Western Railroad Discussion > Chasing a Shopping Cart

Yesterday, Uncle Pete sent an eastward wind turbine blade train down the eastern KP headed by a pair of CSXT motors, quite unusual for one of these trains around here. The lead motor was a Dash-8W in CSX's tongue-in-cheek Shopping Cart paint scheme, "YN3b" if you will. Unfortunately, despite the train being spotted in Salina at 10AM that no good Uncle didn't get the train out of town until the mid-afternoon, hindering the photogenic side of things, nonetheless it was good to get out of the house and see something unusual.

1-2) After a delay of some form that had the train stopped for an hour, CSXT 7693, and 5345 get underway at Moehlman Road west of Manhattan, KS.
3) On the east side of town now, the 7693 crosses Water Treatment Plant Road.

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4) Rolling through the corn fields east of Wamego, the turbine blades are at a good flight at Airport Road.
5) Passing through St. Marys now, CSXT 7693 passes the World War I monument in front of the St. Marys Academy and College.
6) One more, to keep it even. After ending the chase at St. Marys "santafe199" and I made a dash up to the Kansas Sub in hopes of catching a flurry of trains, all UP sent was this loaded coal train headed by UP 6968 at Saxton Road, NW of Emmett.

Thanks for looking!
mg8711



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/16 10:15 by mg8711.

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Nice Photos, The shopping cart stumped me at first. Never heard it called that before. Around here it is refered to as the Box Car scheme.
Steve

wpjones Wrote:
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> Nice Photos, The shopping cart stumped me at
> first. Never heard it called that before. Around
> here it is refered to as the Box Car scheme.
> Steve

I've never heard it called that before, but that's my new nickname for it now too!

I guess I was alone! I coulda swore I heard it called that somewhere!
mg8711

Nice coverage Lucas, you had much better light angles on the blade train than I did out west.  Really like the frameing in the last shot at Emmett.
Brian Stevens

I'm sure it stops in Salina and gets a thousand mile inspection. upkpfan

Great series, especially shots 5 and 6!

Nice catch and great shots.

Yup. Definitely adding "shopping cart" to my foamer dictionary!

What is a thousand mile inspection?

The coal trains used to pull into COZY Siding for a thousand mile inspection that usually took 4 hours. UP maintance crew from Salina would come out and inspect the brake shoes and look it over real good before it could go on. Also changed crews there in Salina, KS. upkpfan