Richard's American Train Adventures

[richard carr]

After all the excitement of the NS local it was now time to find a NWD train. I drove over to Woodburn but for once there was nothing there at all not even a single boxcar. The next town the line passes through is Antwerp OH, you can keep the railway in view all the time between the two places, but I saw nothing. There were a few hoppers parked up but they looked like the ones that had been there 18 months ago when I last visited Antwerp. The next place is Cecil, this is where a branch goes down to the LaFarge cement works a couple of miles south of the mainline.
There was nothing in Cecil either and no activity at the LaFarge plant. The next place is Defiance, this is where the main yard is and where the locos are normally stored between jobs, but it's now hard to keep the railway in view.
I didn't see anything until I got to Defiance and found myself at the east end of the yard, a GP20 was switching the yard.



Oneof the old Santa Fe units was parked up looking very forlorn, the red GP9 was still there, it did not appear to have moved in months.








There's quite a bit of video of the switching. I then had to do a zoom meeting for an hour and by the time I had finished so had most of the switching.

The plan had always been to explore the NDW in the morning and then head to Leipsic to catch the CSX interchanging cars with NS.
Leipsic is about 40 minutes from Defiance so I headed over there to the crossing.

I had only been there a couple minutes and this came through



This train runs every day through Deshler taking steel slabs to the works in Mid Town OH where they are rolled into steel coil, it then brings the steel coil back to the car plants in Toledo and Detroit, so half the wagons are loaded with steel slabs and the other half are empty coil carriers.

It had old and new gondolas for the coil



So while the steel train was passing this arrived from Bellvue on the NS line



He had to wait for a stack train to head south, then it came across the diamond.



Both locos are running long hood forward I haven't ever seen that before. I had been hoping to see the CSX local but instead I had the NS Bellvue local about to drop off some cars for CSX.

These are the cars to be dropped off for CSX



Those cars have been dropped off and now it's picking up a couple of hopper cars to take back to Bellvue, JB should like this one it's very "arty"



It took a good half hour to do this



Then everything get pushed back over the diamond and the whole train disappears into the Protec factory site.

 

[richard carr]

So here's the first video from last Friday.

 

[richard carr]

So while the coil train went off into the Protec factory another train had arrived from the south and was waiting to pass over the crossing.

This one had a single SD70 MAC





This 1995 hopper car has had a fresh coat of paint.



The train stopped once it was over the crossing so something else was probably heading south to pass it, but by now all the coffee I had drunk in the morning was wanting to escape, but the nearest facilities are at a Marathon gas station on the edge of town. I had to risk it. Driving back into town I saw the crossing lights flashing but it turned out that this train was getting overtaken by a stack train from the south.



This then blocked the crossing



Once it had moved out of the way I could see the coil train had come out of the Protec factory and was now pointing back towards Bellevue
So now it was time to drive over to the other side of town and film the train departing. When I got there I was surprised to see another coil also heading to Bellevue, I just managed to grab a shot of it departing, that's the pusher at the back you can see in the photo



Then 2 minutes later the SD40/GP38 hauled train arrives on the far track.







Now the race was on could I get to Fostoria before both of those trains, again they would be going in a straight line, I would have to go. North/South and East. I saw the SD40 train a few minutes later and then about half way I passed it going through McComb, so I was beginning to think I might lose the race.

 

[richard carr]

I made it, just in time for the first train







There was no sign of the SD40 train but plenty of CSX action, the sun had gone in and it was now feeling like winter

Here's another SD70 MAC leading a train to Toledo



This is a south bound stack train turning right to go to North Baltimore and Deshler



And this is a manifest heading south to Columbus






Finally the SD40 train arrived





So now I headed back to Toledo and met Jim for a curry

 

[richard carr]

Here's the video from Leipsic and Fostoria

Richard

 

[richard carr]

On the Saturday morning I went to a NMRA meeting that Jim had organised, but in the afternoon I headed over to Delta OH. It was a miserable day raining on and off and cold about 7 degrees in the afternoon, so I was keen to find a spot where I could sit in the car and watch what happens.

