Paul of Covington Wait'll the day you look around and realize that you are THE senior man.
Probably won't happen. Couple guys younger than me hired out before I did. Besides - the way this industry is going, I doubt I'll have a job in 30 years. Or a job that is worth it.
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
afternoon
Ns was clear when I left work.Matt is doing homework.I have chores to do.
stay safe
joe
Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").
Friday Afternoon: Lots of traffic in both directions here. There was a 'low classed' freight that had been waiting at the West Switch to go west towards Wellington and farther West. It was a bunch of very old, very rusty, covered hopper cars, and a mix of other cars.
Right along with them were a couple of brand new MetroLink F125's, seperated by flat cars. I guess I should have been paying mre attention. But I was nodding, while 'The Five' droned on. Wasn't fast enough to get their numbers.
Weather is starting to move in from the South and West. Supposed to be a Wintery Mix til about Monday... Looks like those California Units are going to collect some Kansas and New Mexican Ice and Snow. Hope everyone will be safe and warm.
Paul of Covington Is any one here suffering from paraskavedekatriaphobia?
Is any one here suffering from paraskavedekatriaphobia?
Nah. Funny thing is, yesterday I was fully aware it was the twelfth. It didn't occur to me until this morning when I was running a morning net on the ham radio that I realized today was the thirteenth, and it was also Friday.
Our local paper runs a small feature each day with news from the past. Fifty years ago, the thirteenth was apparently also on Friday.
On top of that, today is the Ides of January....
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've always maintained that Friday the 13th is my lucky day. Today was no different- had a good day at work, followed by a nice evening out where my wife had her wallet returned to her intact. She had lost it on New Year's Eve and assumed that it had been pilfered for the ID stuff. One of our stops that night had been to the same restaurant we went to tonight, but my wife thought that she had it after leaving there. The restaurant's assistant manager found it, but wasn't sure who to contact and had no phone numbers, so he just kept it in his safe, figuring he'd be contacted by someone looking for it. Tonight he remembered us from NYE, and asked if anyone in our party that night had lost it.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Good deal!
Sunday Morning in South Central Kansas... Looks like the Weather Guesser missed on Winter Storm 'Jupiter' around here... So far all we have gotten is cold rain, and this morning ice forming on trees and shrubs..ground was apparently warm enough that ice could not form(?). It seems that the 'weather' has gone towards the East of us, Northeast from Southwest.. You folks UP There, should probably unlimber your snow clearing apparatus.. I guess Joe, and Larry are going to be able to get some snowy photos (?) Stay Safe !
BNSF has been quiet since last midnight, when it took off, and banged every knuckle in the train. Amazing how one Engineer can go through like a whisper, and then one has to bang every pot in the kitchen, doing the same thing?
Matt got some good practice yesterday.The icy mess stayed to our south.He is out with Mamma right now.Csx had a canada theme this morning.Cold and 2 eastbounds,one had CN the other had CP.More mess on the way some guessers say.Matt is off tomorrow for MLK day.Might be a good idea.
Joe
We're not forecast to get any significant precipitation this week. A little rain, a little snow, but nothing major.
Went to the toy train show in Utica today. Spent too much money, but got several good items.
CSX did put on a good show - handled some interchange at the nearby Susquehanna yard and ran lots of trains past the station, besides the usual Amtraks. The overhead bridge was usually crowded.
BOB WITHORN So, now that the root canal is done and I'm starting to thaw, I've begun to recall that the after is worse than the prep & procedure. Guess that smashed face at 9 or 10 is still getting even.
So, now that the root canal is done and I'm starting to thaw, I've begun to recall that the after is worse than the prep & procedure. Guess that smashed face at 9 or 10 is still getting even.
Guess youcan say the 'Weather Guessers' got it wrong...Imagine THAT! It has been rainy and wet here ( 2" in gauge). One Train was Eastbound (Statcker- mostly populated with JBH cans) about.
I wondered why it was so slow (MLK Holliday). Figured it out after lunch. Been a whole herd of Yellow MOW critters running back and forth. Seem to be mostly, 'lining track', and tidying up (?) Probably traffic will pick up tonight ? Stay safe !
Freezing rain here today but the temperature held around 32 so it didn't get too bad. More expected overninght with lower temps. Could be interesting in the morning.
Norm
samfp1943 I wondered why it was so slow (MLK Holliday). Figured it out after lunch. Been a whole herd of Yellow MOW critters running back and forth. Seem to be mostly, 'lining track', and tidying up (?) Probably traffic will pick up tonight ? Stay safe !
