Here's hoping Angela's husband recovers well.
I took another trip south...to Horicon(ish). Here's some shots and descriptions below. As always, C & C are welcome.
I decided to take a trip to the Horicon area as the WSOR was supposed to be running their business train. As I now know...that didn't happen. So I decided to make the best of my trip by checking out what presented itself.
In Horicon the WSOR's L595 (former HK) was getting its train ready to depart. Ironically I (from Oshkosh) drove to Horicon and caught the Oshkosh train.
Here they are as seen from Clinton Street.http://flic.kr/p/aFhxaF
As they pulled out of the yard I moved east and caught them near my original intended target.http://flic.kr/p/aFmmg5
Hearing some radio traffic on UP's mainline frequency I headed to Clyman to see what I could find. For now, the only thing here was the LPA-18 getting ready to work the industries at Clyman Junction. They came in light power.http://flic.kr/p/aFmmtQ
After the UP WI dispatcher told the local they had plenty of time on the mainline I headed towards Reeseville on the CP. I wasn't there long and 298 came in with a pair of GEVOs. Call me nuts...but I like them.http://flic.kr/p/aFmmQ3
Shortly after they cleared some MoW activity I heard 282 coming as they announced "SOO 6035 East". I decided to wait and wasn't disappointed.http://flic.kr/p/aFmn8j
After they cleared the MoW, CP's dispatcher told the foreman that he had plenty of time to work with nothing close for a while. I headed back towards Clyman as UP radio traffic was picking back up. It sounded like a meet was shaping up at ROCK and I hoped to catch the participants before and after the meet, respectively.
First came a sand train, UP 7229 East. http://flic.kr/p/aFhyot
Shortly thereafter was coal loads bound for Weston, UP 7265 West.http://flic.kr/p/aFmnDu
After a short break in the action and just before I headed for home NS 8868 East came calling, just south of Beaver Dam.http://flic.kr/p/aFhyXV
So all in all it wasn't a bad day after all.
Dan
Our thoughts today are with Trains Associate Editor Angela Pusztai-Pasternak and her family. Her husband Joe is having GI surgery today (maybe that means an army of skilled people will be working on him! ).
Update, this evening: the surgery has apparently gone well.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
My daughter's two favorite statements while in the car when she was little:
"We're going this way!"
"We're right here!"
(They may have sounded like stating the obvious, but both of them, when she used them, were her way of saying that she knew where she was, or the route that we were traveling. This daughter, when she grew up, became the best travel companion one could ask for. I'm looking forward to next week, when she and her husband come in from California.)
All who wander are not lost. I saw this on a " side door pullman" car in 1999.~~~~ Food for thought.
Jim
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
zugmann Saw on a hopper today: "can you be lost if you have nowhere to go?" ... A gondola has on it: "I got up at 7am for this?"
Saw on a hopper today:
"can you be lost if you have nowhere to go?"
...
A gondola has on it:
"I got up at 7am for this?"
At last! Something on the side of railroad cars worth reading (besides the reporting marks...)
A little humor for the folks waiting at the gates!
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I can sympathize with that one.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
If you have nowhere to go you truly must be lost.
That manifest would have been the one in the long siding; it came out slowly and picked up speed when it was all on the main line.
I saw a CN unit today on an eastbound UP manifest. It was one of five trains seen in about 35 minutes this morning. Two were scoots; two eastbound manifests, and one an eastbound stack train. (UP doesn't run anything through to CN yet, as far as I know.)
This afternoon, we had occasion to be trackside again for about an hour; it was westbound's turn: besides two scoots we had a westbound stacker (routed up Track 3 after the eastbound scoot had cleared him at Elmhurst), and an auto train.
Carl,
The stack train was probably Q199 and the manifest was most likely B786 based on what you're describing. According to my notes...CN has one long "siding" north of Duplainville. It's 13,071' long and I think is called "Quad". Just south of the diamond is the smaller "Waukesha" at 8,617' long.
I neglected to mention that this morning, before Trainfest, we spent about 40 minutes listening to "Wait-Wait Don't Tell Me" while sitting at Duplainville. The CN was cooperative, sending a stack train north followed almost immediately by a manifest train southbound (I'm not familiar with the line; there must be a siding right north of Duplainville, since the crossing has one CN track crossing two CP tracks). The manifest was very interesting...a string of CN ballast cars behind the engine, then blocks in the mixture for potash and molten sulfur. There was a DPU pair midtrain.
