I've been hearing how hard-hit northern Illinois was (the Newswire has a story about the Illinois Railway Museum flooding--equipment is okay, thankfully!). We had 0.2 inches here in the Green Valley (that was last night...there were 0.3 inches more earlier in the day). There were some pretty good breezes here--some acquaintances of ours over by the tracks lost a large tree in their front yard; their wrap-around porch broke its fall...I may have to go by there tomorrow and see what else broke.I'm having a busy time with equipment sightings this week. One train in LaGrange Sunday afternoon showed a 300-car block of UTLX tank cars going to Wells Fargo Rail (286 cars left from UTLX 301000-301299, going to WFRX 116214-116499), and large bunch of CNW covered hoppers going to CAI Rail (the 950 cars left in CNW series 490000-490999 are being relettered CAIX, same numbers). In case you can't tell, this is the kind of thing I live for!
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)
BOB WITHORNOnce the proud home of 4 GM divisions and the place that started GM.
I used to see train after train of auto parts headed through Milford, which is on the now-Saginaw sub (former PM). In the 20 minutes it took me to walk to school (uphill, both ways), C&O would fleet three trains through town.
Finally home. Wednesday evening's weather in northern Illinois really screwed things up at O'Hare. We were probably still an hour from take off (but lined up on the taxiway) when the crew discovered a fuel balance problem and we headed back to the gate. Turned out they couldn't fix it, or find another plane, so I left there Thursday AM for Philly, where I got another flight to Syracuse.
They supposedly had cots for us, but I opted to head for my gate instead and try to get some shuteye there. I dozed some, but O'Hare is not a quiet place even at night.
I'm going to sleep well tonight. Even after stopping in a rest area on the way home for a nap...
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...
Afternoon
Ns had an eastbound sand train with 2 cn units and a BCOL cowl unit(4601) between them.Carl you would have loved some of the marks on those cars for sure.We are under a flash flood warning.Might need the boat to go to a party tomorrow night.Matt and I filled out the paperwork for the insurance.($$$$) Glad he is on the honor roll.chores to do tonight.
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").
evening
Happy Canada Day.Ran an errand for nephew and thought we might get washed out again tonight.The rain went south.We still had to go around some high water to get to his place.On the way home there was plenty of law officers watching.Ns had a westbound waiting in the siding at Latty Ohio.Plenty of people were shooting off fireworks on the way home too.Time for bed.
afternoon
Csx was busy this morning.Going to let the swamp dry today.Will get the mower out tomorrow.
Good weekend on the railroad - plenty of riders, for sure. Saturday started out kinda wet (not as wet as further south), but dried out soon enough. Sunday was warm and humid - but liveable.
The folks along and south of the NYS Thruway certainly got hammered. One major road in Utica was closed, with cars afloat, and plenty of other places had water in amounts not usually seen.
Started working on replacing the flagpole. If I get the concrete in early enough Monday, maybe I'll get it done in time to fly the flag for the 4th.
Well, this week started off with a bang..........
Pulled into a truck stop Sunday afternoon, shut truck off, went inside, came back out, turned the key and.....
Click. Starter died........
Got pull-started, drove here to Wintersville, OH, where Schneider has a shop inside the Walmart distribution center, truck is in the shop having the starter changed.
Hopefully, the week will get better............
Randy Vos
"Ever have one of those days where you couldn't hit the ground with your hat??" - Waylon Jennings
"May the Lord take a liking to you and blow you up, real good" - SCTV
Well Csx had some trains today.Found out the y101 is coming back to work the yard here in Defiance.The ND&W 1603 came over and went back across the diamond at FC today too with cars for NS.Mother nature decided to add more water to the swamp.Going to the fireworks tonight.Tomorrow it's a picnic with Matt's cousins.
We'll be more than happy to accomodate some of that surplus water over here.
(recovering nicely from the last two weekends of "Thomas". )
MC
Sorry,people around here are having too much fun driving under the flooded viaducts.(Jefferson and Wayne)
Joe
mudchicken(recovering nicely from the last two weekends of "Thomas". )
I know exactly where you're coming from...
