Monday, December 6, 2010

Railfanning 12-2-10

Hi, I went up to the Baltimore area with friend Dale Jacobson on Thursday, 12/2. We met at the MARC station along the Camden Line in St. Dennis. I arrived before dale to find Q411 sitting on the Old Main Line waiting for the dispatcher to route the train onto the Capital Subdivision and on to Curtis Bay Yard.

While Q411 waited Dale arrived and Q373 came south,

and a MARC train went north.

After this flurry of activity we relocated to Bush Street just south of downtown Baltimore. In quick succession we photographed Q409,


Q249,
Q171,

and Y139. This was a light engine move with 3 SD-60s. Note the unusual signal head in the center.

When the action at Bush Street quieted down we headed for the Canton Railroad's Penn Mary Yard. This is a former CSX facility. The switcher is a former CP unit.

Our next stop was the Sparrows Point Steel Mill now owned by Severstal, a Russian firm. I had heard it was shut down and wanted to see for myself. We found only one engine running, shown below, and it was just sitting and idling. There was no other activity. We talked to an employee a few minutes later and he confirmed the mill was shut down with a scheduled restart in April.

After lunch we stopped by Penn Mary Yard again where we photographed this CSX yard job bringing in a cut of intermodal cars.



Our final stop was at Bailey Wye. This forms connections to Riverside Yard, where MARC has a storage and maintenance facility, Camden Station and the Howard Street Tunnel and points north (RR east), and the lines south to Washington, DC and west to Cumberland, MD. Dale knew there would be a MARC train departing for Washington about 3:30 PM. While we waited we photographed some of the MTA light rail vehicles.

A few minutes after 3 the equipment for the 3:30 departure came out of Riverside Yard, around the east leg of the Wye, and headed for Camden Station. This was the same equipment we had seen that morning at St. Dennis.

Right on time the train pushed through the west leg of the Wye on its way to Washington, DC.

A few minutes later it was followed by an empty coal train.

At this point the clouds had rolled in and the light was failing, so we quit and headed back to St. Dennis. I very much enjoyed the day and hope you enjoy the photos.