CNW 8575... UP 9087

[rrandb]

My 92 year old grandfather told me" Everyday above ground is a good day. As I only have so many days I shall live each as if it were my last. No man can know the day of his calling". He said that 40 years before he died. He cherished each one. The CNW is gone but the passion you have for it will keep it alive untill the day you die. Some call them fallen flags. Some lost roads. I preffer fallen [angel] 's. They're not dead just gone to that big railroad in the sky.[bow]

[Lord Atmo]

yeah. and UP murdered them because UP is a railroad-hungry monster. i will forever hate them. the upper management at least. thankfully they arent so mean to their crews like i hear CSXT is. good since i may end up working for UP one day. i'd rather it be BNSF.

CNW is dead, but not in my house. i'll make sure of that. but i dont appreciate being told i have mental issues for being a big time fanboy of CNW. i wear my CNW hat proudly

[rrandb]

That's why other like minded individuals like yourself started a historical society. The UP you hate is the(CNW) railroad you love. The UP today could not be what it has become without the CNW as apart of it. The CNW only has died as a seperate entity. It still lives as a part of a bigger whole. It way take some time (years) for you to grasp some of these concepts.The truth is it could no longer stand on it own and UP is whats keeping it alive. Abadoment is the only true death of a railroad. The MILW PCE died like so mant others a horrible death. There is a line in a song that says" Train don't run by here no more. Poor, Poor Pitiful Me.". Trains still run on the CNW rails. They are a different color but they still run.[^]

[Gluefinger]

Quick question: Would those childhood memories be as cherished if the CNW were still around?

[Lord Atmo]

ohhh man...i hate thinking this hard. you do have a point. but it's like... watching the same exact locomotives that you saw a decade ago. that's just special. and i'm upset that i cant do that.

now on the other hand, i may have seen some of their dash 2s and was obviously too young to notice. if i ever see an armour yellow crap machine go by with a bell on its nose, for all i know it COULD have been one i saw as a kid. very interesting. thanks, man.

i'd have a better attitude if i had anything to look forward to, but in the reality of things, railroads will only get worse. and i only wi***here was more i could do to better remember CNW for the great railroad it was. what you say about trains still riding on CNW rails is somewhat false. i havent seen anything go through altoona for a week now. unlike the 90s when there was all kinds of railroad traffic. it's been declining. and i hate it.

buuuut i've happily found my own way to vent my hatred towards UP.


nice to see one of THEIR units patched for once.

[CopCarSS]

QUOTE: none taken. i welcome notifications that i'm flying off the handle. i do it a LOT. since you're sick of it, this will be my final post on it.

Ummmmm....this is a quote from the last page. Did you kind of forget about it? Pent up animosity towards a certain Class I clouding your memory?

I think I can summarize for everyone. Lord Atmo (1) hates the UP unconditionally, (2) loves the CNW conditionally (as long as the units aren't wide cabs), (3) will someday do something to remember the CNW by, but (4) for now is content to ignore the rest of railroading in order that he might dedicate the whole of his energies towards publically stating his case (the inability to relive the halcyon days of his childhood) for Nos. 1 & 2.

There. It's all taken care of. You don't have to post on it anymore.

[Lord Atmo]

i'm vented and will move on now.

so i have questions now:

-how many different ex CNW locomotives are on UP's fleet? patched or not

-is the only way to distigui***hat a fully repainted UP locomotive is ex CNW the bell on the nose?

-where are the crash 9s at now and are they close to Altoona?

[chad thomas]

Dude, You really do need to expand your horizons. There is so much going on in the railroad world and a lot of it is good. There is much more to it then the color of the locomotives.

[Lord Atmo]

oh trust me. i know. all i see is more and more widenose cab locomotives coming out and replacing all the older spartan cab locomotives. which i find not good. at least not from the POV of the railfan. then there's everything being intermodal now. all the cars look exactly the same! where's the fun in watching that? and lastly, there's been a decline in railroad traffic in my city lately. how is that good?

none of the questions i posted above addressed the color of locomotives even. i also ask what good changes are going on?

[Gluefinger]

You're probably just not seeing specific trains because they run at night.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Lord Atmo

i'm vented and will move on now.

so i have questions now:

-how many different ex CNW locomotives are on UP's fleet? patched or not

-is the only way to distigui***hat a fully repainted UP locomotive is ex CNW the bell on the nose?

