Richard's American Train Adventures

[richard carr]

The first stop in Milwaukee was UPs Butler Yard, located by Harley Davidson Avenue.
There have been sightings of a SP/SSW liveried GP60s there, but nothing that I could see, everything was yellow.

So I moved on to Duplainville, about 20 miles west of Milwaukee, where a CN line crosses a CP line and is reportedly fairly busy.
I was driving around looking at potential parking places, more precisely the lack of them and heard a horn, so turned the car around and saw the back of a train going over the crossing, I could follow it along the road and saw it was a CN local, so I carried on chasing trying to get a head of it.

I soon pulled over and grabbed a few shots.



A GP32-2 and a zebra striped GP40 wide cab, it's not really going down hill, it's just me in a hurry to grab anything.



So I jumped back in the car and headed after it again

I reached a town called Sussex, and saw that the train had slowed to a crawl over a crossing, so I managed to get ahead and pulled intoa nice open space to get some more pictures.



That looks like the conductor throwing a switch.



So the train has pulled into the siding, the building on the left behind the trees is some kind of paper distributor, so the train un coupled the three box cars at the back, pulled forward, then went into the spur by the side of the building, pulled out the empty box car in there.
Then pushed back to pick up the 3 it had just uncoupled, pulled forward then backed intot he spur to drop off the 3 loaded cars.

Then came out onto the siding, clear of the spur switch, reset that then pushed back the train. The locos then uncoupled and went to the north end of the siding, a mainline train went by and once it had passed, they then ran round their train. All this in about an hour.



So the train pulls forward leaving the loaded box cars behind



The train backs into the spur

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

9673 is a nice weathering project

 

[richard carr]

The switching continued until they had put the 3 loaded cars into the spur. Then on the mainline a train of autoracks came through with out much warning.







2 SD70s on the train

By now the local had finished the switching and was waiting to run round it's train






I headed back to the crossing in Duplainville to wait for the train

This came through first



Followed by this, a mixed autorack and container train.


with a KCS ACe in the middle



But there was no sign of the local, the time was getting on so I headed off to Madison, the home of the Wisconsin Southern Railroad.

 

[richard carr]

Sadly nothing was happening in Madison, it was 3:15 on a Friday afternoon and like most shortlines, the week was over. But I did see 4 of these come into land

I then set off for La Cross 140 miles away and about 2 and half hours.

Once I got there I got checked into the hotel, I had spotted a couple of CP GP20 ECOs parked up near the yard so I went in search of them





This is the yard office area, the actual sidings are about half a mile further east just before the tracks cross the the BNSF line as they head into their yard. Nothing was happening so I headed back to the hotel and went to bed early

 

[richard carr]

So the plan for Saturday was to spend a bit of time in La Crosse then follow the Mississippi on the east bank as far as Prairie du Chien then move on to Dubuque and end up in Savanna IL.

It all started badly as all exit roads from the hotel were blocked by barriers, so in the end I had managed to drive round one of them and escape.
I then headed to the BNSF yard, but various roads were blocked off too, it turned out to be the La Crosse Marathon.

I made it to the yard and saw this arrive.



There were 2 trains waiting to depart, this one and one on the other side that you can't see



There were also some switchers



Normally you can drive round to the other side of the yard but because of the marathon, that was impossible so I decided to cut my losses and head south.

I needed fuel so stopped on the outskirts of town to fill up.
As I left the gas station a stack train was passing by heading south, I set off in hot pursuit, it was doing 55 mph and I was on a 55mph road struggling to keep up as no one wanted to go very fast at all, then you get to a town where I need to slow down to 35 mph. Finally I got a bit of clear road and got on with it and caught it up and passed it.

I then pulled in to wait for it to come by. It should be on the left hand track with a yellow over green signal ?








On the way I had passed a train on the other track so I was thinking that it was waiting for this to go past and the other yellow signal was for it.
But after 15 minutes nothing had happened so I drove back to near where the other train was parked.



It's a very picturesque spot



But what I hadn't thought about was how a train was going to fill the space when it went by.






Fortunately most BNSF trains have pushers on the back, so you get two trains in one.

 

[richard carr]

I waited half an hour but the parked train wasn't going anywhere, so I carried on south to Prairie Du Chien.
From there I crossed the river and in Marquette I saw a CP GP20 ECO, but it disappeared out of sight before I could get a picture of it. The road then climbs out of the valley and heads across the plateau to the next town and then does the same thing, goes down into the town and then back out again. There was a sign for a scenic overlook so I stopped to take a picture.



Perhaps not as scenic as you might have imagined but it does show the teep valley sides well.

