First Train of the Day

Getting that first train of the day during a photography outing can feel special, particularly if it comes along shortly after you’ve reached trackside.

Shown is NS train 25A at Ball interlocking in Cowan, Indiana, on the New Castle District. Ball is a set of crossovers toward the middle of a long passing siding south of Muncie, the home of Ball State University and a glass jar manufacturer in whose honor the college is named.

I had first spotted the 25A in Muncie and hustled out here to make this image. I’ve photographed several westbounds in Cowan but never an eastbound.

This train is typical of railroading in the precision scheduled railroading era. The 25A is, in theory, an intermodal train operating from Calumet Yard in Chicago to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

It did have some containers in the consist but these days you can find just about anything in the consist of many trains.

The 25A would not be operating very much further beyond Ball before halting near York Point, where the siding ends. The 142 was coming west.

I didn’t wait around to see that meet. I was heading back into Muncie to catch the 142 on a bridge over the White River.

Shorty

The precision scheduled railroading era has ushered in super sized trains that are a mile or longer and contain blocks of freight that used to move in separate trains. Therefore, you might find a long cut of double-stacked containers in the consist of a manifest freight or manifest freight in the consist of a train carrying an intermodal symbol.

It has meant fewer and longer trains, which management likes because that means fewer crews to pay, hence lower expenses and an improved operating ratio.

The longer is better trend, though, has yet to be applied to locals although in some instances through freights have been assigned switching responsibilities once performed by locals that have since been abolished.

Shown above is Norfolk Southern train L82 sitting just south of Cowan, Indiana, on the New Castle District. Based out of East Yard in Muncie, it works as far south as New Castle Monday through Friday before returning.

When I ran across the L82 on a recent Friday afternoon, the give-car train was sitting short of a control point known as York Point, where a four mile passing siding ends on its south (railroad east) end.

The dispatcher had informed the L82 crew that it would be waiting on a 122, a daily manifest freight operating from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Decatur, Illinois.

Those plans later changed and the L82 was allow to do some work at Oakville.

But at the time I photographed the L82 it was doing was trains have always spent part of their time doing: waiting.