Appybonnet

[Ponce de Leon]

A visitor from the West--a former Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe GE in Warbonnet colors--is handling NS train 386 at milepost 9T, about a mile below the summit at Oreton, VA on the Appalachia District this evening (March 22nd). I was doing some yard work this afternoon and stepped out to the street to see what kind of power was on this eastbound. Oh, oh! I dropped what I was doing and Wilma and I drove up to Oreton to get a shot. We waited...and waited...and waited (and she was telling me it had already passed, whereupon I would reply: No way, no how...). We went back down to Big Stone Gap and found the short train had stalled, and was reducing tonnage (five coal loads). The next run up the hill was successful, so I got this shot in the late evening light.

The other shot is sister unit 935, which I photographed on a westbound at Kingman Canyon, Arizona on March 6, 1995--obviously brand new at the time. I may have photographed the 927 at some point some 20 years ago, but I'll have to go through a bunch of old slides to find out.

[E.M. Bell]

If you just have to shoot "BNSF" power, that is the way to do it...pink or not!  Its a shame that what has to be the most famous RR paint scheme ever does not hold up to the weather so good...

ONE unit on a loaded coal train out of BSG...what are they thinking?? 

[Ponce de Leon]

ONE unit on a loaded coal train out of BSG...what are they thinking?? 

Nos. 386/387 are tri-weekly Andover-Knoxville long-barrel locals. The eastbound train usually gets only one unit out of Andover if the tonnage will allow. But---obviously someone missed their tonnage calculations yesterday.

A 3600 horsepower SD45 was only rated for 1750 tons on this line (eastbound). An F7 or GP7 could handle 1000 tons. Even one of Southern's Ls-2 simple 2-8-8-2s could only handle 26 loads--and those were just 50-ton cars.

The Appalachia Division isn't Saluda, but the combination of frequent grades and heavy curves have translated into a lot of tractive effort and horsepower requirements over the years.

[Matt L]

If you just have to shoot "BNSF" power, that is the way to do it...pink or not!  Its a shame that what has to be the most famous RR paint scheme ever does not hold up to the weather so good...

ONE unit on a loaded coal train out of BSG...what are they thinking?? 

Red paint chalks pretty badly over time if it isn't cleaned and protected. I saw a similar pink war bonnet on CSX a few days ago.