Greetings All, Here's the report for the annual ride up the hill to railfan the Seligman Sub. The weather was perfect for a day of train-chasing. Clear, sunny with a forecast high of about 65 degrees. Warm spring day for Flagstaff! Stats for the day: Time Period: 0845 AM to 0520 PM Total Trains: 27 - 15 EB / 17 WB Train Types: 25 Intermodal, 1 General Merchandise, 1 Unit Grain. Shaun McMillan and I rolled out of Phoenix around 6:30 AM, and after a rest stop to tank up on cinammon rolls and Mountain Dew we arrived at Cosnino Road around 8:45 AM. No sooner than we pulled up to the crossing we had an Eastbound intermodal (gee whatta surprise) roll by. As mentioned in a previous thread, BNSF crews are preparing to remove the signal bridge and had equipment in place for the removal. Shaun hiked up the hill and reported a Westbound intermodal stopped about 1/4 mile east of the crossing. Listening to the comms between the crew and dispatch we soon learned that this train was stalled. Apparently it left Winslow with too much train and not enough power (2 Dash-8's and that was it!) Meanwhile, main two was still very active for the Eastbound flow. Here's a unit grain train with a solid UP consist. Main 1 is still fouled by the stalled train and the comms between the crew and dispatch continue to try and figure out a solution. Traffic flow Westbound was really starting to back up so they decided that the Z train behind them at West Darling would come up from behind, couple up, and give them a shove. They were trying to decide if they needed to uncouple their train before pushing, or just push while dragging their own train. The crew told dispatch that there wasn't anything in the rule book that said they COULDN'T shove a train while pulling their own so they elected to go that route. Once connected, they did a brake test and then started a coordinated push. The amount of black smoke from the lead unit will attest to how hard they were pulling to even get the train to budge. The crew in the lead unit said he was in run 6 before the train even turned an axle. Once they started creeping forward they reported having to maintain run 8 just to move at walking speed! With a trio of Dash-9's pushing hard on the rear they finally got moving with.... ..a little help from their friends! Dispatch decided that it'd be best to have them proceed to a siding in East Flag and drop some tonnage in order to be light enough to continue the trip west. Total time stalled on the No. 1 main was about two hours. Now here's where things start getting really balled up! While the formerly stalled train was being pushed to Flagstaff to drop some tonnage and to disconnect the trailing Z train, dispatch was running Westbounds around them on Main 2, and crossing them back over West of Flagstaff. (Part 2 to follow)
You betcha!, if you EVER get the chance to go to this area, it is fantastic, lots of S curves,grades, and photo backdrops, that particular cut is very close the Cosnino Rd crossing and within easy walking distance, if you are afraid( or unable) to use the cow path, OOPS!, I mean road along the tracks Be sure and check out all 3 parts of this Report also
BTW, thanks Mike for doing the keyboard work on this report for me, I just took the pics and provided the laptop for the log. Hemi, would love to come up your way sometime and catch some of the action up your way too. Kinda like the MRL and those 45's and 70's
