I watch the cam at Bailey Yard in North Platte while watching and listening to the Rochelle cam while I'm working. Just saw a pair of loaded coal trains on the run through, going side by side. And at the same speed right now. both had a pair of engines front and back.
BaltACDThere is still coal moving on the railroads - not at record levels of the past, but still moving in quantities.
Another part of the nature of how coal moves is that single car movements are a thing of the past.
Used to be virtually every town had a coal siding, where several sizes of coal were available. Images of trains from "back in the day" often show individual hoppers, and top views evidence several different sizes of coal.
Thus people aren't as aware that coal is moving at all...
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...
As in Mark Twain's famous quote as it pertains to coal. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
There is still coal moving on the railroads - not at record levels of the past, but still moving in quantities.
Over the years, changes within the railroads have to some degree made it seem like coal is decreasing more than it actually is. In 1990 on CSX most company owned cars were in the 80 ton capacity with steel cars. Train sizes were nominally 90 cars - a train that 2 Dash-8's could handle over most of the railroad without helpers. The trains of today have mostly aluminum constructed hoppers and are loaded to a full 286K (and maybe a little more), the standard train size has become 130 cars hauled by 2 AC engines and in some territories a DPU engine assisting. Each train today hauls signifigantly more tonnage than the trains of 1990, and thus we see fewer trains but more tonnage is hauled.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
cefinkjr AgentKid UP unit coal train EB by at 1444 CST. Merry Christmas to all. Bruce I've seen this train a lot; 100++ cars with two units on the point and another pushing. Saw the WB empties a little later than the EB train you saw and it made me wonder: Is this a turn from somewhere to the west with the same crew passing through Rochelle in both directions or is it really two jobs with different crews?
AgentKid UP unit coal train EB by at 1444 CST. Merry Christmas to all. Bruce
UP unit coal train EB by at 1444 CST.
Merry Christmas to all.
Bruce
I've seen this train a lot; 100++ cars with two units on the point and another pushing. Saw the WB empties a little later than the EB train you saw and it made me wonder: Is this a turn from somewhere to the west with the same crew passing through Rochelle in both directions or is it really two jobs with different crews?
Different trains. There are multiple coal train symbols and their empty counter parts that run this way. Some are almost daily, while others have become intermittant. Coal is still important across this corridor, but nothing like what it used to be.
Jeff
ChuckAllen, TX
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Miningman 2:15 -Entire long train of nothing but boxcars..not a hopper, gon, bulkhead flat,tanker, or double stack anywhere..to be fair long cuts of Cryogenic and Refrigerators among the boxcars but box cars nonetheless. Quite the wall of graffiti. Some folks like the "artwork" but not me. Railroads looked far better before that nonsense took hold.
2:15 -Entire long train of nothing but boxcars..not a hopper, gon, bulkhead flat,tanker, or double stack anywhere..to be fair long cuts of Cryogenic and Refrigerators among the boxcars but box cars nonetheless.
Quite the wall of graffiti.
Some folks like the "artwork" but not me. Railroads looked far better before that nonsense took hold.
Sounds like the "salad shooter" we see along the CSX "Chicago Line" on a regular basis. The "artists" do like those nice white "canvases."
Electroliner 1935 Quote BaltACD Not enough length or tonnage - 20K tons 14K feet and 2 AC units - thats the ticket! Don't have to put out any speed restrictions! While Engineers and Conductors get decent pay, do the railroads really save that much when you consider all the issues involved in getting these huge trains over the road. The costs and delays due to couplers breaking; not having sidings long enough to allow meets; Cutting the train to get it into the yard; and all the other problems. Etc. If the train runs through five crew districts, they save the cost of five crews. If I assume the train crew day costs about $700.00 (Eng 270 + con 220, two days pay plus benefits & overhead) the RR saves $3,500.00 by eliminating a train. The RR's seem to believe the savings are there or they wouldn't be doing it. How many extra long trains make it without issues? Or am I missing something?
