Richard's American Train Adventures

[richard carr]

Another very busy weekend in the states. I flew out last Thursday with Mick the Dane in tow, meeting Jim in St Louis for the St Louis RPM Meet (Railway Prototype Modelling) on the Friday and Saturday. We of course also planned to do a fair bit of rail fanning too.

We went to the show on Friday morning, as Jim had warned us it is mainly HO, there were some very nice models on display and a small P48 layout was running, and a very large N scale one.

In the afternoon Mick and I decide to go rail fanning in Centralia IL, here the former Illinois Central mainline (now CN) is crossed by a line from St Louis to Indianapolis.

It was reasonably busy and access is excellent.



We did just miss a train as we arrived, we saw plenty of it's freight cars but no locos. So our first train was this CN southbound manifest.

Then a coal train arrived from the St Louis direction with an ACE on the point





It stopped just before the road crossing to let a northbound Amtrak service pass.





Then the coal train set off, making a great sound as it pulled away. On the back was another ACe



The next train was a NS powered stack train again coming from the St Louis direction








Then it was time to spend an hour driving back to hotel in Collinsville.

Richard

 

[Jordan]

The NS 4836 looks very spiffy - is it quite new, or just happens to have been cleaned recently?

 

[Big Train James]

It's probably a rebuilt unit, converted from DC traction motors to AC. NS is doing those all the time now. So it's probably just newly painted fairly recently.

Just checked the number, it is one of the rebuilt units, an AC44C6M.

 

[Stephen]

It stopped just before the road crossing to let a northbound Amtrak service pass.

View attachment 220069

My OCD is curious to know what the differences between the first and last cars, compared to the middle five.....need to find some amtrack passenger stock gricing websites....

I presume the last coach was a push/pull vehicles?

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Jordan]

It's probably a rebuilt unit, converted from DC traction motors to AC.

Ah - the Prototype for Everything - like converting a model loco from DC to DCC, then... well, almost....

 

[Big Train James]

Stephen,
The last car is a sort of cafe/lounge car. It has a small "cafe" (snacks, convenient microwaved meals) downstairs, while the upstairs is open seating at tables, with windows that curve up into the roof line. It's the modern equivalent of a dome car, or at least the best approximation Amtrak has for such a thing. It's where you would want to sit on a trip through the Rockies, or any similar scenic route.

The first car is probably a sleeper, but I'd have to double check on that. Or it's a dorm/coach or similar mixed use car. The middle five are coaches.

There aren't push/pull arrangements on most Amtrak trains, at least the long haul routes, so no cab car on the rear end. Commuter routes and some regional routes will use them, something like the trains that run from San Diego to Los Angeles for example.

I believe the train in question here is the Cardinal. I believe the consist could be found on the Amtrak website to double check the first csr type. Or a broadside picture would answer it since it should say the car type on the side. At least it used to.

Jim

 

[richard carr]

Saturday we went to the show forst thing in the morning, it was a lot busier than Friday, but by 11 we had done al we needed to and head out to rail fan. I had found 2 locations on Train Orders.com Kirkwood and Eureka. Jim knew Kirkwood as his sister had lived there.
So it took half an hour to get there, we managed to get a good parking spot by the track, and then we waited, and waited and eventually this turned up.



Then we waited some more before we decided to cut out losses and head to Eureka, about 20 minutes down the line, but where both the UP and BSNF passed through a hundred yards apart.

Amtrak arrived soon after us on the UP line



It was zipping through at 80 miles an hour.

Then the waiting began, nothing on either route for almost an hour before we noticed that the BNSF signal had turned to green.

But still nothing, another 40 minutes went by, it was still green, then a bunch of rail fans turned up looking down the UP line. Something was clearly coming, but when I asked they didn't want to tell.

It turned out to be this,



The UP SD70 Ace in SP heritage livery, t also had a DPU




But what we didn't notice was that the BNSF coal train was arriving at the same time, I managed a few grab shots






We had been there more than 2 hours for 3 trains !

The next Amtrak then arrived, so quick we almost missed that one too.



Then shortly after a manifest on the UP line with an SD60 on the point ?



After that with nothing showing on the BNSF line we headed back to St Louis. It turns out that there had been a derailment in the St Louis area that morning and it was delaying trains or leading to them be diverted, so it appears we were just very unlucky that Saturday afternoon.

 

[Big Train James]

Then shortly after a manifest on the UP line with an SD60 on the point ?

Sd70m

 

[Big Train James]

The first car is probably a sleeper, but I'd have to double check on that. Or it's a dorm/coach or similar mixed use car. The middle five are coaches.

The first car is a transition dorm/sleeper car. It has sleeping rooms for crew, plus bathrooms and a lounge area. Sometimes rooms are sold to revenue passengers as well. The "transition" part of the name refers to the lower position of the end door on one end, for access to the locomotive. All other end doors are at the upper level between cars.

