Fog, Rain, Ace's and Double Heritage on the NS in KY

[E.M. Bell]

This past Friday and Saturday,  I was suffering from a BAD case of cabin fever....it has been cloudy and dark here in Central KY for what seems like weeks now, and I just needed to get out no matter the weather. While the sky cover  did not lend itself to large amounts of gas being used, we are lucky enough around here to have Two VERY busy NS mainlines close by.  Friday Gage and myself spent a few hours out on the Louisville District shooting a never ending parade of coal and rack trains on the Louisville District, and then on Saturday Adam and myself headed out to shoot a Eastbound 890 coal train that had the NSRY 8114 and NYC 1066 on it. 

It seems like almost every train we found had a ACE leading and a new GE pushing, along with a few other EMD goodies.  If you aint scared of a little bad weather, here are a few samples, and there are a bunch more new ones at this link >>>>  http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/nsls15


On a very foggy morning, NS 375 is easing around looking for a signal at North Wye (Near Danville KY )  to go West to Louisville. 


NS T-19, the Lawrenceburg KY local, is Westbound passing the searchlight signal at Avenstoke, KY behind a pair of 4 axle units. 


Eastbound 76J grinds up the hill at West Waddy, Ky and passes an empty coal train waiting in the siding.  A few years ago you could not find a coal train out here, but now the Western KY and Southern Indiana low sulfur  coal is in high demand, and the  20 + coal trains a week are really clogging up the already busy Louisville District.




After the meet, train 708 is seen dropping down the hill out of Waddy, almost to Hooper Station, KY


Eastbound 223 tops over Waddy hill behind another ACE..


NYC 1066 trails (DPU) as train 890 wraps around Turtle Tree Curve at Waddy, KY. 


Eastbound 890 runs through the barren Winter fields near Vanarsdale, KY with another ACE leading and NSRY 8114 Third Out....NYC 1066 is shoving hard on the bottom.


"The Gut Line" The Louisville District is a tough territory , with lots of hard grades, tight curves and "Rip-Rap" like you see here. It takes a skilled hand on the throttle to get a 120 car loaded coal train from Louisville to Danville in One piece, not to mention the monster 12,000 + foot long rack and stack trains that run out here. In this scene, the DPU on Eastbound 890 (which happens to be NYC 1066) is in the bottom of the big dip at Convoy, while the train is draped over Two more hills...up and down...and up again

[florida581]

Great pics all around!  I especially like your shot of train 890 in the dip at Convoy.

[Matt L]

Nice job, Mr. Bell! My favorite is the fog shot- NS always looks good coming out of the fog.