-where are the crash 9s at now and are they close to Altoona?

1. About 400
2. In some cases, sure. In others, no.One example= CNW's AC4400s had low number boards, while UP's later orders had them high.
3. North Platte and Proviso

PS It's Chicago and North Western.

[Lord Atmo]

huh? i know what CNW means. what do you mean by "it's chicago and north western"?

and thank you. in all honesty, i still do see plenty of mixed freights down by the mississippi on that BNSF line out there. sometimes intermodal. not always though. but i never have seen a BNSF paint locomotive that wasnt a widenose. they have way too many crash 9s

[chad thomas]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Lord Atmo

oh trust me. i know. all i see is more and more widenose cab locomotives coming out and replacing all the older spartan cab locomotives. which i find not good. at least not from the POV of the railfan. then there's everything being intermodal now. all the cars look exactly the same! where's the fun in watching that? and lastly, there's been a decline in railroad traffic in my city lately. how is that good?

none of the questions i posted above addressed the color of locomotives even. i also ask what good changes are going on?

Well I can remember a time when you could watch the UP for days and see nothing but SD40-2s. Now there are many different models running around on the UP. And I don't know about where you live but here in So Cal things have never been busier. SF just upgraded the Needles sub to CTC from DT ABS and is triple tracking Cajon Pass. UP has been adding more 2nd main on the Sunset route. Metrolink is buying more Locos (and cars too I think) and will be expanding service. We are going to be seeing more green goat power here. They just re-opened the SD&IV line through Carrizo george last year and traffic seems to be booming on that line. BNSF just opened a new logistics park in Fontana. They will also be opening another in Victorville soon that will have new track built to it. There is more proposed new track around the country then there has been in a long time (DME to the PRB, a line to the new Mexican port, the two disposal lines in Nevada and Utah, The line to connect Alaska to the lower 48, The reroute of CSX east of NO). PTC traffic controll systems, Chinese steam on the IAIS, Heritage paint jobs, UP 844 is out on the road again, Coast to coast unit refer express trains, so on and so on. There is all kinds of stuff going on these days. And thanks to the internet communication about al the goings on are pretty much real time. We didn't have that kind of real time heads up or contact with other railfans like we do today. And the best thing of all is the ATCS monitor (that I will have up and running soon) so I can see what the dispacher sees and know just when the train is comeing and where (oh boy, I can't wait). And I am not even going to get into the revolution the modeling hobby has gone through in the last 10 years. And I don't know what you mean by every intermodal looks the same. There has never been the variety of intermodal equiptment that we have today.

Like I said before I think you need to expand your horizons. Yea, I miss the SP (my railroad) and some of the other fallen flags, but what can you do? Not much. Either go with the program and accept change or find another hobby that you have more controll over.[;)][8D]

[silicon212]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Lord Atmo

huh? i know what CNW means. what do you mean by "it's chicago and north western"?

I think he's referring to your sig where you have "Northwestern" and not "North Western".

Back on topic: I first grew an interest in railfanning back in '81, when I was 12 and had just moved up to Flagstaff. At the time, the most thrilling scene in my railfanning world was the sight of mixed ATSF BlueBonnet SD40 and SD45 consists thundering across the Transcon, with the sound of their Leslie RS3L horns blaring on. Later, it became SP and the Speed Lettered spartan-cab GP60 units. Now it's UP and their ACe's.

I have a model of SP GP60 #9721 that I built in HO scale back in '92 to remember the SP by. Ironically, the real #9721 remains one of the few unpatched SP units remaining. And, as soon as they become available, a UP SD70Ace will adorn my not-currently-existant HO railroad.

[Lord Atmo]

intermodal is the same thing. a flatcar-esque well car with containers on it. sometimes one, sometimes 2. it's just not fun to watch. So-Cal has a lot going on. but take a trip to Eau Claire, Wisconsin and behold the dead seldom used railroads. these tracks were used heavily in the CNW days. and the trains were extremely long. now i dont see anything. and if i DO see a train, it will likely be a UP geep with 4 or 5 cars.

the only good news i know of is the new shortline we got up here. "Wisconsin Northern". the green is back! :D. unfortunately they only have 2 geeps right now. i hope they grow. i'm always looking for good news about the railroads around here. but sadly there just isnt any at all.

