DougT
Western Thunderer
Can happen to the best of us Mickoo. A three day trip to France earlier this year for some Nez-Cassé action coincided with a two day national strike. I spent a lot of time sitting in the car!
Mickoo's North American Railroad vacations
- Thread starter mickoo
- Start date
DougT
Western Thunderer
Spookily enough, this just appeared In my YouTube feed…Mullan Tunnel smoke. taken on the 23rd Sep possibly. That would be enough to invoke the work safe procedure in this country!!
simond
Western Thunderer
Philosophical question, hopefully related to matter in hand.
It seems to me that the US would be an ideal place to operate motor rail services. Drive on, park up, work, wine, dine & sleep on train, drive off at new location. Big distances, easy loading gauge, compared with crowded airports, expensive parking and rentals, naff motels and drunks in diners. It’s undoubtedly slower but you get to drive your own car/truck/camper rather than a rental, and you possibly save a motel or two.
Did they try it? I don’t recall ever seeing reference to it in my travels.
It seems to me that the US would be an ideal place to operate motor rail services. Drive on, park up, work, wine, dine & sleep on train, drive off at new location. Big distances, easy loading gauge, compared with crowded airports, expensive parking and rentals, naff motels and drunks in diners. It’s undoubtedly slower but you get to drive your own car/truck/camper rather than a rental, and you possibly save a motel or two.
Did they try it? I don’t recall ever seeing reference to it in my travels.
Compton castle
Western Thunderer
Amtrak do operate one service that serves Florida, starts somewhere in the north east.
I think it’s also the longest train by length Amtrak operate.
Edit, between Washington and Orlando
mickoo
Western Thunderer
No, definitely before the 20th Sept as that's when the BNSF signage was erected.
Awesome, that's the last spot I wanted to get to on the first day on the west side, but light faded and trains dropped off, the next few days were rainy and heavily overcast but even then I think the thick black smoke against the white mist would have been a good photo. From about 60 seconds you can hear the traction motor whine, on the east side you can hear that easily 20 minutes before the train arrives.
Have to say, I miss Mullan already, that clip and a few others linked do sound really good, those swing helps at full bore are impressive.
One thing I noted through the north weest is that there are a lot more EMD's up here compared to Transcon2 in Cali and Arizona, they seem to pop up more often on the coal trains and I'd read somewhere that railroads prefer EMD's on heavy block coal trains and sometimes oil trains. It shouldn't make any difference as 14,000t of coal is the same as 14,000t of oil or wheat.
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mickoo
Western Thunderer
No, but if you sit long enough nature does come closer, worst was the rattle snake I nearly stood on in Cajon last time, luckily it was early morning and still cold, plus he was in his burrow so couldn't easily coil up to strike, even so he was only 3! away and I'm sure he'd have bitten me if I'd stood on him.
This time is was mostly small rodents, I did see a very rare black squirrel (too fast for a photo) and a deer did amble out of the forest a few yards away from me but as soon as I lifted my camera he was off.
Squirrel near the old MILW and I-10 bridges.
Chipmunk....I think at Mullan's Pass, no fear at all though I was stood very still next to the switch winter cover rack so he might have thought I was part of that other than a threat.
Also at Mullan's, no idea what it is, flat..ish tail but I'm not sure it's a Beaver and it looks too big for a Gopher.
I saw a couple of Eagles I'm sure and dozens of Ospreys in Columbia Gorge.
Osgood
Western Thunderer
"Also at Mullan's, no idea what it is, flat..ish tail but I'm not sure it's a Beaver and it looks too big for a Gopher."
I'm pretty sure that if you'd stopped the night then the next day the trains would have been at the same time, with the same numbered locomotives, with the same freight cars......
I'm pretty sure that if you'd stopped the night then the next day the trains would have been at the same time, with the same numbered locomotives, with the same freight cars......
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Lancastrian
Western Thunderer
mickoo
Western Thunderer
As Richard has already written, I had the good fortune to join him for a few days at the St Loius HO meet (that I'll cover in my other thread) and some time track side out and about.
I'll be honest, this is not my usual part of the country of location, I dislike the clutter of the typical US overhead utilities and tighter angles forced by the township environment, so it was a new challenge to get something workable (for me).
First up was Centralia, as Richard noted, we arrived as a manifest was trundling through town, we would have caught the front end if it wasn't for a diversion a few miles further back on the road here which cist us several crucial minutes.
That suited me fine as I was after rolling stock photos as well and blitzed a dozen right off the bat. The next real trade was a CN unit, for me a first, never seen a CN on point so that triggered the BSRS (Ball, Stick, Rabbit, Squirrel) mode. One thing not easily sen in Richards views is the monumentally large communications tower in the town.
I wanted that in the shot so opted for the wide cluttered shot. Then followed the 100+ rolling stock images as the consist rolled by.
It wasn't much longer before the loaded coal train rolled out of the north yard and drew to a stand just before the crossing to prevent blocking it, more BSRS mode as I ambled (anything but) up the street for some close ups of the engines and stock.
