Richard's American Train Adventures

[Stephen]

Then I noticed this thing behind the locos

View attachment 242015

Apparently it's some kind og MOW locomotive.

Looks like the person who designed it, also designed the rear end of the MG 4EV!

I started to trawl the internet to find out a bit more about it, and my word what a can of worms that opened......looks like its a highly emotive subject due to who can operate it, and what they can do with it! Whole load of FB arguments were read about Unions, people referring to them 'scab units', bun fights over loss of jobs.....was all 'interesting' reading, but still couldn't find out much the history of the units themselves.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[mickoo]

Wabtec rebuilt Dash 9 (D9-44CW 9553)

It's not a locomotive as such and is mainly driven by a man on the ground with a remote control pack, it's used to shunt stock during possessions.

There is a rudimentary control desk I believe and the only access to that is from the rear end and walk all the way through.

Being as it has no dedicated crew (saving the cost there in during MOW possessions, crews can often be sat for hours doing nothing) they're commonly called Scab power.

 

[richard carr]

After the scab power we got to Bardstown Kentucky (the Bourbon capital of the world) nicely in time to enjoy the dinner train.
A 2 and a half jaunt along a shortline that passes through the Jim Bean distillery. The food was excellent and the wine too. S I'm now taking Emma on the train in August.



To be honest we got there a bit late, the bar in the depot closed as we arrived and boarding started. There's a GP 38-2 on the front and that is a GP15 that will be added to the back of the train once it got going.





I went back on Sunday mroning to have a look, the GP15 had gone but the 38-2 was still there.









So on Sunday we decided to go to Lexington, about an hour away from Bardstown. RJ COrman have one of their larger sites there for the Kentucky Central Line.

You can drive up to the entrance but then there are plenty of signs saying F Off railfans, so we got the message, so we did grab a few shots before we left, starting with another GP15





According to the roster it's a RP23BD whatever that migth be



Another GP38-2

and last on this line 2016, I've no idea what it is, it's not listed on my source.



Then up on the hill with a really step incline to get there an SD40 and caboose.





We then drove around trying to get a good view of the NS line, but you can;t the line passes through the town on high embankments so it's all a bit pointless. So we then decided to head to Georgetown about 10 miles north of lexington.

 

[richard carr]

Georgetown was great, with a very good view down the track so that trains from the south would be working hard coming up the hill.
Now we we just had t hope for some trains, Sunday can be a bit hit and miss.

Fortunately the first one almost caught us by surprise, it was heading south so going down hill and not making a lot of noise, I didn't have time to get the video camera out before this arrived, a trainload of gondaloas.








After that it was a steady stream of trains about one every 30 minutes.
From a video point of view it was an excellent locations as you had a great view from about 30 feet from the tracks.

The next train was a stack train heading north but I was too busy videoing to get any stills



An ACe for the DPU making a right old racket




Then another south bound with DPU





A second north bound stack train, it was getting a move on.



A southbound grain train.




There's a couple of other trains that are only on video.

It was a good day nice weather and a reasonable number of trains, even a friendly policeman.

 

[Jordan or Plymouth Mad]

RJ COrman have one of their larger sites there for the Kentucky Central Line.

You can drive up to the entrance but then there are plenty of signs saying F Off railfans,

That's not very nice of them..!! Mind you a sign that literally said that would make quite a talking point on a layout....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Mind you a sign that literally said that would make quite a talking point on a layout....

It'd have to be at 12'' to the foot scale though... and they still wouldn't get the message

 

[richard carr]

Monday was disappointing, it rained most of the day, every time we stopped it started to rain.
We had to drive to Huntington West Virginia, we went the long way round via Frankfort KY, Williamsburg OH and Sardiner OH.
At Frankfort the RJ Corman kentucky central line passes through the town.