so it's North Western and not Northwestern? the logo on my hat bunched the words together and only capitalized the W

[rrandb]

I've seen BNSF GP60B's cabless boosters in and thru Argintine in K.C., KS... GP's in warbonet but patched. For your entertainment I will post a picture of UP's SD40-2's patched to FEC. The decline in traffic is the result of traffic utilization. So some may live some will go. CNW may have had to alter traffic patterns based on traffic density itself if it was still struggling to stay afloat.[%-)]

[rrandb]

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=15913 Here is a former UP SD40-2 that has been "patched" by the FEC. Keep in mind that these units are not owned by the FEC they are only leased. They may still be owned by UP but are more likely owned by a leasing company. When they arrived (I think?) that the UP name had a black bar thru it and FEC slapped on some numbers. As time became available they were sent to the FEC paint shop( partial not full engine) and they mixed up a batch of FADED UP Armour Yellowed to match the existing paint and patched them with full FEC lettering, real FEC numbers and FEC hearalds. The blue is reflective . These are the first six axel power the FEC has ever had C-C. The E units were A-1-A A-1-A. They have always been an all EMD road.

[fuzzybroken]

FYI... Sometime in the next week or so (seems like a good time to do site maintenance [;)]) I'm going to pare down the number of photos in my CNW 8575 sub-album, so here's your last chance to see all of the photos I took back in... March!!?? Doesn't seem like that long ago...

Anyways, here's the link:
www.fuzzyworld3.com/up01.html#f

[Lord Atmo]

20 or so CNW locomotives still exist today. 8575 was not the last spartan cab CNW. oh not at all. even better, many of the CNWs out there are HIGH HOODS! and not owned by Union Pacific. but other than that, CNW is dead...[:(]

[nordique72]

"the jerks in the upper management (the absolute head of the corporation. CEO, etc. not the crewmembers who actually interact with the trains), who no doubt made the descision to merge with CNW as well as patch their units".

Since my father was one of those who was in UP management at the time of the CNW merger, I find this to be extremely offensive- he was and still is a huge CNW fan.

As an aside you have plenty of action to watch at Altoona still- the UP runs the MSSPR/MPRVP, ZCHEM/ZEMCH, Roseport Sulfur and Fertilizer trains, and reroutes of MDMPR/MPRDM, Oak Creek, Pleasant Prairie and Weston coal empties and loads your way as well as a host of local runs that service the area (MPRIT/MITPR has been running north via Wisconsin Rapids for 13 years now via CN/WC- ever since the Chippewa Falls bridge burned and they consolodated Duluth routes.) Traffic has actually gone up since Union Pacific took over on the Twin Cities line (CNW had done a good job of piddling away a lot of their overhead traffic by 1995 to the TC from Chicago).
Yes it's sad CNW is gone- I am CNW fan too, just remember "hate" is a strong word- and you'd better know who you're directing it at before you use it.

[fuzzybroken]

Very good points. You are right, there wasn't much left of CNW even several years before the merger! CNW's tracks used to almost cover the state, and now... most of them are bike trails! Nice for those of us who enjoy a little self-propelled transportation and/or exercise, but not so nice for the fans or, more importantly, the industries to wait for the train that never comes, all because the railroad chased away business instead of embracing every last carload, no matter how small the profit margin. Somewhere else in this forum is an interesting post about how the railroad discouraged the least-profitable traffic, which then increased the unit costs for the rest of the loads -- a vicious cycle that no doubt contributed to the death of many rail lines.

But now I'm going way too far off on a tangent!!!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: why are they making a CNW heritage Unit?

Easy. UP is trying to cash in on the licensing fee it charges for companies such as Athearn to sell CNW models.

[Lord Atmo]

ah but i did not direct hatred at the wrong people. i said those in upper management who made the choice to merge. not everyone. the people who played a role in helping devour the better railroad. the people who aided in replacing zito/traditional yellow and green with a snoozefest armour yellow and harbor mist grey look (IT DOESNT LOOK GOOD ON SPARTAN CABS, UP!). your father doesnt sound like someone who only cares about money and wanted CNW gone. how could he have been? he was a CCNW fan. therefore i doubt he played a negative role in the choice to devour CNW. so i have no ill feelings towards him. it's hard to find the names of the people i hate in UP. unlike CN, where i know EXACTLY who to rant about. (i'm talking to YOU, Hunter!)