Cars 2, 3, 4, and 5 are plain coaches. Car 6 appears to be a coach/baggage, based on the blank gap between windows on the lower level. The last car is a lounge car as previously noted.

I believe the train in question here is the Cardinal. I believe the consist could be found on the Amtrak website to double check the first csr type. Or a broadside picture would answer it since it should say the car type on the side. At least it used to.

The train is probably the City of New Orleans as the Cardinal doesn't pass through Centalia. It's either the City of New Orleans or some sort of regional train to Chicago. However a regional train wouldn't really need a dorm car or a sleeper, so I'm going with City of New Orleans.

Jim

 

[Stephen]

Evening Jim,

Many thanks for the detailed info - interesting reading to say the least!

I’ve started do head down the rabbit hole of American passenger stock now, from a reading perspective…..I’ll keep the modelling perspective in check!

Hope you are keeping well,

cheers!

Stephen

 

[Big Train James]

Hi Stephen,
Thanks, yes I'm doing fine, and I did survive the weekend with Richard and Mickoo without too much trouble. I had a great time at the RPM meet, it has always been productive for me, and I also met a new bunch of cool people. There were many more O scalers there this year than I would have expected. I'm hoping it's a sign of things to come for the future.

I hope you are also doing well,
Jim

 

[richard carr]

The plan for Sunday was to drive to Fort Madison IA, then on to Galesburg, where I would take a train back to Chicago.

It's over 200 miles from Collinsville to Fort Madison so it was a good 3 hour drive to get there, but it was worth it.

Fort Madison is where BNSF Transcon 2 crosses the Mississippi, there is a virtual rail cam there and I have watched that a bit beforehand, it's generally vey busy.

The first train appeared about 5 minutes after we arrived, a double stack with 4 locos on the front.




A few minutes later Amtrak arrived running about 4 hours late due to a diversion following the derailment the day before.



There's Mick taking a selfie !

Then it was just one train after another. The footbridge was a good place to shoot from and a chance to get some roof shots.







You can just make out the locos crossing the bridge as freight cars are still passing by us at the depot.



The upper level on the bridge is for cars, it's $3 to cross cash only ! Thankfully Mick still had some.





Another east bound stack train.

We were only there for 2 and half hours, I lost count of the number of trains we saw, It's certainly a place to go back to another time and explore in more detail. To drive on to Galesburg we drove over the road bridge, the road then follows the railway for several miles, before diverging.

Galesburg is about an hour and a quarter to the east. It's another very busy place, in the hour before my train arrived we saw 4 manifests arrive or depart. I caught the 6:56pm to Chicago which took about 2 and half hours arriving almost 20 minutes early.

 

[richard carr]

Here's the first video from Friday afternoon in Centralia

Richard

 

[James Spooner]

Here's the first video from Friday afternoon in Centralia

Richard

What I find really interesting in that video is the amount of rail deflection as the trains go past. It shows up particularly on the shots with some element of telephoto lens being used and almost gives the impression of the rails being made of rubber. Very instructive for any budding P way engineer using amber trolleys and such like for measuring cant etc.

Nigel

 

[mickoo]

What I find really interesting in that video is the amount of rail deflection as the trains go past. It shows up particularly on the shots with some element of telephoto lens being used and almost gives the impression of the rails being made of rubber. Very instructive for any budding P way engineer using amber trolleys and such like for measuring cant etc.

Nigel

The fact that the engines are 190 (@32t/axle) tons each and each coal car is around 125 (@31t/axle) tons a piece might have something to do with it

Though generally speaking, US Railroads run with a more flexible roadbed where wooden ties and lower speeds are in place, but even top end high speed well maintained roadbeds deflect a bit. It's not unusual to see older slower tracks move an 1" or more as wheels roll by.

 

[richard carr]

So on Friday I picked up another car at 6am from O'Hare and headed off to Kentucky. The plan was to go via Muncie Indiana and to arrive in La Grange Kentucky mid afternoon/ early evening.

It took about 4 hours to get to Muncie but unfortunately not a lot was happening, on one track was a track maintenance vehicle doing something and on the other they were digging up the grade crossing. It could only mean that no trains were imminent, so I continued on to La Grange.

As I'm sure most of you know La Grange is famous because the CSX line runs right through the middle of main street for about 500 yards, there is a webcam if you want to watch but there are not that many trains each day, generally about 6.

I met one of the volunteers at the museum, he checked the webcam and told me that the last train went through at 11am, it was now nearly 5pm !

As I left the museum, I checked the signal, it had changed to now show green over red. I went back to the car expecting it to come by fairly soon.

An hour later still nothing. I decided to head to the B&B and get checked in. I was back half an hour later and still no train.

Fortunately there are 3 restaurants on Main Street, I managed to get a table outside at 119 Main Street, it was far too hot for the locals to sit outside !

Finally at 10 past 8 I heard the horn, someone told me that meant the train was 10 minutes away, it's no horn as it passes through Main street.



Here it is finally poking it's nose round the corner



Every one is rushing to get over the crossing.