Is anyone else having the annoying habit of this forum loosing the read threads indication. Sometimes all or some of threads read will turn black when read or posted then next time site opened they are back red. Even when last post was by this poster. Tried the all read function and still sometimes same. Note happens randomly for different subject lines.
blue streak 1Is anyone else having the annoying habit of this forum loosing the read threads indication. Sometimes all or some of threads read will turn black when read or posted then next time site opened they are back red. Even when last post was by this poster. Tried the all read function and still sometimes same. Note happens randomly for different subject lines.
Just a quirk of Kalmbach trying to reinvent the forum software wheel on their own rather than using vendors stable forum software.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
JoeKoh MC Sorry,people around here are having too much fun driving under the flooded viaducts.(Jefferson and Wayne) stay safe Joe
CSSHEGEWISCHMuch of Chicago has incredibly poor natural drainage so flooded underpasses are to be expected after severe thunderstorms.
Kinda like Detroit's beloved "ditches," The John Lodge in particular.
The Utica, NY area was very hard hit by a recent series of storms. Significant flooding, including water over the tracks on the CSX "Chicago Line" that held up Amtrak 49 for some 4 hours at Utica.
We're into our second day of no rain. Rejoicing abounds!
Lake Ontario and St Lawrence River levels are going to be touch and go all summer, by the looks of it. About the time the near-record levels look like they're finally going down, Ma Nature tops them off again...
No rain as of yet.The guessers say Friday we will have more storms.Work is busy.Ns was clear when I left work.Still waiting for the "Big Load" to come to the ND&W.Haven't heard anything else about it.Chores to do.
Muggy here in Nw Ohio.Looked like NS had some empties.Work still busy.Finshed off Matt's list for his trip.Other chores to do here.
BOB WITHORN Once again I got wet going to my truck in the rain to get my rain coat so I wouldn't get wet. Just seems I have something backwards. Now the sun is out and I have my jacket hanging in my office and don't need it. Maybe there's a pattern developing here?
Once again I got wet going to my truck in the rain to get my rain coat so I wouldn't get wet. Just seems I have something backwards. Now the sun is out and I have my jacket hanging in my office and don't need it. Maybe there's a pattern developing here?
Gentlemen: Since we are west of you and send you most of our weather - you should be getting no rain no mo' and heat around 95-100. You should dry nicely. Happy summer....
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
We've got a real mess here - some places are getting too much rain, others not that far away are getting too little. Gardens are suffering due to the wetness, as are some crops.
Lake Ontario is the quandry - and thus the St Lawrence River. It doesn't look like they'll be going down any time soon. Some of the rain that hit central NY will actually end up in the big lake. The rest will be going down the Mohawk River to Albany and points south.
Today, it's warm and muggy, with a slight chance of a thunderbumper. We celebrated two days in a row without rain earlier in the week...
work still busy.Will be working tomorrow.Local was uptown when I left work.Matt's church group is going to Newark Valley NY.Hope it's not a lake next week.Chores to do here.
good almost morning
Went to Deshler for the fireworks.Didn't know they had a truck and tractor show going on tonight as well.Csx sent q 365 to turn to go south as the fireworks were going on.Need to sleep fast.Matt starts his trip in 5 hours.
Trip report from yesterday, cobbled from my Facebook post:
I had a marvelous day of train-hunting yesterday. My friend Randi had "bought" a trip from me at last year's church auction, and she and her dad Mike finally made the trip.
I showed them some complicated track work at the Park control point in Elmhurst, then (because of an offhand comment Randi made) took them into Proviso for a quick look at the hump and the diesel ramp (there was an SD70M on the turntable). At the yard we encountered a WEPX coal train, so I explained the concept of rotary couplers to them. After that we went over the Mannheim bridge (Mike had said he'd been impressed by the yard's appearance from up there, so we reprised that for him).
After that we got on 294 to go to Indiana. We had to make some fancy detouring to get around some construction traffic on I-80. I had been planning on saving Pine Junction for the trip home, but I had to time out the lunch right so we went there. Nothing transpired while we were there (that in itself was a surprise), but Randi wanted to see how deep the water in the road under the CN bridge went on the wheels of a truck going through (not as deep as I'd expected, though the dropoff at the beginning of the puddle was scary).
We then drove through Gary to get to the Great Lakes Cafe. The place never fails to impress the guests that go with us! We encountered Cindy (the owner) and Gloria (her granddaughter, six months old) in the parking lot, and encountered the rest of the family inside. Both Mike and Randi commented positively on the appearance of the exterior and interior, and their surprise at finding a place like that in such a remote location. Also encountered was some great food! But that wasn't surprising to me.