Quote BaltACD Not enough length or tonnage - 20K tons 14K feet and 2 AC units - thats the ticket! Don't have to put out any speed restrictions!
While Engineers and Conductors get decent pay, do the railroads really save that much when you consider all the issues involved in getting these huge trains over the road. The costs and delays due to couplers breaking; not having sidings long enough to allow meets; Cutting the train to get it into the yard; and all the other problems. Etc. If the train runs through five crew districts, they save the cost of five crews. If I assume the train crew day costs about $700.00 (Eng 270 + con 220, two days pay plus benefits & overhead) the RR saves $3,500.00 by eliminating a train. The RR's seem to believe the savings are there or they wouldn't be doing it. How many extra long trains make it without issues? Or am I missing something?
They aren't all having trouble, so like the bombing raids against Germany in WW II enough are getting through to make the trouble of the others in the whole a profitable operation.
jeffhergert Miningman 2:15 -Entire long train of nothing but boxcars..not a hopper, gon, bulkhead flat,tanker, or double stack anywhere..to be fair long cuts of Cryogenic and Refrigerators among the boxcars but box cars nonetheless. Quite the wall of graffiti. Some folks like the "artwork" but not me. Railroads looked far better before that nonsense took hold. Probably the fairly new Z train. It was just recently added to the list of speed restricted trains across Iowa when over 6000 ft. and 10000 tons. I guess they were getting tired of it breaking in two, including a couple of wrong end drawbars. Jeff
Probably the fairly new Z train. It was just recently added to the list of speed restricted trains across Iowa when over 6000 ft. and 10000 tons. I guess they were getting tired of it breaking in two, including a couple of wrong end drawbars.
Not enough length or tonnage - 20K tons 14K feet and 2 AC units - thats the ticket! Don't have to put out any speed restrictions!
Thinking it could be this one..
http://www.capitalpress.com/Business/20160906/union-pacific-starts-express-food-trains-in-northwest-california
Have heard dispatchers talking about a ZG3 something, maybe SK, train on Saturdays in the past. Has had at least 100 boxcars when I've seen it before.
cefinkjr JimInCR Rochelle Twilight: Beautiful, Jim. I just opened the web cam page ... just in time to see a WB UP FRED disappearing. I don't think a screen grab of that would have had quite the impact of yours. Thanks for sharing.
JimInCR Rochelle Twilight:
Rochelle Twilight:
Returned to my computer a minute ago just in time to see this scene repeated ... in motion, of course ... on BNSF #1. The lighting and everything was very near the same but it wasn't quite as impressive; I think because, being on #1 instead of #2, the overhead trees weren't lit as well by the headlight.
And now the shovels are out guess the weed burner can't do it all.
cefinkjr Looks like a creative use of a weed-burner as a snow-blower on the UP. NYC had some jet engines - recycled from scrapped aircraft? the jet-assisted RDC? - mounted in old wood cabooses as snow-blowers on steroids. A Diesel unit would push a tank car of fuel and the caboose/snow-blower around a yard blowing out switches. It did a great job, blowing 6' chunks of ice out of the way, but had to have a man on the ground to extinquish burning ties if the operator wasn't real careful.
Looks like a creative use of a weed-burner as a snow-blower on the UP.
NYC had some jet engines - recycled from scrapped aircraft? the jet-assisted RDC? - mounted in old wood cabooses as snow-blowers on steroids. A Diesel unit would push a tank car of fuel and the caboose/snow-blower around a yard blowing out switches. It did a great job, blowing 6' chunks of ice out of the way, but had to have a man on the ground to extinquish burning ties if the operator wasn't real careful.
Shame view isn't better:
I missed twilight today but here are some later images.
Dusk at Rochelle:
A Pass in the Dark:
Enjoy !!!
Jim in Costa Rica
Modeling freelance Northern California late 1930s
Winter railroading always comes down to broom proficiency!
