Another day of snow and single digits temps on the NS in KY

[E.M. Bell]

This past Saturday, The Redhead and myself once again headed out in the snow and freezing temps to see what we could find to shoot on the NS. A decent snowstorm late in the week, combined with temps around 5 degree's, seemed to have the NS almost at a standstill out of Louisville, so we headed West.  

While everyone knows that for the most part, there are no "tight" schedules on the RR anymore, it became rather appearant once we got out and about that everything was way behind the norm. On the Louisville district, you can almost tell what part of the day it is by whats running, and the first indication it was going to be a odd day was the first train we shot, the 111 the should have already been through this area the day before (and about 12 hours later, another 111 ran). While this was probably giving the RR fits, it made for a day of decent shooting and a lot of bunched up traffic. It stayed until late afternoon.  The highlight of the day by far was that the sun was out with almost NO clouds all day. The forecast had said mostly cloudy (but with snow..that makes clouds OK ya know!)...so I wont complain to much about yet another screwed up forecast this time

The above-mentioned day late 111 was going by the house as we headed out, so we ran down to Talmage to catch them. After meeting a  Westbound 22A (which was a little behind) and a 239 (which was way off its normal time), 111 headed on in to Danville, behind a very freshly painted NS 6800.. We didn't plan on chasing the 111, but Sun, Snow, and a EMD in a new dress left us little choice other than get him again...rules you know..

(the whole series, 12 new images in High Res, at this link  http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/nsls11eb )

NS 111 at East Talmage  and again passing through the tight confines of Downtown Harrodsburg KY





By the time we got done with the 111 and headed West, 22A had finished his work at the Mixing Center in Shelbyville, and was ready to leave. We landed at Veechdale KY for a 5 train meet that included 285, T79, 223, 22A and 239.

Here is 22A as they start around the double set of S-curves at Veechdale...check the Pbase link for the rest of the stuff from Veechdale!



The last train of the day (and the latest running of all) was the Eastbound 60A, which we shot at Pope Lick around 1330 in the afternoon. By that time on a normal day, this train would usually be close to Cincinnati.

[memphis2857]

Just a little heads up.  Our train schedule is changing everyday here in Louisville.  111 will now be run at night, 161 has been cut-off, 168 is back on, T-79 is back on, 23g is on duty at 4am now.  Most of these changes are in preperation for Burnside, but some of them are temporary changes due to the Bridge at the 308 being shut down during the day.  Also be on the look-out for some coal trains.  We have been running a coal train (705 i think) It has had a coupple of AC units in the lead with some es-44's on the tail end, it is a massive train, the one that ran the other day was 12,000 tons.