Western Railroad Discussion > road trip day four . . .

. . last day of my quick trip to the Mississippi River rail lines south of the Twin Cities was beautiful and clear but a little slow on the CP where I started out the morning hearing the DS talking to a job about the H20 long distance local. This train was colorful and interesting every day I saw it. I first caught it at Duke East just north of Red Wing (top) and of course had to give chase catching him again at Central Point (middle) just north of Lake City. After this everything went in the clear waiting and waiting and waiting on eastbound Amtrak train 8, the Empire Builder which started out less than an hour late but after checking in at the Red Wing depot for a location the GPS showed it stopped at St Croix Jct at 0921 with an estimated arrival of 0951 but I stood on the overpass west of the station well over an hour before it finally showed (bottom) then after a second shot further east headed toward Hastings for lunch . . . eight more to come . . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/14 06:14 by 3rdswitch.

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. . . while in Hastings heard the DS talking to a CP 188 train waiting it's turn through St Croix Jct and across the Mississippi for it's trip east. Turned around and headed back east of town to a streatch of two track main called Vermillion and waited for him (top) before heading into St Paul proper to kill the last three or four hours before returning the car and heading for the airport and finding a couple of bonus trains both shoving into the south end of the exMILW "Pigs Eye" yard, a BNSF transfer with a great set of power (middle) and the TCW job that comes in most days with pesky pigeons that would not go away (bottom) . . . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/14 22:55 by 3rdswitch.

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. . . then I headed a little south looking for a spot to just sit for a couple of hours and found this nice fairly new pedestrian bridge over the tracks in Newport with widely spaced bars that allowed photographing instead of the usual wire and timing was good as four south in a row came by. First this eastbound CP running on BNSF tracks in a 1X1 configuration (top) followed by the taconite train (middle) followed by a BNSF manifest also in a 1X1 power set up (bottom). Was a little surprised to see how hap hazard the ore train was loaded as each car varied quite a bit from as much as only a quater load up to three quarters as compared to uniformly loaded coal trains? . . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/14 23:03 by 3rdswitch.

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. . . and ending this nice day and great trip a CP local came shoving toward the exMILW yard with a very rusty old exSOO caboose (top) and a nice clean rebuild doing the shoving (bottom). Amazing to be back in the neighborhood and having to open all the windows to cool things down after our snow just a week ago. It was a great little getaway but it's good to be home.
JB

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Excellent as always JB.

Ronda Thomas

A Great wrap up:} I did not know that there were any of those silver and green SD40-2's still around like the engine behind the Burlington Northern painted SD60m.

Nice shooting JB, looks like that was a good spot you picked. Thanks for sharing.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Nice stuff, Joe, thanks for posting.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Good series.Bill Webb

Great series of shots, JB.

~Ryan

GREAT stuff...!!! Thanks for sharing.

SCORE!

Great stuff JB!