Success! He just cleared the switch into the spur at 1149. That tied up the main track for most of 20 minutes.
I'm not sure when the local came EB over the spur switch and stopped. I saw the trainmen take out his trusty broom and sweep out the points. The rear of three cars was an empty centre beam flat, so I could see the trainmen working the switch through the steelwork of the car. He tried for 10-15 minutes to get the switch to throw, with no success. At 1139 CST the local left heading EB with never having been able to get in to switch the customers.
EDIT: he has returned to try again at 1147.
DeggestySemper Vaporo Deggesty The maintenance workers just had a brief rest--a train of empty flats went by. Some of the flats had a cradle close to each end; most of them were simply flats. It seemed to me that the truck on one end of these was closer to the end of the car than the truck on the other end was. I think those are flats for hauling the towers of electric generating Windmills. I had not noticed the displacement of the trucks, but I did notice the regularity of the flats with cradles and the empty flats on each end. I think the empties are to handle the overhang of the tower segments, since they are longer than the flat they are on. That's what I thought. There were many more plain flats than there were flats with cradles, though.
Deggesty The maintenance workers just had a brief rest--a train of empty flats went by. Some of the flats had a cradle close to each end; most of them were simply flats. It seemed to me that the truck on one end of these was closer to the end of the car than the truck on the other end was. I think those are flats for hauling the towers of electric generating Windmills. I had not noticed the displacement of the trucks, but I did notice the regularity of the flats with cradles and the empty flats on each end. I think the empties are to handle the overhang of the tower segments, since they are longer than the flat they are on.
Deggesty
The maintenance workers just had a brief rest--a train of empty flats went by. Some of the flats had a cradle close to each end; most of them were simply flats. It seemed to me that the truck on one end of these was closer to the end of the car than the truck on the other end was.
I think those are flats for hauling the towers of electric generating Windmills. I had not noticed the displacement of the trucks, but I did notice the regularity of the flats with cradles and the empty flats on each end. I think the empties are to handle the overhang of the tower segments, since they are longer than the flat they are on.
That's what I thought. There were many more plain flats than there were flats with cradles, though.
With a plain flat on each end of a cradle flat, that would be a 2 to 1 ratio. But I think I saw some plain flats that seemed to be shared between two cradle flats. Still there were many more plain ones. I also noticed that some of the plain ones had some sort of box or panel on the side near one end. And others had some sort of "X" tiedown in the middle... I suppose they may have been for the other parts of the towers.
The train I saw was a coupleo of days ago, but I have not seen a loaded train going the other way.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Semper Vaporo Deggesty The maintenance workers just had a brief rest--a train of empty flats went by. Some of the flats had a cradle close to each end; most of them were simply flats. It seemed to me that the truck on one end of these was closer to the end of the car than the truck on the other end was. I think those are flats for hauling the towers of electric generating Windmills. I had not noticed the displacement of the trucks, but I did notice the regularity of the flats with cradles and the empty flats on each end. I think the empties are to handle the overhang of the tower segments, since they are longer than the flat they are on.
Deggesty The maintenance workers just had a brief rest--a train of empty flats went by. Some of the flats had a cradle close to each end; most of them were simply flats. It seemed to me that the truck on one end of these was closer to the end of the car than the truck on the other end was.
Johnny
DeggestyThe maintenance workers just had a brief rest--a train of empty flats went by. Some of the flats had a cradle close to each end; most of them were simply flats. It seemed to me that the truck on one end of these was closer to the end of the car than the truck on the other end was.
Has anyone else noted how the snow quiets the diamonds? Two UP's passing now and the normal bang bang is muted.
anyone else note how much quieter the diamonds are with the snow. Two UP's passing now and little impact noise on the crossing.
Looks like the maintenance crew is using some compressed air or other gas today. Are they blowing snow or ice out of the diamond's flangeways?.
See talk of trains that passed, I saw a BNSF mixed freight with three units pass on the front one of which seemed to be an Alco C420 did I really see this or just a trick?
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