Richard's American Train Adventures

[richard carr]

How will that work in the UK, Richard? I thought US wireless throttles are 'illegal' here due to the radio frequencies they use?

It uses WiFi to communicate with my digitrax system, so you need to buy a digitrax WiFi board.

As I understand it the restrictions on those frequencies have been removed not that anything is going to escape my shed it's a very effective Faraday cage.

Richard

 

[Scale7JB]

Only last week I was looking at how to program those controllers (as I would like one eventually) and they don’t look too bad to me. I’m sure once you have done one, the rest will be pretty easy.

JB.

 

[Brian McKenzie]

. . . that was where the train was going to cross the Mississippi. Thebes was the Southern Pacific crossing of the Mississippi.

View attachment 244702

and here it is going over the river.

View attachment 244703

That bridge over the Mississippi is impressive. I'm curious about the constructional details of the piers. Presumably they are just stone faced?
-Brian McK.

 

[richard carr]

Here's the latest video, it's the last one from the trip in June, but has lots of good stuff on it.

I can;t believe the people driving round the crossing gates right in front of a slowly moving train at about 25:30 into the video it's the final clip

 

[Big Train James]

That bridge over the Mississippi is impressive. I'm curious about the constructional details of the piers. Presumably they are just stone faced?
-Brian McK.

I'm not 100% positive, but I imagine those particular piers are all stone. I can't imagine why they would do the stone as a veneer, and the piers don't seem wide enough to have an earthen filled center. None of that's surprising, I think most piers in this application would either be stone or concrete.

What I find interesting is the stone arch approach at the far end. I would have expected that to be a series of steel girder spans on steel bents.

Here's a link to some interesting information about the bridge, including the fact that I'm wrong and the piers are indeed a stone veneer backed with concrete. Tsk, tsk. Apparently the concrete approaches are somewhat historically significant as well.

 

[JasonD]

Oh no Here's a link to some interesting information about the bridge I clicked on BTJ's link. Ah well, I needed another mug or two of tea.
Jason

 

[76043]

Bowstring Bridge (Braunstone Gate Bridge) - HistoricBridges.org

Historic Truss Bridge in Leicester East Midlands, England. Despite widespread public support and feasibility of preservation, this unique and beautiful historic bridge was demolished.

historicbridges.org

That's a rabbit hole that keeps on giving....
Tony

 

[Brian Daniels]

Thought that bridge looked familiar, went there on 30-04-04 and got this lot crossing it, UP 1859+HLCX 6818+CSX 8644+NS xxxx+NS xxxx

 

[Mike Walker]

A couple of Cotton Belt Class L-1 4-8-4 819 running onto the Mississippi River bridge at Thebes IL with an excursion from Pine Bluff to St. Louis in connection with the NRHS annual convention on 13 June 1990 and dwarfed not just by the bridge but by the barges moving upstream.

 

[Brian Daniels]

Can't see the approach spans with tree growth in my shot.

 

[richard carr]

So after Thebes we drove on to Cairo. It is seriously run down, even KFC had closed, there is though a nice park at the confluence of the two rivers





This ones heading up the Mississippi




This is the Ohio river, one of the bridges is the railway bridge, it's the one furthest away but hard to tell in this photo.



After this we continued onto Memphis another 3 hours further south.

 

[Scale7JB]

What, no KFC?!

 

[richard carr]

Yes JB no KFC !

Here's the first video from my earlier weekend in July, this cover the UP mainline between Sterling IL and Clinton IA.

Richard

 

[richard carr]

It had been pretty hot in St Louis but Memphis was even hotter and stickier we were definitely in the South now.
We were staying at the Peabody Hotel, this is famous for it's Duck Parade, twice daily at 11am and 5pm. This apparently dates back to 1933 when 2 drunken hunters decided to release their live decoy ducks into the lobby fountain.

So here's the Duck Master with his ducks !



The ducks jumped in the fountain and swam around and ate the food for the next 30 minutes



All the kids loved it and we had a nice cocktail to get the day going.

We then went to explore the riverside, there are train tracks close to the river, one appears to be for some local trains that were not running and one is Canadian National.



I never saw a single train use these tracks but they looked reasonably shiny.

