Western Railroad Discussion > Another long, frustrating day with CN 8878

At least it was only 15 hours this time:}
For the second time this month, Canadian National SD70M-2 #8878 led another empty coal train across the old Rio Grande. Here is the link from the first attempt at shooting it. https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5874256,5874256#msg-5874256
It was more of the same yesterday as with the previous chase however as it took almost 4 hours to remote the train at Phippsburg with a myriad of power problems and so the picture locations were a lot less than I had hoped and planned for.

Since the once-a-week Local was also running from P-burg to Bond, I decided to first head up to the Craig Branch and try to catch the Local.

1) After the 3 hour drive from Grand Junction, I timed it almost perfectly to Finger Rock located just South of Yampa, CO as I had to wait less than 10 minutes for the train to show up! The Local on this day had 2 empty coal cars on the head end to be setout at Crater to be loaded with Scoria/Lava Rock followed by 18 loads of Ash from the power plant at Craig heading to a Cement Plant located North of Denver, then 19 empty gondolas that had been loaded with pipe and 2 empty covered hoppers that had been loaded with Ammonium Nitrate.

2) The next location I shot the Local was as it headed into Rock Creek Canyon, located between the Sidings of Volcano and Crater. It is crossing over two bridges that were built over steep ravines and will soon duck into 280 ft. Tunnel #48. After heading into the Canyon and making a sharp horseshoe curve, the train will be traveling on the track in the foreground.

3) I walked around the curve and shot the Local at Milepost 140 (miles from Denver) and if you look closely above where the hopper cars curve away, you can see the tracks on the other side of the Canyon.

----------------Three More Pictures Posted Below-----------------------

 

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4) After pulling 2 loads of Lava Rock, the Local is now setting out the two empty cars at the spur track off of Crater Siding.

5) The Local had to wait at Crater for the empty coal train to depart out of Orestod so I went for a hike to shoot the coal train in Egeria Canyon which is another Fantastic but not often photographed stretch of track on the original Denver & Salt Lake line. This is West of the siding at Volcano and the train is traveling through Tunnels 52 and 53 seen towards the rear of the train and about to head into Tunnel 54. Got stung with cloud cover which seemed appropriate to add to the misery of this day.

6) I was set up at this location between P-burg and Oak Creek when the train stopped about 25 cars short of me. Seems the second engine died and the crew could not restart it so the train shoved back into P-burg yard to swap engines. Long story short, I waited 3 hours for them to mess around with power at P-burg and then stood on this hill for an hour but was determined to not give up and was rewarded when the train finally departed with about 25 minutes or so of daylight remaining!

They say "third times the charm" but I think I'm about done with this train/engine:}

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Outstanding effort AND results.
JB

Wow, yes, great effort and nice photo locations! === === = === JLH

Excellent series!

Larry

5, one hell of a railroad and great shot.

One word; WOW !!

Your efforts have paid off in spades-!  Awesome trip with images the rest of us can only dream of these days.  Lack of traffic up there makes catching any train a rare event.

I agree, shot 5 is an amazing location!!

Great perspectives and shots! Well done.
GK

Awesome series!!

Beautiful shot! Your the man. Amazing how green things still are.

Valleyman

That last shot was worth the wait!

Excellent--some of the best scenery we see on TO.  Nice shots.
Brian Stevens

Yes Mother Nature and Murphy's Law often have different plans than we do, and we all reach that point of "I've had enough!" eventually.  But you still got a great series and that canyon shot is great, but I feel your pain with the clouds!

Andy

Nice shots!!