JREB.org

I've been keeping track of how many days I've seen my shadow during the month of January, and it was visible 9 times.  NINE times, and five of those were from the 27th to the 31st.  

So today I took advantage of the sunny (but cold) weather to get out and get some pictures before the month expires.  Nothing exciting here, but it was good to get outside.

I headed out after lunch and drove past the crossing at Weber Rd on the Sandusky district where the eastbound signals at milepost 4 are easily visible.  Upon driving over the tracks, I spotted an approach diverging for track 1, so I knew something would be along soon.  After I purchased a Sunday paper at Speedway, I headed up to my 'old standby' location at Lincoln Ave (MP 8.0) where I caught 179.  (pic #1 below)

For a while I've been wanting to get a shot at the Greenlawn Ave overpass next to German Villiage where the NS Western Branch and the CSX Columbus Subdivision run parallel to each other.  It hasn't been easy to get shots here, but today I finally caught something.  Since this is a location where I don't feel comfortable camping out on the bridge for very long, I usually sit and wait in my car on an adjacent side street where today I did the Sunday crossword puzzle.  

I'm not sure what I need to do, but NS trains always sneak up on me at this spot and I miss them.  Today, I just missed the power of an NS coal train head through, however I had more luck on the CSX side.  For CSX, all I need to listen for is "clear HV, clear LM (cabins)" and I know something is on its way.  After hearing the signal calls, I ran to my spot and got CSX E42728 coasting by with 105 empties in tow.  (pic #2 below) 

After I captured this, I went back to Lincoln to see if I could get one more in the later evening light before it was time to head home.  Luckily, I caught 304 heading through.  As usual, a GE was on the point, and an EMD was trailing.  I can never seem to catch the EMDs in the lead...(pic #3 below)