Western Railroad Discussion > CP eastern Iowa fall update

My CP railfanning has really dropped off a cliff recently.  It used to be perfect, most everything ran through Muscatine in the morning so you could shoot everything and go home.  Now with the somewhat new intermodal trains, operations have settled into a new routine where little or nothing runs ahead of them, so northbounds in the morning at Muscatine are pretty much a thing of the past.  Southbound 260 is a somewhat reliable mid day train but I have no advance warning when it leaves Nahant so unless I want to devote significant time to waiting, I don't see it much.  So, the old days are gone, but I have caught a few moves lately that some may find interesting.

1.  Oct. 22, the last Muscatine Power and Water coal train for the year is backing into the plant.  (rear DPUs)

2.  Looking directionally northwest, rear DPs are backing around the loop while the head motors are not yet in the gate on the entry side.

3.  Looking back toward the plant at the end of the loop and storage siding.

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4.  One more view of the coal train on Oct. 22, head end in front of our old units 7 & 8.

5.  Nov. 6, the GPC/Kent Feeds switcher is always worth a stop-n-pop when it's out working.

6.  Also Nov. 6th after the clouds rolled in, road freight 260 is southbound at Heinz siding east of Muscatine.

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7.  Nov. 9th, a northbound with friendly conductor is passing mp215 along Hwy 22 east of Muscatine.

8.  Nov. 21.  Northbound mty potash train is stopped at mp236 south of Letts, waiting to meet and swap crews with a grain train who is working at Muscatine.

9.  Nice Grinstein on the potash mty.

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10.  Grain train crew is preparing to add a unit at "Luke Yard" on the south side of Muscatine.  11-21.

11.  Nov. 23 southbound local freight K76 is lined into Heinz siding to meet northbound 253, a KC to Chicago train.

12.  Southbound K76 is on the Pine Creek bridge west of Montpelier.  I drove quite a ways east to intercept this train, thinking it would be road freight 260, so this was a bit of a disappointment, but the cond. on K76 is a Facebook friend so it was nice to get a wave.

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13.  When soutbound trains are lined in at Heinz they get this double yellow at the 213.3 intermediate.

14.  By the time K76 arrived at Heinz their signal had improved.

15.  I had stuff to do and was already pushing the amount of time I wanted to spend on these trains, so I didn't wait for K76 at Heinz, but did grab a shot of 253's power before going on my way.

Thanks for looking!

Andy

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Good collection of action around your part of the country.
Gonut

Nice coverage here, as well as in the IAIS thread!
GK

Good shots, but I'm a sucker for power plants. Chris uk.

Very interesting signal heads.   You have to wonder why a single head isn't used more often for such sidings and control points, vs. 2 heads?

Thanks Andy, very nice. Always enjoy updates from Iowa.

Fantastic series!!

Good stuff, Andy, thanks for posting. How much longer are you going to get coal?

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/24 18:42 by ntharalson.

I've wondered this also.  I get the heebie-jeebies looking at 3-track cantilevers with 3-head signal at the outermost point.

oyw Wrote:
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> Thanks Andy, very nice. Always enjoy updates from
> Iowa.

Ditto:}

ntharalson Wrote:
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> Good stuff, Andy, thanks for po: How much longer
> are you going to get coal?

Thanks all for the kind remarks!

Nick, at least until 2028.  We will soon have a "Plan for Compliance" (regarding emissions and CCR (coal combustion residue) dispposal) in place that will determine the future of Unit 9 after that.  Depending on cost of compliance, Unit 9 could be converted to gas, could be shut down, or could continue to burn coal.  It's a mess, lot of decisions to be made well above my level.

Andy

Good stuff Andy
MILW86A 

so is the CP here  orig CRIP trackage and signals?

Original Rock Island track but CP replaced most (if not all) of the Rock Island search lights.
zr190

pdt Wrote:
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> so is the CP here  orig CRIP trackage and
> signals?

zr is right, no RI signals left.  There was a set of original RI searchlights still intact at the west end of Cotter siding that were just replaced last year, but those were the last ones.

Andy