Of course nothing was moving but then they probably only get a couple of trains a day at best



Next it was on to Walton KY, here both the NS and CSX lines pass through only a 100 feet apart at one point. The NS line is the same as the one we saw in Georgetown, the CSX line is from Cincinnati to Louisville. It was raining hard here, s we didn;t stay too long but still saw 4 trains.

This was the first one, as usual just as we arrived, heading south



20 minutes later one heading north



Then it started to rain, we did see one CSX heading to Louisville which I managed to video.

We then drove to Williamsburg looking for the Cincinnati Eastern Railroad, but it was no where to be seen that afternoon, so we moved on to Sardinia, where they keep a few old locos.

This one has been heavily used for spares






I'm not sure what's happening with these 2 but a few weeks back they were running one that looked a bit like the green one.



It started raining again so we drove on to Huntington about 2 and a half hours away. It was still raining when we got there at 5:30pm, another day over.

 

[richard carr]

Tuesday was a much better day, the sun was appearing now and again and it was nice and warm. We set off to explore Huntington, CSX has one of their loco rebuilding facilities here, but I was amazed at how many dead locos were lined up waiting to get fixed.



There are 30 locos in that line, and it's more than 1 deep

And then all these in the other direction





The first train arrived not long after we found a spot on 22nd street to see all this.




Then a road railer went by



A green signal appeared



But 15 minutes later there was still no train

Then the locos on the very right appeared making a yard move. Notice the blonde figure to the left going across all the tracks



Then the train finally arrived, it was huge train of empty hoppers, I started counting from what I thought was the middle of the train and still got 120 cars, there must have been 200 plus in total



It all went quiet so we headed to Kenova, about 6 miles further west along the river. Here the CSX main is crossed by the Norfolk SOuthern on a high bridge as it comes in from crossing the Ohio river. There are also terminals by the river served by NS.

The first things over the bridge were this and another road railer



Then a local arrived from the north side of the Ohio river





He turned left at the end of the bridge and went into the NS yard



Next we got this, it's an NS heritage unit a GE ES44AC



Then 2 locos appeared that were going down to the riverside terminal



They disappeared for about 30 minutes before returning with 104 empty hoppers, you can see the hoppers in the distance from where we were.





This train then went across all the CSX lines and climbed up the hillside to join the line that the other train of hoppers had used to access the bridge, unfortunately this is all hidden by trees.

Apparently I have now hit the limit for the number of files I can attach.

 

[Dog Star]

Judging solely by his you tub channel you might have seen Jawtooth and Giblet(?).

 

[76043]

Some pictures on this page of the US army going to Washington by train.
Tony

Trump military parade: What to expect from US Army celebrations - BBC News

The US military is rolling into Washington DC for a rare public display of strength to celebrate the army’s 250th anniversary. What can we expect to see and will there be protests?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[mickoo]

Then the train finally arrived, it was huge train of empty hoppers, I started counting from what I thought was the middle of the train and still got 120 cars, there must have been 200 plus in total

Combining empties is quite common, I've seen MRL do it a couple of times and UP, the problem then becomes one of length and getting them in the 'hole' if need be, not a problem on predominantly double track lines, but places with a lot of single track need some planning.

I understand the typical coal train length is 120 cars and is usually defined by the loading and unloading facilities which have set loop lengths, coal will be one of two traffic flows, export of domestic power generation and follow two types of car, Bethgon (rotary unloaders) or floods (typically fixed couplings but I've seen floods with rotary couplings as well).

On Transcon 1 in the PNW (typically) rotaries are for export coal, floods are domestic power stations I believe.

 

[richard carr]

So after Kenova we had a 307 mile drive to Youngstown OH, which took about 5 hours along a very scenic interstate.

The first thing we did was to go to New Castle Pennsylvania, to see if anything was happening on the New Castle industrial railroad.
We came across this just after we arrived.







It took those 4 hoppers off, then returned a few minutes later and removed a gondola, then disappeared in the opposite direction.

We did see it from an over bridge an hour or so later, but unfortunately we couldn't find a way to access it to photograph it.
I did manage to video it getting the gondola.