The next stop was Dubuque, this is where the Canadian national arrives from Chicago on the former Illinois central and heads into Iowa.
Nothing appeared to happening so I phoned the Boss, of course that's when a train went by heading over the bridge to the east bank. Fortunately we had almost finished our conversation so I headed off after it, hoping it had turned south, of course it hadn't it had gone north.

So I carried on to Savanna IL, this is where CP crosses the river and heads to Chicago, there's a small yard on the east bank just after the track crosses the BNSF line. Nothing was happening when I arrived, sat nav even ended up taking me down the dirt road by the tracks which is south 6th street apparently.

I got checked in and came back out a while later and found some switching going on.



A KCS ACe and a CP ES44, the track ahead of them curves round onto the bridge over the Mississippi

This one then looks back into the yard










Now they have moved back into the yard the tracks on the right are the BNSF line

and here's a train waiting to cross.





After a little while the BNSF train started over the crossing heading north



then another southbound train arrived too, you can just see it between the trailers and then between the centre DPUs








On the CP tracks a train had just crossed the river.



SO this stack train really got moving very quickly, but then it did have over 25,000 HP on it.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

It all started badly as all exit roads from the hotel were blocked by barriers, so in the end I had managed to drive round one of them and escape.
I then headed to the BNSF yard, but various roads were blocked off too, it turned out to be the La Crosse Marathon.

Sounds like a marathon to get past the marathon.

 

[Overseer]

Sounds like a marathon to get past the marathon.

No, Richard was just finding Marathon Bars.

I do like the GP20 ECOs, great portraits of them too.

 

[richard carr]

So the plan for Sunday was to go to Clinton Iowa to see what UP was upto on a Sunday morning and then make my way slowly back to the airport via Des Plaines hobbies. Clinton was a 30 minute drive south from Savanna, the road follows the BNSF tracks but I saw nothing. Once I got to Clinton I went to a logistics park to see what was there.

This was the way in for the trains



Nothing was happening on a Sunday morning but clearly there was a fair amount of traffic going there.



I then headed back towards the yard and as I neared there I could see a train departing heading east towards the bridge, I set off after it and soon passed it and found a good spot to wait for it, but before it arrived this did off the CP





The train I was chasing was waiting at the signal for this to pass.



But it wasn;t it's turn yet, this came in next



With an ACe and an SD70 in the consist





Then a manifest came in from the east



Then my initial train finally got going






A mid train DPU and a pusher

 

[adrian]

Thanks for posting - some great photos. Whilst I'm never going to model that side of the pond it is interesting to see how they operate.

A a complete ignoramus on the topic of American Railroads I'm curious as to the purpose of the wagons in the last 2 photos - I don't recollect seeing anything like that before. Seem to be half tanker and half hopper, but then the below solebar hopper just seems to be a thin above the track funnel. Then the steps, walkway and "handrail" suggest the operators walking down the side whilst in motion. Are they weed killer wagons or sanding equipment for the pusher? Or something completely different?

 

[Big Train James]

Steel coil cars. The "tanks" are removable covers. The "hoppers" are side sills.

 

[adrian]

Steel coil cars. The "tanks" are removable covers. The "hoppers" are side sills.

Cheers for the info. I can see some of the clues now - although still puzzled why they have the walkways down the side and "handrail".

 

[Big Train James]

The walkways are pretty common on previous generation coil cars like those pictured above. The latest iteration, copied in some form or another by all manufacturers, do not feature the walkways. Like this car, built by Freightcar America (the grey one).



The only possible reason I can come up with is that the newer cars all utilize transverse troughs for coil loading, while the cars in Richard's photos have a longitudinal trough. Maybe there's something about the logistics of loading and securing coils for the two different trough orientations that dictates the use of walkways. That's just a guess.

 

[Osgood]

As the hood is lifted off prior to loading / unloading, the handrails can only be functional when the car is ‘ready to roll’.
If the hood width leaves a walkway on some cars I guess the handrail is for safety in case the walkway Is used with cover on.

I imagine the rail car load deck design eliminates any need for external load restraint of coils, so loading/unloading would not require any human intervention on the rail car at load height (even for the covers that lift off with same coil lifting hook * ) , and given it’s weight I wonder if the hood even has any form of locking - see description and photos on this UP coil car overview:

What Is a Coil Car? | Union Pacific

Take an in-depth look at the rail equipment that transports coiled steel

www.up.com

* Note comparing wagons above the different alignment of lifting eye on cover gives a clue as to the orientation of coils on the car - it is in line with the coils, allowing use of coil hook to lift the cover.