It's been a busy day with emergencies at work and dealing with kids and school from home. Need a train brake pun intended. Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk
With its crew protected by "ghetto grills", GE E-60 956 races through Princeton Jct, NJ trailing a cloud of dust. [July 1978]
Well, I was hoping to upload a scan from an old favorite MILW slide. But I cannot decipher the idiocy named Gimp.
Got a couple more shots from up north this week. First, after last week's Lake State photo, we set up another ambush, this time at the M33 overpass. Track speed there was fairly decent and by the time the train arrived, the light was fading to the point that I wasn't quite able to freeze the motion. I thought it was kind of a cool shot anyway. I made another trip up north again this past weekend, this time stopping at Huron & Eastern's Wenona yard on the north side of Bay City. This yard has, over the years, been operated by Michigan Central/New York Central, Grand Trunk Western and Central Michigan. HESR inherited the Wenona facility with the acquisition of Central Michigan. I was somewhat amazed to see this new enginehouse, which had seemingly materialized since my last visit. It was also good to see old friend 3036 (former CM and HESR 9712) here lashed up with the ever scruffy looking 2028. Interestingly enough, further on up the road at Standish, I caught the Lake State Grayling to Bay City Freight switching the elevator. Although I didn't get a photo, I discovered that the lead Lake State unit was in similar livery (gray primer) to HESR 2028. Maybe these two railroads are operated by old time hotrodders or maybe it's just that gray is the new black?
Possibly the most known and liked engine on Lines West was this F7A. Nicknamed "Mr Clean's Machine" by Blair Kooistra, this was the last time I saw her in action. Pounding slowly up Tacoma Hill (in "TE Gulch") #81A is nearing Hillsdale, Washington:
Some action at Wyomissing Jct. this morning. NS 1066 leads 21M West. DSC05204 by Sepp K posted Sep 20, 2020 at 1:45 PM Several thousand feet of bare tables trailed today DSC05209 by Sepp K posted Sep 20, 2020 at 1:47 PM An almost-clean autorack brought up the markers on 18N East. DSC05222 by Sepp K posted Sep 20, 2020 at 1:50 PM
The last time I saw a working F unit was on the GTW around 1971. It's unfortunate that I had not yet acknowledged the existence of diesel locomtives at that time. (Yeah, I hold grudges. I'm still kinda torqued at C&O for absorbing the Pere Marquette in 1947) It was considerably later that I found myself drawn to the BL2 followed by an affection for F's and eventually other first generation diesels. In the meantime, as a kid, I had taken many photos of late steam era freight cars, but not one shot of a diesel. The BL2's were gone by the time I was pedaling my bike up to the tracks with my $4 camera, but I ignored the GP30's, GP35's and the original GP7's that had brought the end of steam on the Pere Marquette district. Today I sincerely wish I had pictures of those engines. The lesson here? Pay attention and document everything. It will be gone before you know it.
I suppose most of us here fall into that category. I do not have a single photo of all the Santa Fe F units that I chased up and down Texas Highway 6 in their last days before being cycled through the CF7 program up at Cleburne. They were so run down by then that the trains heading south had a whole string of Fs, in a dogs breakfast of paint schemes, with half of them shut down before they got to Alvin. They would get them running again at the Milby Street shops in Houston and head them back north to repeat the death march.
Yes, I agree. But don't let stupid get in the way either. My biggest regret was in fall of 1957. I was crossing a bridge over the N&W tracks in Roanoke, VA and saw smoke in the yard to the east. I quickly flipped down and around to the station platform. As I was straining to see the source of the smoke, a coal drag snuck up behind me. Don't know if they were A's or Y's, I didn't care, they were the first live articulated locomotives I had ever seen, and I was "deer in the headlights" gob struck. They were double-headed. As the lead passed me it gave two shorts of that lovely steamboat whistle the N&W loved. The second replied with two shorts. Then I heard another two shorts in the distance....a pusher, WOW! The lead was doing about 10 mph as it passed me. I'd guess the pusher was doing about 25 when it went by. Man, those beauties must have been powerful. My regret, my camera was sitting on my car's front seat the whole time. WAAAH!
I grew up with diesels. In my first couple of years of high school, my school was about five minutes walk away from the CPR station and the small storage yard for various MOW equipment. I spent many a lunch hour there. The usual fare was MLW RS18's, sometimes doubled up. I still find the contented burble of an idling 251 most heartwarming. Or the excitement of those 251's roaring in run 8 going up the hill toward the north. Two of those in tandem make for a fantastic concert! One day I had a treat - a BIG train, five engines up front and two mid-train helpers! One of those engines was a rare beast up here, a GP30. What I didn't realize was that I had just seen half of CPR's roster of two GP30s. Imagine a really happy kid! That train was long enough and slow enough to make me late for classes after the lunch break. Even if I would have had a camera back then, I was probably to excited to take pictures. Or at least sharp ones...
