I have been going through a dry spell the last couple of months, and as a result had not had the camera out of the house since the beginning of December, and not much before that except for the 4501 trips. Call it burnout (over 60k miles of shooting trains in 2014) or just the winter blues, but I had not had the motivation to get out...
This past Sunday was cold and grey here in Kentucky, like most of the winter has been. I knew the N&W heritage unit was leading a Northbound, and finally talked myself into getting out of the house for awhile to go hunt it down. As luck would have it, the CNO&TP was a constipated mess by the time I got to Danville (KY) with trains setting everywhere. The 15Q would be held in Burnside until the mess cleared up, so that was that.
I kept hearing some odd chatter on the radio from a 74W coal train around Bowen (just South of Danville) and headed down that way to investigate. Turns out that a loaded coal hopper on 74W had somehow had a car dump part of a load on the track, and the Danville shop and MofW folks were slowly dumping an entire carload of coal on the ground. That turned out to be the cause of the huge backup of trains, as it took them a long while to slowly inch the train forward, spreading out the coal just like ballast.
74W had a fairly new Sd70Ace and a SD60 leading, so I decided to follow them South a bit....,my First train of the year with a mighty EMD duo in charge....must be a good omen!
Here are a few moody shots from the afternoon, full sized versions at this link http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/cnotp2nd2015 (http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/cnotp2nd2015)
01/12/15
74W creeps forward at Bowen, KY as a car load of coal slowly empties out back in the train
(https://www.jreb.org/ns/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fjreb.org%2Fv-web%2Fgallery%2Falbums%2Falbum71%2F74W_bowen_011115_3.sized.jpg&hash=6cd4ecf0aa62d9ac02413e0fea816fea914c6e2d)
A close up (or the best I could do from 3/4s of a mile away) as Danville shop and the track guys spread out 100+ tons of coal in order to get the errant door to shut. You may be able to see this better over on Pbase, but there is a huge pile!
(https://www.jreb.org/ns/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fjreb.org%2Fv-web%2Fgallery%2Falbums%2Falbum71%2F74W_bowen_011115_1.sized.jpg&hash=1129edfe2eb4076bdbc29347f2f95b7abe3faa9f)
That pair of EMD's was sounding sweet as they lifted the coal train up the hill at Kings Mountain, KY a little while later.
(https://www.jreb.org/ns/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fjreb.org%2Fv-web%2Fgallery%2Falbums%2Falbum71%2F74W_KingsMnt_011115_1.sized.jpg&hash=80affb01e2cd3a772983d7ac5a8e4a52ef3ad47d)
A cold, wet afternoon is quickly turning into a murky, bone chilling night as Southbound 74W "Moves up a notch" at Gradison, KY Burnside was constipated with trains, and the North End dispatcher had the money makers bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali around the slower stuff, trying to get things moving again. Just another day on the mighty CNO&TP
(https://www.jreb.org/ns/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fjreb.org%2Fv-web%2Fgallery%2Falbums%2Falbum71%2F74w_gradison_011115.sized.jpg&hash=761d9751a3da318b769ef1941e184a09300b7bfc)
EM, as always great shots on a not so great day. Fondest of them coal drags no matter the weather. Given the circumstances it would be safe to say the "auto router" was placed on pause mode. What will be the process for cleaning up the mess?
Good stuff... I cant get fired up to get out myself... Too many years of bein out in the cold, i guess...
Thanks for getting out there and takin these interestin shots... I'm like Spike about the coal and grain trains; they are my favorites... They are my favorites...
Keep up the good work...
leroy
Spike, they put a cross tie under the car in question, then open the doors and let the wheels shove the tie and spread out the coal, just like dumping ballast (the old school way).. Once the car was empty, they let the rest of the train ease over the coal, then used a backhoe to make it safe.
Leroy, I always love unit trains to...the uniformity always makes for great pics..
Next few days off in a row I have to get over here were you all are getting these pics. Think I would pass out.