MLK is not a holiday for operating trains. Maybe for clerks and such, but not for moving freight.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Still dealing with freight-car famine here...plenty of freight trains, but nothing exciting. I did get a good sighting of a relettered series today (an LW center-beam car) when we had a post radiation lunch along the Racetrack.Friday, however, I took a walk along the tracks in our town (about four miles total, running errands along the way). With the errands I had to run and the stops I made, I was trackside for a little more than an hour. In that time, I saw three scoots and six freights--every last one of them had double-stack cars...nothing new (or relettered) there!I read somewhere that 2016 was the year that trailer and container loadings on railroads outpaced actual (other) freight carloadings for 2016. This in spite of a decrease from 2015--it's just that coal loadings, etc., decreased more steeply. I may get more time for research and fewer new sightings.I got my special Chicago issue today (I had forgotten there was a hobby shop in LaGrange!). It looks pretty good, especially the foldout map and story. The weather has been lousy here, but not disastrous. If our streets were icy this morning, it was pretty well gone by the time I had to get out (about 10:00). But there aren't that many assured dry days in the week ahead. I'm just glad that all of the rain we got today wasn't snow! Temperatures are supposed to be in the 40s for the next week. Just need a little sun up here...please?
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)
good morning
Someone ordered pea soup fog last night.Also Ns needed some power west as I left work.More rain coming today.The swamp is getting full.Off to work I go.
Carl - I don't spend a lot of time trackside when I'm in Utica (CSX Chicago Line), but even based on that, maybe 2 trains out of 10 will be manifests, if that. There's a lot of I/M, tank car unit trains, autorack trains, and we can't forget trash. Don't see much coal on the line.
On the other hand, the local short line recently cleaned out what they had is storage on the old Utica and Black River, so there's some OCPX cylindrical hoppers out there somewhere.
evening
Mother Nature might dry out a couple of days.Ns was clear when I left work.Chores to do.
I'm pretty sure that in the more than two weeks that I've been making the drive for my radiation treatments, I haven't gone in or come out to a clear sky. It's depressing. That and the @#$%&^ stack trains all the time (spent over an hour at Elmhurst yesterday...guess what I saw!).
I'm sympathetic concerning the cloudy skies. I had the day off on Monday and between the icy roads and sidewalks in the morning, the rain in the afternoon and the heavy overcast all day, it was not conducive to getting out and exercising the Canon A-1.
Larry- I saw something Saturday that made me think of you. I pulled over for a funeral procession. It didn't take too long to figure out what was going on. The hearse was followed by 4 police units, 6 firetrucks, a restored 1930's-ish firetruck, and maybe 50 cars. One firetruck was a city unit, the others were from local small towns. Things like that always make me stop and appreciate our firemen, and being in a mostly rural state, our volunteer firemen. Two of my 19 guys at work are volunteer firemen. They end up at a fire call during day about once a week. Our agreement is that we keep them on the clock when they're on a fire call. The arrangement is that if they were called out for something really big, we'd have to rethink whether they would be on the clock the full time. Since I'm the guy that would make that call, I don't see where that would even be an issue. A couple years back, a fire started in a garage of a lady with an in-home daycar. We saw it from our lumber yard. My guys called 911 but went right to the fire, leading 2 adults and 9 small children to a safe haven before the fire trucks got there. I'd hate to think which creek a lot of us would be up without volunteer firemen.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Sounds like a long-time firefighter, possibly both a career man with the city and a volunteer at home.
When I was working (federal) there was a local reg that allowed us up to 40 hours of admin leave a year for fires. I could usually get away, except on weekends when there were only two of us on duty and both had to be there. It's a problem, though, as in many businesses there's no back-up any more, or the business isn't invested in the local community. Used to be a business would close down, if necessary, so the owner could respond to a fire call. You don't see that any more.
Too, the fire department isn't the social center of the community like it used to be, when everyone who was anyone was in the FD. I know of many departments that used to list 100 members that are limping along with less than 20.
I've computed in the past that to put a single engine (pumper) company in service with a 24/7 career-staffed crew would cost over a half-million dollars per year. In many communities, that's many times their current annual budget.
Thanks for your support.
My Nephew is an EMT for the squad.He is putting in alot of hours.Ns had an empty coal train go west and a frieght follow behind it when I left work.Chores to do.Mother nature is sending us more rain.