As is typical in many small American towns, the railroad sits cheek by jowl with the public areas so you can legitimately get really close. The weather was 60% cloud cover and moving reasonably fast so I was bullying the weather gods to get a move on and deliver a sucker hole for my low angle shot with the tower in the backscene, for once it worked, just as the Amtrak train arrived.
For the record it's the 5:08P Illini. https://www.railpassengers.org/site/assets/files/20928/city-of-new-orleans-illini-saluki.pdf
Front end was one of the new Chargers which are phasing out the older Genesis engines, AC drives, light weight and superior traction control means they take off like greyhounds out of the trap.
As soon as he'd come to stand and cleared the double diamonds to the south then the coal train got the go, starting 12-13,000t trains is impressive but standing 10 feet away it even more so. I did get my widey sunny shot with the tower in the background as he throttled up.
There was no time to re position so just snapped away and soaked up the audio and visuals.
I had my new hearing aids in, mainly to stop Richard having to keep repeating himself
and they have a safety feature that limits audio above 100Db to prevent further damage, both were triggered and the pair of engines at near full throttle got the train moving. More coal car photos followed until finally the DPU came by pushing hard.
The time stamps on the photos show that it took nine minutes for the whole train to pass the road crossing.
Time stamps also show that the next train was 20 minutes behind, again another BSRS moment, never coped a NS on lead, better yet a almost new AC motor rebuild, for the record a AC44C6M.
Richard was doing his 'thang' with the video so I took the further shot as it rolled out of the yard and headed south before turning east over the diamonds.
The engineer was friendly and gave a little nod and wave as he rolled by, I like that, better than the finger you sometimes get, in fact most crews over the weekend were very friendly.
Trailing unit was a grubby old Dash 9, the pre Tier exhaust has a lovely crisp bark and no doubt it'll soon be passing through NS shops for a rebuild.
There followed more rolling stock photos and then once gone, we headed back for food.
Overall it's a good place with plenty of parking and quite a few angles to work as the sun swings around, further south is a crossing (Calumet Street) which looks to have good access and line of sight over the double diamonds and another (E 13th Street) a few blocks away where the line then spits again.
Photo count - 280
I'll be honest, this is not my usual part of the country of location, I dislike the clutter of the typical US overhead utilities and tighter angles forced by the township environment, so it was a new challenge to get something workable (for me).
First up was Centralia, as Richard noted, we arrived as a manifest was trundling through town, we would have caught the front end if it wasn't for a diversion a few miles further back on the road here which cist us several crucial minutes.
That suited me fine as I was after rolling stock photos as well and blitzed a dozen right off the bat. The next real trade was a CN unit, for me a first, never seen a CN on point so that triggered the BSRS (Ball, Stick, Rabbit, Squirrel) mode. One thing not easily sen in Richards views is the monumentally large communications tower in the town.
I wanted that in the shot so opted for the wide cluttered shot. Then followed the 100+ rolling stock images as the consist rolled by.
It wasn't much longer before the loaded coal train rolled out of the north yard and drew to a stand just before the crossing to prevent blocking it, more BSRS mode as I ambled (anything but) up the street for some close ups of the engines and stock.
As is typical in many small American towns, the railroad sits cheek by jowl with the public areas so you can legitimately get really close. The weather was 60% cloud cover and moving reasonably fast so I was bullying the weather gods to get a move on and deliver a sucker hole for my low angle shot with the tower in the backscene, for once it worked, just as the Amtrak train arrived.
For the record it's the 5:08P Illini. https://www.railpassengers.org/site/assets/files/20928/city-of-new-orleans-illini-saluki.pdf
Front end was one of the new Chargers which are phasing out the older Genesis engines, AC drives, light weight and superior traction control means they take off like greyhounds out of the trap.
As soon as he'd come to stand and cleared the double diamonds to the south then the coal train got the go, starting 12-13,000t trains is impressive but standing 10 feet away it even more so. I did get my widey sunny shot with the tower in the background as he throttled up.
There was no time to re position so just snapped away and soaked up the audio and visuals.
I had my new hearing aids in, mainly to stop Richard having to keep repeating himself
and they have a safety feature that limits audio above 100Db to prevent further damage, both were triggered and the pair of engines at near full throttle got the train moving. More coal car photos followed until finally the DPU came by pushing hard.The time stamps on the photos show that it took nine minutes for the whole train to pass the road crossing.
Time stamps also show that the next train was 20 minutes behind, again another BSRS moment, never coped a NS on lead, better yet a almost new AC motor rebuild, for the record a AC44C6M.
Richard was doing his 'thang' with the video so I took the further shot as it rolled out of the yard and headed south before turning east over the diamonds.
The engineer was friendly and gave a little nod and wave as he rolled by, I like that, better than the finger you sometimes get, in fact most crews over the weekend were very friendly.
Trailing unit was a grubby old Dash 9, the pre Tier exhaust has a lovely crisp bark and no doubt it'll soon be passing through NS shops for a rebuild.
There followed more rolling stock photos and then once gone, we headed back for food.
Overall it's a good place with plenty of parking and quite a few angles to work as the sun swings around, further south is a crossing (Calumet Street) which looks to have good access and line of sight over the double diamonds and another (E 13th Street) a few blocks away where the line then spits again.
Photo count - 280
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