Western Railroad Discussion > Somedays, it only gets Better!

I'll start my story on Thursday afternoon with BNSF train Z-PTLCHC, BNSF #7788. My son ran this train down from the Twin Cities to La Crosse and I thought the numbers were kind of neat as 77 was the year I graduated and 88 was the year my son was born! Enough of the silly stuff and on to Saturday. It was warm for November, but also very cloudy / hazy along the Mississippi River. CP train #811 started the day with the BNSF #9325 shown here at Donehower West. CP train #331 came out of Marquette Iowa early this morning and had a nice pair of Blue / Yellow EMDs leading the CP #8700. Hang on there is more to follow!

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I followed the #331 towards Winona MN where it met a CP #810, so I reversed my course and headed back to La Crosse. As I waited on the coal load, I spied this ex-Milwaukee Road, CP #4508 in pretty fresh CP Red. BNSF #9792 leads the coal buckets towards Portage this morning. Hey! What's that ball of fire in the sky?? The sun was just breaking thru as the train passed. The sun broke through just in time for CP train H-19 to depart with the ICE #6213. Hold on, it IS going to get better!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/12 18:20 by rrartist.

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As the title suggests, somedays it only gets better, case in point, CP train #270! Running as the Soo Line SD60 #6026 plus in sweet early afternoon sun, yes sir, the race was on! The top image has #270 crossing the Root River just south the La Crescent MN. The middle image has the train train passing thru the small town of Brownsville MN and last lastly on the Reno Dike in Reno MN.

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As the seasons change from Fall to Winter, #270 passes by the brown farm fields south of New Albin Iowa. And lastly #270 charges thru Lansing Iowa for a bit of street running. With the horn pegged and leaves flying the train wastes little time on it's trek to Marquette Iowa and points south. Thanks for riding along!

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Great photos, thanks for sharing! The days of Soo Line painted SD60s may not be long.

Al Seever
Phoenix, AZ

It really must be a tough chore to take all that variety in train consists, shooting locations & paint schemes. I just don't how you cope!!! ;^)
All kidding aside, you have another great series of shots here. My memory of Mr. William A. Gibson Sr. (WAG Wed.) tells me Bill would have been thrilled for you with
that 7788 coincidence. He absolutely LOVED interesting & unusual numbers.

Lance

rrartist Wrote:
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> With the horn pegged
> and leaves flying

What does "with the horn pegged" mean?? Obviously, I've not heard that phrase before. Thanks

blowing

Jim-

Outdone yourself, again.

New Albin shot is screensaver.

Thanks!

RJS

Now I know why I always look forward to RRArtist's posts! Excellent shots and great narration to go with them. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, Saturday along the Mississippi started out foggy and ended up
sunny, until about 3:30 in Prairie Du Chien. There was some
interesting stuff on the east side of the river too, including a
couple of SD60M's trailing, one in BN green.

As for SOO 6026, it got to Marquette about three. According to the
scanner chatter, the rear unit died during a set out move. It had
given trouble before leaving St. Paul, and the hogger was looking to
grab a spare unit in Marquette to go south as he didn't think one
unit could make it. Probably to Nahant where they could get new
power. Never hear the outcome of this.

Nice shots, Jim.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Some days ya can't GET any better rr. These are teriffic shots !!!!

qman