I replied on email Carl...
Quentin
James, the CNW 490000-series cars were built for malt service; Anheuser-Busch was the biggest customer for that. I suspect that with them moving away from railroads (and the Manufacturers Railway in particular), a lot of these cars are no longer needed for malt service, and may be having their gravity-pneumatic outlets removed. Mind you, this is just speculation at this point. As of now, UMLER is not showing any such change. These cars are about 17 years old; 967 of the original 1000 cars are still shown in service.
Quentin, no fresh e-mails since this morning for some reason.
Trainfest was quite the show, comparable in size to some of the quilt conventions I've attended with Pat (such as the one that took us to Cincinnati this past spring). Got to meet and greet two fellow Forum members, Dave Nelson and Keith Schmidt, and had a nice talk with Angela, who did provide an autograph for me.
Per tradition, the group photo should be coming soon to a Forum near you. I'm holding the sign; Pat took the picture.
Holy Hannah, man alive!!! Lessons learned recently via an incident:
1. Some 911 dispatchers do NOT know what a railroad is. (Really!)
2. If possible, carry your local RR emergency #s with you or in your phone; don't rely on them being READILY VISIBLE at the crossing. They may be posted but...
3. Even 'emergency' numbers can go to voice mail. I kept dialing back and got someone.
Not too fun of a day, RR-wise but hopefully, it all worked out OK in the end.
Nance-CCABW/LEI
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” --Will Rogers
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right! --unknown
Hi, Carl, I was in Desoto (Missouri) yesterday and saw a bunch of freshly shopped covered hoppers. They had CNW reporting marks in the 490000 series. What would UP be using them for? I saw well weathered covered hoppers with SP and MP reporting marks, too.
James
Carl / Pat...check your email when you get home. More pic's for you.
Greetings, by the way, from Wisconsin. We'll try to show up on time at Trainfest this noon, and may have more to write this evening, from back home, after we've been there.
Maybe I can get a couple of copies of Trains4Kids autographed by the editor...
Only because they couldn't wake 'em up!
Now we'll get the big hue and cry about what could have happened, and why those "rolling bombs" shouldn't be routed through big cities, and on and on...
NYS&W caused a little excitement in Syracuse tonight - they dumped the last two cars of a southbound train right alongside Interstate 81 in the city.
Worse, one car is a propane tanker. Reportedly full.
The derailment occured just far enough south of Syracuse University as to not affect the football game there. Traffic was (and still is) a mess, but the game went on as scheduled.
I-81 is closed through much of the city, and around 60 homes have been evacuated. They let the occupants of a nearby cemetary stay, though...
Evening all! If anyone's going to the Trainfest this weekend...enjoy. I'm saving my "railfan" and "good husband" credits for a chase of the WSOR business train and upcoming deer season.
Meanwhile...I'll share a few pictures from the last few days.
Ballast Train O490 out of Virginia, MN rolls south in the first snow of the season. I wasn't sure what the second hose/wire was above the coupler but someone else commented that it was an electronic connection for opening the bottom doors. I wasn't ready for this guy and had to settle for a little bit of a grab shot. I like it though.
A short while later, M346 puts in an appearance. This time I can get the power in the heavy, wet flakes.
L534 (Green Bay to Neenah turn) runs for home with two GP40s (one GP40R and one GP40-2LW) on the head end.
Hoping to catch one of two southbounds coming towards Neenah I headed a bit north in Neenah...only to get 'hosed' by L534 going north. They block my shot of Q116.
Shortly after those two clear...A416 comes to town with a repainted BCOL Dash 9 leading.
A416 is now ready to reverse directions (it's a push-pull operation) and head home to Green Bay.
Finally, A491 heads north after cooling its heels in the Dixie Siding just south of Neenah.
If anyone wants to see more info...the pictures should be clickable but here's a link to my photostream on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danbraun/with/6335225973/ So yesterday...3 (4 if you count both ways on A416) trains in about 45 minutes. Sorry Jim!
This morning I was lured by the sunshine and warm temperatures to take my homework trackside. That plan worked for about a half hour before the weather conditions changed--I could swear that there was a solid sensation to some of the drizzle that enveloped the three of us (me, the laptop, and the bike). And in those thirty minutes four trains went past on the platform (the one nearest me, an Edgewood coal train, was moving fast enough to move my parked bike until I grabbed it). Another eastbound train was lined up (I love those new signals!) when I left, but I didn't want to soak things I couldn't repair.
