination to move them yet. Seems that something that works once doesn't work all the time. Once I get a winner, we may be able to move a lot more quickly.

[CShaveRR]

I thought I'd elaborate a little more on our trip back in time, for anyone who wants to venture out that way. In the area of Gardner, Braidwood, etc., and through Joliet, Illinois Highway 53 is the historic Route 66, and you will find quite a bit of memorabilia or nostalgia there (nostalgia being imported memorabilia). While driving that road (which parallels the old GM&O in a lot of places), we passed up a flivver (restored) that probably couldn't go much faster than it was. At the Polka-Dot, there were a couple of vintage cars and pickups in the lot, courtesy of customers (they drove off after these folks were finished). I couldn't tell you what kinds of cars they were, because the shiny new paint covered any identifying labels.

The funniest thing I saw (Pat missed it) was when a life-sized statue of Betty Boop (probably the most commonly seen character at the Polka-Dot) let out a huge cloud of smoke from her mouth, or close to it! Turns out that the statue was big enough to properly conceal a lady smoking behind it (on a life-sized Betty, that head is gigantic!).

A Route 66 park has been built along the highway north of Joliet, extending for quite a distance toward Crest Hill. It looks like a lot of walking paths. It also looks like the land formerly occupied by U.S. Steel's Joliet Works has been converted into an accessible area of paths and parks. It would appear that some areas adjacent to the former ATSF (and possibly GM&O) tracks would be made more accessible and/or appealing with that development.

[tree68]

Carl - unless the 'old'computer holding the files is too old, you might be able to consider using thumb drives.  Another option would be connecting the two computers via a serial or especially network cable, or even pulling the hard drive out of the old computer and installing it in the new.  There are also adapters available that will let you hook up a hard drive as a USB device. 

I'm not as much of an expert as I'd like to be, but using that last option saved me a ton of work when I got a new computer after the old one died.

[switch7frg]

  Carl, for quite some time I have wondered about lettered trains . They have letters and numbers . Just read your post of the myriad of knowledge you have stored.Would you explain  Q5---  or other lettered/ numbered terms,  X -Z   and symbols. I have seen a lot of these while reading  books and posts. Intensely  interesting to me.

                                        Respectfully,  Cannonball ( Jim)