The main attraction at Delta is the steel works located where the former DT&I crosses the NS mainline, but not on the flat. There is also a large grain elevator with a circular loading track. As it happened a train was loading but there wasn't really a good spot to watch it from.



The 2 locos are over to the right, there are probably about 100 cars. Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere to park up safely and watch.



As I headed back to the steel works I came across this scrap steel train. It appears to be a local from Toledo that runs most days, I had filmed it back in October when it had a GP38 hauling it.



It moved up and past the switch into the steel works and then pushed it's train back into the plant all 38 cars

 

[richard carr]

While all that was going on with the scrap steel train three other trains headed west.



Including this one with lead loco in Tennessee Alabama and Georgia Livery.

Here's the video from the afternoon

 

[richard carr]

Sunday was better day at least for sunshine, but it started off at minus 3 degrees C yuk.

I was going to explore Griffith IN, this used to be a massive junction but some of the line have now gone and everything that is left is CN.

As I understand it the line that are left are the Elgin Joliet and Eastern (The J) which crosses the former GTW with various inter connectors between them. The Erie Lackawana also used to run this too, the route is now a bike trail. There's good parking as it's for the trail head and the main road runs right through the crossing so it's ok to be there.




This train is coming in from the North from Blue Isle on the former GTW it can either cross the J tracks but this one turned off and headed north to Gary presumably to CNs Kirk yard.



This is the bit you can't really see from the crossing the, the line down from Gary also connects east bound onto the GTW lines, this is whata happening with this train.





A DPU in the middle of the train



This is looking back towards Blue Isle



This train is on the GTW and has arrived from the east, I was expecting him to go straight across, but he didn't, he went through all the point work to take the connector on the right edge of the photo.







By the time I realised where he was going I had the video camera setup inthe wrong place and had to run across in front of him. It was surprising how fast he was going at that point.



So this is the train departing along the J's tracks towards Joliet although it could join up with the Illinois central lines and go into the yard at Homewood IL, or it could be going all the way round the J and heading north.
I saw 7 trains in about 2 hours so not bad for a Sunday morning, on top of that there were a couple other trains on the east bound connector between the GTW and the J to Gary, but you can't really see them at all.

I did get a fair bit of video that will follow in a day or 2.

Richard

 

[richard carr]

Here's the video from Griffith.

 

[Dog Star]

More activity than Deshler.

Is it always as good? Is there a railcam?

 

[Brian Daniels]

Griffith Tower webcam care of Steel Highway Railcams. I watch it most days as it has the most interesting loco's going by. Like most places it has a couple of hours dead spell then it goes mad with trains one after the other.

 

[richard carr]

I've been in Tokyo this weekend so here's something a little bit different. Saturday was a miserable day, pouring with rain and high winds, so I didn't get up to much train wise. Sunday though was supposed to be fine with sunny spells and a high of 28degrees 80 Fahrenheit.

The plan was to take a train around the northern part of Tokyo bay to Mount Nokogiri, it's supposed to have great views of Tokyo Bay and even mount fuji on a clear day. There's a cable car to take you to the top.
It's about 2 hours to get to the nearest station of Hama Kanaya, with a change of trains at Kimitsu. I left early and caught the 7;17 from Tokyo station a Sobu line rapid service to Kimitsu. This takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get there and costs 990 yen, about £5.50 at current exchange rates.

Here's the EMU that took me to Kimitsu



This arrived on time and departed back to Tokyo 10 minutes later



Here it is on it's way back to Tokyo, I'm now stood on the opposite platform

A local service had pulled in on the other platform, it was heading to Chiba the main city between here and Tokyo



Then the local from Chiba arrived and terminated at Kimitsu, the local to Chiba has a clear signal and departs shortly







My train on to Hama Kanaya arrives, it turns out to be an express from Shinjuku, the biggest and busiest station in Tokyo, Japan and I think the world.