Westbound trains were moving very slowly, apparently on each other's blocks. The line had had some signal problems around West Chicago this morning which threw the rush hour into a tizzy, and westbounds were probably still dealing with the repercussions. The eastbounds (an on-time scoot and the coal train) didn't seem to have that problem.
Temperatures have dropped about 20 degrees in the three hours since then, and we have a wind advisory out there.
zardoz Is this new bridge temporary or permanent?
Is this new bridge temporary or permanent?
Curling up with a new book today; it arrived in the mail this afternoon. It's The Lake Line (Central Electric Railfans' Association Bulletin #144), a history of the Grand Rapids, Grand Haven & Muskegon Railway (an interurban line which ran between roughly 1902 and 1934). One of the authors was a biology prof at my old Alma Mater (can I call it that if I didn't graduate from there?), whom I had no idea was a railfan while I was going to school there (I knew of a couple of other railfan professors there, one of whom had also been published in a national historical-society bulletin).
The book is interesting, but in my cursory flip-through I found a mis-identified location in Grand Haven. I'm looking forward to digging deeper into the book on a cool, rainy day (something like tomorrow is supposed to be!).
I'll tell her that Carl, thanks.
The new bridge is in Neenah so that's close enough to make a quick trip.
It was too late to say anything yesterday (after I found out), but a belated happy birthday to Misty (Mrs. CNW6000)!
Neat pictures, Dan! Is that new bridge anywhere in that double-wide CN corridor along U.S. 41 north of you, or is it in town?
I figured I'd pop in and say Hi. It's been a while. I spent most of the day trackside but two of the highlights turned out to be:
1) A new view - Recent construction gave railfans a new overpass to shoot from:http://flic.kr/p/aCv9ug
2) Northbound intermodal Q199 had 10 motors today. Yes, 10. They were:-CN 2224 (ES44DC),-CN 8881 (SD70M-2),-CN 8836 (SD70M-2),-CN 2291 (ES44DC),-CN 2326 (ES44DC),-CN 2285 (ES44DC),-CN 8906 (SD70M-2),-CN 2505 (C44-9WL),-CN 5687 (SD75I),-CN 2204 (C44-9W).http://flic.kr/p/aCvbTZhttp://flic.kr/p/aCvTBa
Sorry Jim!
Some of you probably saw my post regarding Atchison, KS. Here's one of the photos from there that I like. No, this wasn't the elevator that suffered the explosion.http://flic.kr/p/aCuP8hhttp://flic.kr/p/aCuPDd
Thanks for looking. Here's hoping everyone's been doing well. See you around again soon.Dan
On the UP, yellow-over-yellow is Approach Diverging.
You are tested by your employing railroad on the rules for that railroad. If you have operating rights over territories on your railroad employing different signal systems, you're responsible for knowing all of them. If you're working on another railroad, you have to be familiar with their signal system, or get a pilot. In our neck of the woods, they have the CORA book, which shows the signal rules for all of the railroads involved; if you go there, you must know there.
A few years ago, Amtrak's Pere Marquette plowed into the rear of a Norfolk Southern freight train on the south side of Chicago. There was a lot of speculation on how this could have happened, but the most likely scenario is that the engineer misinterpreted a signal that meant something on NS, and something less restrictive on some other railroad.
When somebody (usually a railfan) suggests that all railroads convert to common signal rules everywhere across the country, it is generally (and accurately) noted that training costs and replacement or reconfiguring of signals makes that a prohibitively expensive proposition. I suspect that PTC (which I'm not sure came up in the discussion about this wreck) would help make this a lot less of a problem.
For us, yeller over yeller is "approach slow".
Yellow over red over green also means the same thing.
Or in PRR territory, two sets of a bunch of yellow dots pointing up to the right.
You have to know the signal rules on the territory you are operating over. And yes, if you are unqualified on a certain territory, then you'd need a pilot that hopefully is.
Hi , it's me again, this time studying Signals, which are very unclear to me!
"The yellow over yellow aspect is the one aspect that varies the most in meaning from railroad to railroad. Depending upon the individual RR I have seen it mean Advance Approach, Approach Restricting, or Approach Diverging" quoted .from online resources of "Tales from the Krug"
So, a crew would know exactly what it meant bc they would know what signals mean on their own road? Is this part of the reason a crew would have a pilot when in unfamiliar territory? TIA.
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