The nearest of these 2 bridges is the train bridge for UP, BNSF and NS.
The far one is the road bridge.




We did a bit of exploring but not a lot was going on and it was just getting hotter.

Beale street is supposed to be the main attraction but nothing happens on a Monday lunchtime in July



After lunch we had a bit more of a wander around, the court house area has some nice buildings





The fire department were out and about



It did appear to be a false alarm.

Emma then went off for a foot massage while I headed off down the river to the railway bridge




That's a stack train passing over.

It turns out you can walk over the bridge







I then found a decent spot to watch trains.



All the signals were on red of course and it turned out that those locos were the pushers as the NS train departed.



Finally there was a green signal and another train came over the bridge.





and a pusher on the back, oh dear I've hit the file limit, I'll put it on the next one.

 

[richard carr]

Here's the pusher






By now I was suffering from heat exhaustion, and I couldn't face the 3 mile walk back to the hotel, so it was Uber to the rescue for a nice freezing cold beer and a big bottle of water.

 

[Jordan or Plymouth Mad]

What, no KFC?!

There's one just a few hundred yards from my house. They can have that one if they like.
Not only does the stink of the cooking oil drift our way if the wind is wrong, it replaced a perfectly good old Victorian pub....

 

[richard carr]

Here's the next video


This is the CP GP20 Eco taking cars to the Davenport INdustrial Railroad.

 

[Stephen]

This is the CP GP20 Eco

Hopefully the GP20 will keep that livery for a bit longer, shouldn’t really get sentimental about CP locos, but the new merger livery hasn’t grown on me just yet…

Thanks for sharing the video - good to see some industrial action.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[mickoo]

Hopefully the GP20 will keep that livery for a bit longer, shouldn’t really get sentimental about CP locos, but the new merger livery hasn’t grown on me just yet…

Thanks for sharing the video - good to see some industrial action.

Cheers,

Stephen

I know what you mean, I was never a fan of the original CP scheme but it's okay with the big golden beaver motif, it's the red which is a bright candy red when new. However, after a few years it tends to dull down and take on a much darker hue and I find that rather appealing.

 

[mickoo]

It had been pretty hot in St Louis but Memphis was even hotter and stickier we were definitely in the South now.
We were staying at the Peabody Hotel, this is famous for it's Duck Parade, twice daily at 11am and 5pm. This apparently dates back to 1933 when 2 drunken hunters decided to release their live decoy ducks into the lobby fountain.

So here's the Duck Master with his ducks !

View attachment 245213

The ducks jumped in the fountain and swam around and ate the food for the next 30 minutes

View attachment 245214

All the kids loved it and we had a nice cocktail to get the day going.

We then went to explore the riverside, there are train tracks close to the river, one appears to be for some local trains that were not running and one is Canadian National.

View attachment 245215

I never saw a single train use these tracks but they looked reasonably shiny.

The nearest of these 2 bridges is the train bridge for UP, BNSF and NS.
The far one is the road bridge.

View attachment 245216


We did a bit of exploring but not a lot was going on and it was just getting hotter.

Beale street is supposed to be the main attraction but nothing happens on a Monday lunchtime in July

View attachment 245217

After lunch we had a bit more of a wander around, the court house area has some nice buildings

View attachment 245218

View attachment 245219

The fire department were out and about

View attachment 245220

It did appear to be a false alarm.

Emma then went off for a foot massage while I headed off down the river to the railway bridge


View attachment 245221

That's a stack train passing over.

It turns out you can walk over the bridge

View attachment 245222

View attachment 245223

View attachment 245224

I then found a decent spot to watch trains.

View attachment 245225

All the signals were on red of course and it turned out that those locos were the pushers as the NS train departed.

View attachment 245226

Finally there was a green signal and another train came over the bridge.

View attachment 245227

View attachment 245228

and a pusher on the back, oh dear I've hit the file limit, I'll put it on the next one.

Nice to see the 'America' pictures, I find myself so wrapped up in choo choo trains I forget to record the everyday scene in and around the railway.

I know what you mean about the heat, it was like that in China, it's the humidity that's the killer; which is why I prefer the more western states as it's much dryer and although the temperature is the same, if not higher, it's more tolerable.