I'm parked on the other side of the road.


It took a good 10 minutes to go by.


The food wasn't bad either

 

[mickoo]

Sometimes the longer the wait, the sweeter the result

 

[richard carr]

Here's the video from La Grange and then on to Deshler

 

[richard carr]

So Saturday I was going to meet Jim in Deshler, that's a good 4 hour drive from La Grange on the interstates. The plan was to stop off along the route and hopefully see some trains. There was nothing doing in La Grange at 8am, so I headed off to Glendale Ohio, 90 minutes away.

Glendale is a good location, parking right by the track, signals so you can see if anything is due, a good clear view in both directions, but would there be any trains !

The view north




The view south, with the old depot that has been renovated in the background



A train did arrive after about 30 minutes a northbound CSX manifest, you can see it on the video in the post above.

Once the train had gone by I headed off to Sidney Ohio, I passed a train that was passing under I75 about 10 miles south of Sidney. I found a good place to video it but it took almost an hour to arrive. Again it's in the video above.

I then drove on to Deshler as it was all taking too long, I stopped off in Leipsic a few miles south of Deshler but nothing was doing.

As I arrived at Deshler an eastbound train was turning south, it would be in Leipsic in about 10 minutes !

Again all these trains are in the video above, the first was an east bound coke express.

The next train was this west bound stack train with UP power.




Then train I had seen at Sidney arrived



It was a great consist, A GEVO, an SD70 of some kind another GEVO, then a GP38-3 then a GP38-2 and finally a GP40.

It also had a few interesting freight cars.

A totally clean box car



A totally worn out gondola



A nice clean hour glass auto
rack



2 brand new gondolas

 

[mickoo]

View attachment 220979

It was a great consist, A GEVO, an SD70 of some kind another GEVO, then a GP38-3 then a GP38-2 and finally a GP40.

Technically the lead engine isn't a GEVO though many call all GE wide cabs GEVO's and I've caught myself on occasion doing the same.

GE's GEVO (GE EVO'lution) class is their latest model with upgraded cooling and lean burn to meet higher Tier emission standards, one way to meet Tier standards is to run the engine hotter, thus you need a bigger radiator section.

As a quick diversion, this is exactly what EMD did with the last batches of class 66, they raised the engine core temp and fitted bigger radiators, consequently they were over weight so had to have their fuel tanks reduced in size, it's a quick spotting feature for later Tier class 66 and the shorter range is a bit of a problem. GBRf were sneaky and knew Tier regulations would come into force (as did everyone) but GBRf placed orders before the deadline and then froze them with EMD, taking up on them several years later after the new emission rules came into play.

Back to the US, the third unit is a genuine GEVO, you can see the vastly enlarged rad section and it's angled much more, they also have a bigger fan and a distinctive whine which often carries over the more muted exhaust; personally I think they sound dreadful.

The lead engine is a AC44, this was GE's third rendition on the same basic engine frame; the GEVO heritage is roughly as follows.

Phase I was the Dash 8 - All DC traction.
Phase II was the Dash 9 - All DC traction.
Phase III were the AC44 classes - All AC traction.
Phase IV (GEVO) are the ES series - Back to mixed Ac or DC traction.

Several railroads are 'SLEP'ing older Dash 8's and 9's and sometimes bringing them to a higher Tier rating, there is only so much you can upgrade in the same shell (NS seem to do a lot more with more extensive reworks) but a quick winner is a new rad core and higher temp running, these look like normal Dash 8/9 but you'll see the rad core is much thicker and sticks proud of the casing. Even if the hotter engine doesn't meet Tier regulations it burns leaner so you're saving on fuel and I think they're changing components inside to let them super low idle and possibly hot stop/start when stationary.

I don't think GE use the super low idle anymore, initially they had the low idle that sounded rough, then they appear to have developed the super low idle that sounded like the engine had almost stopped (maybe it was just a lower RPM low idle?) and now they employ the hot stop/start function. So you run in idle, then low idle, then hot stop, previously it would have been idle then low idle or idle and super low idle.

The hot start is impressive, typically 8-12 seconds from warning bell to powering up and moving, Lenwood just outside of Barstow is a good place to see this on DPU's as they shunt trains clear of the yard and then wait for main line clearance before proceeding West.

The second engine is a SD70MAC, a lot of these have been in storage for many years and CSX (and other Railroads) has begun to bring them back on line, rather than invest in new Tier 3 and 4 engines they (and many other Railroads) are opting to refurbish older units; which kind of defeats the legislation of Tier emissions somewhat.

CSX just classifies (internally) them as SD70AC and other railroads classify their rebuilds as SD70MACe, you'll often see the MACe suffix applied (wrongly) to CSX engines. The basic premise is a control system rebuild, revamped cab and better traction control, most of the work is internal.

However, one external spotting feature is the dynamic brake fan module, it's slightly wider and taller than the originals and protrudes above the general roof line as seem in the image.

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