action in altoona? where the heck are you getting this info and whrre the heck ARE these trains? i spent 5 hours there once. NOTHING came through. not one train. if i go around 4:00 AM, i can probably see 2 wayfreights and the roadrailer coming back. a nice find, but that's only a small amount of what you're telling me is there. i need times, dude. and i need a UP locomotive to go by with graffiti on it because unlike other railroad equipment that gets spray painted by local vandals, UP locomotives will look better with some color to them[;)]

the only ex railroad bike trail around here used to be a milwaukee road track. long since abandoned when i was bored, but i do remember the track was there for a few years. i bike it now. goes parallel to an ex CNW track that UP NEVER USES DURING THE DAY! message to all railfans. Eau Claire, Wisconsin is a terrible place to watch trains at. it wasnt in the early 90s but it is now.

R.I.P. Chicago & North Western Railway...[V]

UP cant get THIS locomotive[^]

painting Michael Eby's drawings is a way i find to best vent my anger and frustration. my next heritage DD35A will either be Southern Pacific or a Union Pacific DD35A with more grey and slashed lettering

[zugmann]

Will you please stop your crying about paint?

A railroad is a BUSINESS, not a foamer fantasy. They do what they do to compensate stockholders, not some foamer with a camera.

Enough is enough.

[Lord Atmo]

this thread should have just died. i got back into the swing of things and then ugh... it happened again. i love to rant. feels great. i'm not so mad anymore because as i said before, there are about 20 geeps and other locos in full CNW paint and not owned by UP still out there. there's even a GP7 on display at the illinois transportation musuem. my dream come true!


and here's a positive. should the 3 loco consist ever come to altoon at least. i would LOVE to see the heritage, 8701, and 8646 come to altoona. i saw 3 SD40-2s with bells on their noses the other day. the engineer even dinged the bell when he noticed i was fanning his train. and he took of picture of me with my camera up with his cameraphone. thaqt was a day i fealt as though CNW was back.

but be realistic now. i dont think discussion should continue in this topic. i took things way too far and i'm sorry. 8575 is gone and cant be returned. why continue to post here? i'm gonna make a topic like the conrail one. only for CNW. this topic, like 8575, should be gone too.

[zugmann]

Time marches on....

Change is constant....

There's alot more important things in life than paint.

---just some friendly advice---

[Anonymous]

As time goes on we lose old Paint Scheams, we all have to deal with that and it will always be a fact of Coporations Big and Small. Railroading is a Business NOT a Fantasy and they don't care about what we want they do what they feel is best for there System/Public Relations. Lord Atom, I would strongly advise you to just move on about moaping about Paint and Move on, and enjoy what we were lucky enough to see in previouis years.

[Anonymous]

This isn't a plce to rant. Yes, I'm quite sad that C&NWs are being patched / repainted but do we have to whine about it all the time? sure, I can see for maybe one post, but every post?

[nordique72]

action in altoona? where the heck are you getting this info and whrre the heck ARE these trains? i spent 5 hours there once. NOTHING came through. not one train. if i go around 4:00 AM, i can probably see 2 wayfreights and the roadrailer coming back. a nice find, but that's only a small amount of what you're telling me is there. i need times, dude.

Well- I hate to say it but if you want to see trains at Altoona you'll need a scanner. 6 scheduled trains over 24 hours can spread it pretty thin at times. The trains can show up at any time during the day (especially reroutes off the main line)- the locals are your best bet because they are called at the same times during the day. The Z train eastbound will show up in the early evening as long as it gets out of E. Minneapolis all right- while the westbound does show up early morning. MSSPR is a morning train for the most part- while MPRVP is a night train. But this is all dependant on how quickly a train is expedited out of South St. Paul, Butler or Adams. Railroading the Adams line takes patience, and the block signals are a big help too. When I was there two weeks ago- we had a train right at the depot getting ready to head out....
And as for where I get my information- well I have my ways to get lineups and I'd rather not plaster them all over this board (don't want to get anyone fired) And if you're heartsick for the CNW at Altoona- just look across the street to the 400 Club and smile at the nice CNW E7 they have painted above on their neon marquee.

And as a side note- my dad did have a hand in repainting CNW items to UP- he was in equipment management. So once again- watch who you're badmouthing.

Matt Holman
Spring, TX