"CP Passes its Heritage" A duo of light units drift past the historic Soo Line station in Minot enroute west to pick up a train during blue hour.
A couple more 45's from in and around to "house" in GJ 1995-1997. All these tracks are now idle, like a ghost RR now.
Quick correction, and an easy one to miss, these were Morrison-Knudson rebuilds, they were rebuilt with the V16 as SD40M-2's. 8691- 8696 were Erie Lackawanna units that were built on a SD45P frame and had a 4000 tank, these never had steam generators.
While out working in VA I had to travel to the Aberdeen Proving Ground and found Leopold. 04 April 2009.
Those huge railway guns proved to be quite impractical in operation. There was no means to traverse them side to side so they had to be deployed on a curved track and rolled back and forth on the curve to adjust where they were pointing. Some smaller guns were able to traverse a little but had to be equipped with outriggers to keep the car from rolling over due to the recoil. During the siege of Sevastopol the Germans deployed the Schwerer Gustav, a 1350 ton behemoth firing 7 ton projectiles. It took 4,000 men and five weeks to get the gun in firing position and 500 men were needed just to fire it. They could only fire about 14 rounds a day but it was usually more like five to eight. It was only able to fire 48 rounds at Sevastopol before the barrel was worn out. They wore it out during development and testing, firing 250 rounds previously.
In November of 1990, NS ran 1218 on a Saturday and Sunday trip from Birmingham, AL to Columbus, GA and back. Mrs. Hardcoaler and I chased it one day and rode it the next. When reading an old Trains Magazine from the '50s, I discovered a photo of a trestle at Goodwater, AL on the train's route, so my wife an I set out to find it in an age before GPS. After a lot of hiking in the woods, we found the remote site, but substantial tree growth precluded us replicating the magazine shot. We chose this spot as the best available, allowing a safe place to stand and good light. Needless to say, there was nobody else there.
"Getting the Ol' Runaround" Amtrak 8 makes an early arrival in the Magic City (Minot, ND) as a hot eastbound cracker stacker rushes past at track speed on the second main track. Handheld (but a tripod would have been smarter), Rokinon 14mm @f/2.8.
They weren't as careful about catching any overflow while filling the fuel tank back in the "good old days".