AMEN! We had a co-worker whose parents owned a strawberry farm in Ponchatoula, LA. Every spring Friday afternoon she would take our orders at $8/flat. IIRC, that was 12 baskets, maybe 16 per flat. 'Tainyrate, she would arrive noon-ish Monday morning with her load. She would have risen around 4 that morning, gone out and picked our orders. Folks, these berries were ripened on the vine. We thought we had died and gone to Heaven.
Back to Tower 17, it was a busy time in April 2004. An empty BNSF coal train heading north back to Wyoming A container train on the Sunset Route. And a BNSF leaving the UP Sunset Route coming west out of Houston and getting on to its home tracks to head north.
How many C&NW units had DBs? When I think of non-DB unit, Northwestern comes to mind. This one must have been ordered for coal service.
Ah, I miss seeing Milwaukee Road and C&NW locos, Milw. here in Austin and C&NW where I lived for 35 years in Rochester (not that the red CP locos aren't gorgeous). The Zito yellow locos were striking when freshly painted (almost like Day-Glo yellow) but faded to a ghostly, almost white within a shockingly short period of time. There were actually quite a few C&NW locos with DB through southern Minnesota as there were some pretty steep grades from Rochester to the eastern border with Wisconsin and over by Mankato. I know I read that that stretch was some of the most difficult to engineer (gradewise) in the country, even rivaling that in the Rocky Mountains. Not much room to reroute. Doug
A CP GP20C-ECO—#2326—led the 474 south on the CP Ottumwa Sub in Muscatine, IA. Rarely do you have a Geep lead a mainline manifest train. January 20, 2021 Most people get drunk, others want sex but as for me, I go Railfanning.
Here's a link to a recent walking tour of the Boonton line, between Montclair and Jersey City, with numerous photos. http://luckycigarette.com/walking_the_old_boonton_line/index.html
Note: I could be misremembering about DB's on C&NW units above because I don't think the C&NW generally bought a lot of DB locos. Doug
You're not wrong. https://utahrails.net/cnw/cnw-roster-notes.php says this about C&NW DBs: "C&NW locomotives not equipped with dynamic braking except as noted."
Dare I say "Ooops!"? Former El Paso and Southwestern locomotive getting a large load of coal in El Paso. The EP&SW was absorbed into the Southern Pacific Lines. About the only place on the system that held on to coal as fuel until the end of steam.
Memories! The BN wanting to get away from the SF! Or, is it just another toaster? This guy is still hanging out here, As is the extra switcher,
Another toaster. On a side note, what's the deal with BNSF repaints of early Dash 9s? I caught another yesterday.
This is what passes for clean power on the NS Harrisburg Line these days. 20K heading East on Thursday, January 23, 2021.
A very big *sigh* here. Memories of my youth, growing up on the farm. What we didn't raise, we got from friends who did it. Real food. Fresh food. Actually tasty food. Good, safe food.