Railroaders' Nostalgia > 500mm of exhaust!

This BNSF hogger has his charges under heavy acceleration! I’m guessing he has that throttle in what we used to call the “Company” notch, meaning run-8. That’s what I learned from the old heads when I hired on with AT&SF in 1978. Running in the Company notch meant you were getting over the road as quickly as you could for the Company’s benefit. Of course, among other considerations a side benefit might be getting your own self home as early as possible. (But that’s fodder for a whole different story... ;^) That may not be the case here. This train could be coming out of a temporary slow order. And I just caught him at the right moment.

Nowadays certain banana-looking RRs think it’s way more profitable to run 3 mile long monster intermodals, while hobbling their engineers with all sorts of “throttle modulation” rules. An extra day to L. A.? Who cares! To be fair, I’ve also seen the pumpkin-looking guys run a few monsters. But down in my old stomping grounds I can still catch a USDA Grade A, gen-you-whine 70 MPH burner from time to time. And that does my old Santa Fe train-service heart a trainload of good... :^)

1. BNSF 5335 w/ train KCKDEN at Macksville, KS. It’s 3:34 pm on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2023. I have to say the exhaust from this consist looks impressive through 500mm of boomer glass...

Thanks for throttling up!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Excellent pic Lance!  Thanks for posting it.

Jerry
ATSF5669

I think about your telephoto work every time I shoot the new 200 ~ 500 hand-held., especially @ full 500mm. But I cheat... I usually shoot 1/640 with my left (barrel) hand braced on something...

:^)

Superb
 

Great shop of "company notch" consisy making money for BNSF; hopefully the accountants don't see this.

SuperChiefDon

Let 'er eat.

Might be the constant 0.4% grade from Hutch to Dodge City and 9200 tons of junk that train had that day... ;-)

Aha...  I never worked that territory in freight service. I did however take a student baggageman qualification trip (w/ "monaddave") in which we broke 100 MPH in several stretches west of Hutch. We were running over 8 hours late during the super-blizzard of winter 1978-79 and we had 4 SDP40Fs + 9(?) cars. I don't recall a steady 0.4% grade impeding us at all...

;^)

Milw_E70 Wrote:
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> Might be the constant 0.4% grade from Hutch to
> Dodge City and 9200 tons of junk that train had
> that day... ;-)

I'm thinking they must sail from Dodge City to Hutch. 

RetiredHogger Wrote:
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> I'm thinking they must sail from Dodge City to
> Hutch. 

Other than the ~2.5 mile long 0.5% climb eastbound out of Dodge, it's usually dynos most of the way...

A true Hot Rod Consist for nine cars.

SuperChiefDon

Milw_E70 Wrote:
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> RetiredHogger Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I'm thinking they must sail from Dodge City to
> > Hutch. 
>
> Other than the ~2.5 mile long 0.5% climb eastbound
> out of Dodge, it's usually dynos most of the
> way...

Thanks.

Last spring we were driving from Elk City, OK to Abilene, KS. At an intersection, we passed a sign (two actually) indicating that Dodge City was 40 miles to the west. I regret not stopping to get a picture.

Great shot Lance!