We found this one about a mile away, but it was just parked there.






A heritage group is looking after this signal tower.

The main CSX yard is just a short distance away but unfortunately we couldn't find anywhere to view it from and from the sound of things (ie no sound) not a lot was happening, so we headed back to Youngstown and went to the Centre Street Bridge.




This is where CSX and NS cross, nothing much was happening here either.

 

[Mike Walker]

Hi Richard,

R J Corman 2016 and 2017 are both products of RailPower which was a subsidiary of Corman and were built on early GP platforms with Cummins QSK60 Tier 4 compliant low-emission engines designated RP20BD and RP23BD respectively reflecting them being 2000 and 2300 hp.
There's a good description at Cummins & R.J. Corman Railpower Partner to Create Eco-Friendly Locomotive .

2011 is a former SD45 not a SD40 but is only a shell exhibited at Lexington.

Mike

 

[richard carr]

After this we went north to Brier Hill to where the steel pipe factory is. It's a huge plant. The local short line is the Ohio Central Railroad a Genesee and Wyoming line. We caught them propelling this hopper car. It turned out they were returning to their base and parking up for the day.





A GP38-2


and a GP11







We then heard another train horn and assumed it was on the line on the other side of the plant and headed over there, only to see another train of hopper cars arrive here. A quick turnaround and we got back just in time to grab a few photos as it headed north.

 

[richard carr]

We then set off after this train and at the end of the plant about 3 miles further on we caught up with it.



We assumed it was going to continue north and drove another 4 miles up the line, found a nice spot and waited for it, but it never turned up. It's possible it might have turned off but who knows, we didn't see it again.

We then went off to find the CSX mainline, we saw one train go by and then decided it time to go and find a cold beer.

 

[Alan]

Seems sensible.

 

[richard carr]

Here's the first 2 videos, from Georgetown KY and then Huntington/Kenova West virginia

 

[richard carr]

Thursday morning we headed out to have a look at the NS yard at Hazelton, a couple miles south of the city centre.

We found a SD40 E switching in the yard assisted by 2 other locos.







They all went down to the other end of the yard so we moved on. There was nothing to see on the Ohio Central so we headed to Ashtabula, a port on Lake Erie to the north east of Cleveland.

The main line through here is CSX and to the west of the diamond is a small yard



The diamond, the furthest crossing has a significant dip in it, I'm surprised things stayed on the track



A rubbish train came in from the east






Once it has gone by the local came out of the yard.



At this point a CSX pickup arrived and asked what we were doing, and then politely asked us to leave, so we did, there were 4 of them and only 2 of us.

We headed off after the local, it was pretty obvious where it had gone.



10 minutes later and we've found them. The loco has run round it's train and heads off into the siding complex and leaves the 2 hopper cars and in the above photo and brings back 2 others.



It then heads off back to the yard. I did manage to capture quite a bit if this on video.

David wanted to go and see a covered bridge nearby, but driving over there we got stopped at a crossing to let 2 trains go by.

This one was heading east




After visiting the bridge, it was time to head to Cleveland to pick up Robin who was flying in for the weekends steam activities.
Fortunately the train tracks are right by the airport so we managed to watch trains at Berea for an hour before Robin's plane landed.



This one looks familiar, it's the rubbish train from the morning, having moved on about 80 miles in 5 hours.

The nice thing about Berea is that the NS and CSX lines come together and you can move from one to the other.
Here's an NS stack train passing through.




The airport is a 10 minute drive from here, so once we knew Robin had landed and was waiting for his bag, we headed over there.
10 minutes later we had Robin and were on our way to Toledo.

 

[simond]

Why are “rail fans” so unwelcome? Were you on private land?

 

[Jordan or Plymouth Mad]

This photo is getting very close to qualifying for that "When the Real Thing looks like a Model" Thread on RMweb...



Of course, no serious modeller would lay such bad track.....