This has proper seats in a 2+2 format as opposed to the tube style seats down the side of most local/rapid trains in tokyo. The guard came round and I had to pay an extra 1,000 yen to travel on this one.

 

[Ian@StEnochs]

I thought the weeds in the track at Glasgow Central was bad!

 

[richard carr]

On the way to Kimitsu we stopped at Goi and I saw this, it's a phone camera through the train window shot.



So I planned to stp there on the way back.

Beyond Kimitsu the track is single line, with passing loops at each of the stations, it took about 20 minutes to go non stop to Hama Kanaya.



Thats Mount Nokogiri ahead the train passes underneath in a tunnel.




It's a bit of tourist place and 20 people got off the train.



The only problem was the weather, it was blowing a gale and looked like it could pour with rain any moment. You couldn't see the top of the hill.

I walked over to the cable car to find it was closed due to high winds, I did try walking up but the path was too muddy and stony for trainers, you needed a proper pair of hiking boots.







It's probably a busy fishing port but the sea was far too rough to be out there



I headed back to the station for the next train a local back to Kimitsu, they run every hour

 

[Overseer]

On the way to Kimitsu we stopped at Goi and I saw this, it's a phone camera through the train window shot.

That loco looks like it might be a Plymouth diesel dressed up as a steam loco.

 

[richard carr]

That loco looks like it might be a Plymouth diesel dressed up as a steam loco.

I think you might be right, it does look a little odd with no coupling rods. Unfortunately it wasn't tobe seen when I stopped off there on the way back.

 

[Big Train James]

That loco looks like it might be a Plymouth diesel dressed up as a steam loco.

It's operated by the Kominato Railway tourist line. It's a replica of an Orenstein & Koppel steam locomotive, powered by a Volvo diesel. There's a short blurb about it on the linked Wikipedia page.

 

[Stephen]

It's operated by the Kominato Railway tourist line. It's a replica of an Orenstein & Koppel steam locomotive, powered by a Volvo diesel. There's a short blurb about it on the linked Wikipedia page.

They certainly went to town on the detail of the cylinders, had me initially wondering if it was a steam loco to diesel conversion. Presume they could have used genuine steam loco parts in the new build.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[richard carr]

Having spent 2 and half hours in Hama Kanaya, I caught the 12'13 local departure to Kimitsu, changed there onto the waiting Rapid service and got off 3 stops later at Goi to go and take a look at the Kominato Railway.



The majority of their trains use these diesel railcars



Then there are a few others that look even older.



This one backed out of the sidings and moved on tot he platform road, it departed with a few passengers about 10 minutes later



After this I jumped on another local towards Chiba as far as Soga for Keiyo line train back to Tokyo central station

 

[richard carr]

I'm back in the states again, this time on holiday !

I landed on Friday with a friend and we drove to Lafayette Indiana, the plan was to be in Bardstown Kentucky (the Bourbon capital of the world) on saturday evening to ride the dinner train .
So we up early on saturday morning to explore the local area, but the weather wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was really foggy. To the south of the city is the Suburu car factory with 2 yards servicing that and other local freight customers. We eventually found the grade crossing that I had seen on the map, but didn't realise it was a no horn crossing, so this just appeared out of the mist



The train is heading into the photograph, it pulled up blocking the crossing for 10 minutes before pulling forward.
The mist did start to clear, here's a very rusty hopper car



And another one that isn't quite as bad, both will make good subjects for models to be weathered.

After this we moved on Frankfort IN, there's small yard there but nothing was happening.



The remains of the round house (but not round if you ask me) are still there and there's talk of turning it into a museum.
They will have their work cut out to save it.











Then I noticed this thing behind the locos



Apparently it's some kind og MOW locomotive.