Monday, May 28, 2012

Railfanning 5/26/2012

Hi, I joined friends Bill Kalkman and Jim Kleeman for a trip up to the Harrisburg, PA area on Saturday.  Two of the NS commemorative units, #8103 (N&W) and #8104 (LV) were leading coal trains that had unloaded at Consolidation Coal Company's pier in Baltimore on Friday and were expected to pass through Harrisburg on Saturday. 

After checking out Enola Yard and not spotting either locomotive we moved on to Cove to see if anyone there had any information.  While we were there Jim checked the NS Herritage Unit Locator web site on his phone and found out #8103 was leaving the fueling pad in Harrisburg and would be heading up the Buffalo line to an interchange with R. J. Corman Pennsylvania at Keating.  We were able to get to Inglenook, PA a few minutes before it blasted through.

As it looked like it would be a long run before we go another shot and we hoped to get the 8104 we decided to head back to Cove.  What follows are photos of some of the trains we saw while we waited in vain for the 8104.  However, the company was great and there were numerous other fans to meet so it was a day well spent.

Here is #20W eastbound.

We never identified this manifest but power was a pair of ACe units.

When we passed by Enola we noticed a rail train in the yard.  Here it is westbound on the signaled siding.


After checking out Enola a second time we stopped at a grade crossing on the east side of Cove Village where we photographed #534,

and 23M.  By this time clouds were moving in and we would lose the sun for the rest of the day.

Back at the Cove signals we photographed this unidentified coal train,

#62A, a high wide train

carrying combines manufactured by John Deere, Case, and New Holland, and

#36A

which had a Savage Alberta "geep" dead in tow.

I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Florida in April

Hi, I made a quick trip to Florida in the middle of April to see my aunt and take care of some business for her.  After visiting her the afternoon I was there I stopped at the Deerfield Beach Tri- Rail station and took the photos below.  The train in the second photo is southbound to Miami; the others are northbound to West Palm Beach.




I hope you enjoyed the photos. 

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Reading & Northern Hopper Jet

Hi, On My 5, 2012 the Reading & Northern Railroad ran an excursion train they called the Hopper Jet in conjunction with the Lackawanna & Wyoming Chapter of the NRHS.  The train was pulled by 3 former Lehigh Valley SW8s and consisted of 11 hopper cars, a caboose, 4 passenger coaches and 2 open cars.   Our route took us South to the outskirts of Reading, PA.  We then reversed direction passing back through Port Clinton before continuing on to Tamaqua, East Mahanoy Junction and Mahanoy City.  From just west of Mahonoy City we returned to Port Clinton by our reverse route.

I rode the trip with friends from the Baltimore Chapter NRHS Jim Kleeman, Bill Kalkman and Tom Bunjon.  We arrived at Port Clinton about 10:00 AM for an 11:00 AM departure.  This gave us some time for some photos around the terminal.

This SD40 and its mate was switching our hopper cars.





Our first stop was at East Mahanoy Junction where one of the SW8s was detached.  The train then pulled up and we detrained.

After everyone was off the lone switcher coupled to the rear of the train, the passenger cars were uncoupled from the caboose and the passenger cars were pulled back out of sight.  This provided an opportunity to cross to the sunny side of the track and photograph the train as it backed up for its first photo run.


This is the first photo run.



The train then backed up for a second photo run

on the other track at the junction.


The lone switcher then pushed the passenger cars against the caboose, backed beyond the junction and came forward on the unoccupied track, on which we would continue.

Finally the 2 switchers backed the entire train through the junction


and pulled forward to couple to the lone switcher.


We then proceeded to a coal loading area just west of Mahanoy City where a static photo opportunity was provided without the passenger cars.


The hoppers were then backed against the passenger cars, shown below, and some switching ensued to reverse the trains direction.

Our Final photo runs were at West Penn, PA.





We arrived back at Port Clinton at 7:00 PM having covered 94 miles.  I hope you enjoy the photos.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Southwest Trip - 12

Hi, We decided to spend the first half of our last day back at Cajon Pass.  Our first train was an eastbound at the west end of Cajon Siding from Cajon Blvd. which is Old US 66.

Beating the train to Summit was easy.  The train was still moving slow enough to obtain photos at a few different focal lengths.


For the rest of the morning we moved about a mile west of Summit to a hillside just below Silverwood.  This westbound stack train

had a single DPU.

We shot a number of trains from this location, including this Salt Lake City bound manifest on a north track,

this westbound Z train, on the south track, and

this east bound stack train on a north track

with DPUs.

After lunch we relocated to the Port of San Pedro to ride and photograph a historic trolley operation.  There are 3 cars; one original and two replicas.  Only one car operates at a time and this is one of the replicas.  Fare is $1 for a 3 mile round trip.





It was a great trip and I hope you have enjoyed the photos.