Today was a better day for train-watching. I think the railroad was going slightly crazy, with lots of the scoots running on the wrong tracks. I hopped on a scoot at Lombard, but--since there was a stack train slowly departing the yard when I got to Elmhurst--decided to stay on until Oak Park. Good move--just before leaving there I caught an eastbound manifest at the station.My train from Oak Park to Elmhurst arrived Oak Park on Track 2 (instead of 3), and stayed on 2 when the third track started again at 25th Avenue. Track 3 was occupied by an auto-rack train. We crossed over to 3 at Park, and I got off at Elmhurst, where the signal at Park was Lunar White for a WEPX coal train, which blew by me with dynamic brakes whining. He used air brakes to help out, but kicked them off shortly, when the speed dropped to 20 or so.After a while (and a westbound auto train), we got another Lunar White on Track 1, and a manifest went into the yard. I was able to harvest a bit of information off this one, including a bunch of cars built as recently as last month.The eastbound scoot at 1:06 (a little late) came in on Track 1 instead of 3, and a stack train (one of only two I saw today) went out on 2, while the westbound scoot was on 3. We also caught an empty EDGX train of coal cars, and an eastbound train of empty auto racks, which gave me a few nearly-new cars to make notes on for checking against my records.The 2:06 inbound scoot came in on Track 3, as it should. But the outbound 2:12 scoot, instead of using Track 3, came in on Track 1. Although there was the headlight of a freight train waiting to leave the yard behind him, I hopped on the scoot. As I did, I saw the home signal on eastbound Track 3 displaying an Approach (that explains why our westbound train wasn't over there!). Before we got out of Elmhurst, the eastbound freight (all frac-sand covered hoppers) met us.I expected that we'd cross over to Track 3 at Grace, and I'd get off the train at Lombard on the proper side. But no, the train stuck to Track 1. By the time I got to the grade crossing to walk toward home, the westbound freight that had been waiting for us at Elmhurst, came through on Track 2. He was moving, and I suspect that he was going to keep the scoot from crossing over at University as well.But that was the show for me. I heard the horn of yet another westbound freight as I was walking home, but never would have made it back to check it out. Besides, I had enough info (four pages on my notepad) to keep myself busy. I finished just now, before typing this, and it's past my bedtime. Tomorrow, we're going to northwestern Indiana to do the dunes (and/or watch trains!). I'm ready for more sightings, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe I'll be lucky enough to find a freight car built in 1/17!
^Unfulfilled expectations = self disptaching (trying to out think the actual Dispatcher)
CShaveRR I think the railroad was going slightly crazy, with lots of the scoots running on the wrong tracks.
Makes you wonder if maybe one "adjustment" led to another, and another.... Next thing you know, nothing is where it belongs.
CShaveRR Tomorrow, we're going to northwestern Indiana to do the dunes (and/or watch trains!). I'm ready for more sightings, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe I'll be lucky enough to find a freight car built in 1/17!
Tomorrow, we're going to northwestern Indiana to do the dunes (and/or watch trains!). I'm ready for more sightings, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that maybe I'll be lucky enough to find a freight car built in 1/17!
MOOKS: Put yer smile on and shake out the welcome mat, Lincoln is about to get about half of Amtrak's headquartered forces from Denver in an attempt to mitigate the stupid cost of living in Denver and to spread out their crew districts.
Today's promised snow failed to materialize, maybe Duncan can play in some on Tuesday.
Sir Chicken: I am doing my happy dance! (Now there's a spectacle) But now wonder where they will put them. Might as well use some of our arena in the dining district - they are all going out of business anyway! Maybe they will turn up the whistles on the Amtrak trains so I can hear them again?
Hug Mr. Fuzzy for me!
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
westbound empty coal train when I left work.Helped buddy get some shelves and stuff for his garage home.Little work tomorrow.Need to do chores here at home.
Brrrrrrr! Posting on the Yahoo Calrailfans group included a picture of the 2+ feet of snow received at the posters Norden cabin over the last 36 hrs, on top of the 4+ feet from last week. Peeking through the gap in the 'snow fence', a BNSF trackage rights train was visible.
By comparison, makes me feel slightly warmer here in rainy, windy SoCal.
EDIT - just discovered that some of these links work outside, we'll see:
Links to my Google Maps ---> Sunset Route overview, SoCal metro, Yuma sub, Gila sub, SR east of Tucson, BNSF Northern Transcon and Southern Transcon *** Why you should support Ukraine! ***
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