From there we took U.S. 12 to Michigan City, seeing one train along NS. At the NIPSCO plant there was a welded-rail train in the yard. We stopped and made a fairly close examination of a couple of cars. I think Randi was impressed by the fact that all of those letters and numbers on the cars mean something (I explained LD LMT, LT WT, and their relationship to each other, we found the build dates, and so on). I couldn't find the markings on the rail that I was used to seeing, but we did note that it was 115-pound rail underneath the train (that's weight per yard, for the uninitiated...catch that, Pat? we deal in yard goods, too!).
From there we went into downtown Michigan City, than headed back out on 11th Street, with the South Shore's main line just to the left of us, running down the middle of the street. No close encounters, darn it...a freight train with one of their SD40s would have blown us away!
Back to Chesterton using U.S. 20, which took us next to Amtrak's 110-mph line into Michigan. Again, sadly, no encounters.
Nothing in Porter, either, but the junction of three lines was impressive to them. Then, back to U.S. 12 for the trip into and through Gary, East Chicago, and Hammond. Mike had commented on how he enjoyed seeing large bridges, so I took them through Hegewisch to see the South Shore's bridge over Torrance Avenue and the old Nickel Plate, telling them about how it had been built just off-site and rolled into place.
From there we went to Dolton Junction, encountering an IHB steel train on the old Panhandle connection (I was hoping it would be the "bottle train" with the huge cars of molten metal, but we weren't that lucky) and a CSX stack train leaving Barr Yard for points east, with BNSF power.
The best part of the trip for encountering trains was at Blue Island, where there were trains on both CSX--including one on former GTW trackage--and IHB, as well as a Metra train going over it all on the old Rock Island. We encountered a few other rail fans there, including a father-and-son duo...the father was indulging his son by being/taking him there, but he'd obviously been learning a thing or two from the son as well. We waited to see a shiny CIT locomotive heading a train west on the IHB (their reaction said that this was a rare unit, probably true since it was an older SD unit).
As we were leaving Blue Island a bit before dinnertime, I thought I'd ask Pat if she'd like to join us for supper at Two Brothers from Italy in Elmhurst. Mike asked his wife as well, and we were also joined by Randi's daughter. Good food, and a couple of trains beforehand. It was about 10 1/2 hours total of exploring for the three of us. I only came back with three pages of notes, but those will require a bit of research, particularly the origin of the welded-rail cars.
I felt good about the day spent with Mike and Randi, both of whom said it was a real eye-opener for them. Thanks to Mike for doing the driving and putting up with some vague and spontaneous navigating on occasion, and to both of them for asking lots of questions.
I'm ready for another trip like this one sometime!
It's always fun sharing what one knows with people who appreciate the learning.
Had some fun with that today on the train. A regular question I pose to our passengers is where the water from the Moose River will be in a week. It usually ends up being a geography lesson (for them, not me). (Answer - in Lake Ontario)
Not a bad day on the railroad overall. Would have liked more passengers, but those we had had fun. Signed off a new trainman today, too.
Mourning the loss of a state trooper not to far from here - the result of a domestic incident to which he was responding. The husband also shot his wife and injured a neighbor before surrendering to the second officer to arrive on scene.
I was on my way home from the railroad and heard the event unfold on the fire radio (ambulances are dispatched by the fire dispatcher). Terrible loss. The trooper left a wife and three kids.
Mother nature filled the swamp again today.Work will be busy for quite awhile now.Ns had a westbound frieght in the siding when I left work.Larry saw that story on the news.More of that going on than I like to hear.Chores to do.
Got the front yard mowed tonight. Maybe if the rain holds off tomorrow I'll take a crack at the back yard...
Headed for one of the area state prisons tomorrow morning - to talk about a group that benefits firefighters with cancer. Presumably they'll let me back out when I'm done.
Another correctional facility in the area made a large donation and challenged the other facilities to match it. We'll see how these guys do...
tree68 Got the front yard mowed tonight. Maybe if the rain holds off tomorrow I'll take a crack at the back yard... Headed for one of the area state prisons tomorrow morning - to talk about a group that benefits firefighters with cancer. Presumably they'll let me back out when I'm done. Another correctional facility in the area made a large donation and challenged the other facilities to match it. We'll see how these guys do...
Johnny
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