The 6 O’Clock Alarm Was Most Welcome

There’s a song by The Monkees titled Daydream Believer that has a line that goes “the 6 o’clock  alarm would never ring.”

On most mornings that I don’t have to work that would be a good thing, but on Thanksgiving morning, the 6 a.m. alarm had better ring; I’ve got trains to watch.

Up and out the door ASAP, I could hear a train rumble off in the distance as I headed to my Jeep in the parking lot of my apartment complex.

I turned on the scanner to hear “eye oh 20, Clear 14, two east”

“Take it easy approaching the tunnels eye oh 20; eye 157 is coming west and he’ll go first,” the
CSX dispatcher announced.

I decided to head straight to Berea, with a stop at the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts for some
breakfast along the way.

I took one bite of my croissant sandwich when a headlight appeared to the east on CSX. I 157 was
approaching. At 6:54 a.m. the first train of the day was logged. CSX 4551 and CSX 5389 were
heading a train of stacks and racks.

I had breakfast finished by the time the time the next move came by. It was NS 13Q. This mixed
freight was lead by a trio of NS 1189, NS 1184 and CSX 490.

As the last cars of 13Q were going by a headlight on CSX heralded an eastbound. This was Q560 with CSX 5346 and . . . “hey, what’s that last unit,” I thought to myself.

I caught the number as 4006. It was painted like an American Flag on the front and camouflage on the rear. “Have to look that up when I get home.”

About 10 minutes later NS had a hi-rail truck patrolling No. 1 track from Berea down to
CP Drawbridge. NS would be single tracking for the near future.

The scanner was quiet, and I was getting tired of sitting, so I walked down Depot Street to
Rocky River Drive and looked over the bridge replacement that NS is doing where Rocky River
Drive goes under their tracks.

A couple of hundred feet short of my Jeep, a light rain started to fall. This would be with us
most of the day.

The brief lull was broken by back-to-back CSX ethanol trains. The first was led by Union Pacific 2660 and NS 4027. The second had Canadian National 8963 up front and CN 3048 on the rear.

Just before the 9 o’clock hour was to begin, an NS westbound mixed freight made an appearance. They weren’t calling signals, so I didn’t get the symbol, but it had NS 7592, UP 5302 and
NS 7553 up front.

Next up at 9:47 an NS 16G made an appearance. This mixed freight was lead by NS 9546 and UP 8611. By now some of the attendees who had gone to breakfast at Bob Evans were arriving.

“Did you see the KCS Veteran’s Unit go by?” one of them asked. “So that’s what that was.”

NS had double stacks to run next at 10:13 a.m. as 20T rumbled past behind NS 7575/ NS 7577
and NS 1178.

Before 20T could clear, a fast charging I 166 slammed past behind CP 8502 up front and CP 8777 about half way back.

At 10:32 a.m. we watched NS 26E go by behind NS 4268, NS 8006 and NS 9956. The 26E
is a doublestack train.

I had to think about leaving soon, so I was off, but I did catch two additional CSX trains on the way home. These included a westbound mixed freight went that went under Front Street as I was going over, and I got stopped at Holland Road crossing by an eastbound stack train that turned out to be I 158. It had CSX 9045 leading one other CSX unit.

So if you’re keeping score, it was CSX 7, NS 6. Not a bad four hours of railfanning, with motive power from six of the seven Class 1 railroads. No BNSF this year.

I just wish the weather would cooperate and we could have a sunny Turkey Day. Maybe next year.

Article by Marty Surdyk

Tags: Berea Ohio, Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts, Marty Surdyk, Railfanning in Berea Ohio, RRE turkey shoot