My First Railfan Outing of 2017

My first train of 2017 had a few things in common with my first train of 2016.

It had been more than a month since I had been trackside. Holiday activities, bad weather and other factors had kept me at home.

The stars finally lined up on Sunday, Jan. 15. I drove to Painesville to meet with Ed Ribinskas to take care of business related to the transfer of the Akron Railroad Club’s treasurer duties.

It was a sunny day and we moseyed over to Perry where the Erie West Subdivision of CSX and the Great Lakes District of Norfolk Southern run a block apart.

Let the record show that the first train of 2017 that I photographed had a few things in common with the first train that I photographed in 2016.

Both were short, headed eastbound, captured in January and there was no snow on the ground.

But the first train of 2017 was a CSX intermodal whereas the first train of 2016 had been an NS local.

Does this mean anything? Not really, but it is of passing interest.

We arrived in Perry around 11:30 a.m. and by the time we left at 4:30 p.m. we had logged 12 trains.

Three of them were on NS, all eastbounds. Interestingly, the NS traffic came within a 45-minute window.

Otherwise, NS was quiet the rest of the day and there was not so much as a peep of a westbound.

CSX offered some moderate variation. Six of its nine trains were intermodals with a seventh being the Canadian Pacific run-through train that is mostly stacked containers with some manifest freight tacked on.

The CP train had CP motive power and an eastbound crude oil train had a pair of BNSF pumpkins. NS train 206 had a Union Pacific unit trailing. That was the day’s foreign power.

CSX also ran a westbound auto rack train, but we never saw one of those 500 plus axles of a monster manifest freight that CSX has become known for within the past year. In fact, we never saw a manifest freight of any length on CSX.

We also seldom heard the dispatcher of either railroad on the radio. Most dispatcher transmissions had to do with speaking to maintenance of way personnel. Only once did the dispatcher give operating information to a train.

As the afternoon wore on the clouds began thickening although it never reached overcast conditions. The sun continued to pop through even if it was filtered light.

All in all it was a nice way to kick off the 2017 railfanning season.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Eastbound NS 22K was the first NS train that I photographed in 2017. The leader is one digit off from being the bar code unit.

That’s the Perry nuclear power plant blowing off steam behind a westbound CSX stack train.

NS train 206 passes a westbound CSX stack train. CSX twice sent a westbound intermodal train past as we waited for an eastbound NS intermodal train.

The lead unit of NS train 310 reflected in a pool of water in a drainage ditch. It was the only manifest freight we saw in five hours of railfanning.

Another short intermodal train. Is this about giving better customer service or was the business handled by this train way down?

Bright colors for the motive power of an eastbound crude oil train.

A westbound auto rack train cruises along on Track No. 1

The day ended as it started with an eastbound CSX intermodal train.

Our Persistence was Rewarded in the End

 

My last photograph of the day was one of the best, if not my favorite. The sun has set but the afterglow lights up the western sky as a snow-coated CSX stack train heads for Cleveland.

My fellow Akron Railroad Club officer Edward Ribinskas and I went to Conneaut on Sept. 19 to catch the Pine Tree Limited on its way to the convention of the American Association of Private Car Owners.

A couple days later, Ed checked himself into the Cleveland Clinic hospital where he ultimately wound up having open heart surgery.

It’s been a long recovery period and Ed is doing well, but he had not been trackside since that September outing.

Last Friday afternoon I had an opening in my schedule and the weather forecast looked promising so I traveled to Ed’s home to pick him up and take him to Perry to get in a little train watching.

At least that was the idea. Perry is home to the busy CSX Erie West Subdivision and the Norfolk Southern Cleveland District, both of which go to Buffalo, N.Y., from Cleveland.

I thought by Friday traffic would be moving again on both railroads and it would be heavy as they sought to get caught up.

I could not have been more wrong. We sat for a good two hours and nothing moved. The road channels of both railroads were eerily silent.

About 4:15 p.m., I heard a scratching noise on the CSX road channel. It was followed by another scratching noise a couple minutes later. Another minute passed and I heard a voice calling a signal on Track No. 1 westbound.

We were not going to be shut out. Until then, we had both become rather discouraged.

By the time the train got to Perry it was just past 4:30. Weather conditions were good. It was cold, but not bitterly cold.

The clouds had broken up and it was mostly sunny. The ground was still snow covered and there was a fair amount of the white stuff on the tracks.

With rain and warmer temperatures in the offing for Saturday and Sunday, Friday would be the best day to photograph trains even as it turned out not to be the best day for rail traffic.

The challenge was that the sun would be setting in less than a half-hour. The low sun angle was fine, but the trees blocking it created the effect of sunlight and shadows.

Still, I rather liked the way that that played out. Our first train of the day was a garbage train that stinks to high heaven even in the winter.

We got out shots and I managed to work the setting sun into a going way image.

After getting back in my car, we joked about how we waited for more than two hours and all we got was garbage.

It was good for a laugh, but we weren’t done just yet. About 15 minutes later CSX sent a pair of stack trains past us, one in each direction.

The light was slipping away fast, but there was just enough to make good images.

We both were pleased with how our photos of the Union Pacific unit on the lead of the westbound worked out.

As we got ready to leave, we agreed that we had, again, learned that you need to be persistent when chasing trains.

It doesn’t always work out this way, but on this day our seeing it through was rewarded with some good late day light photographs.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

After waiting more than two hours we finally landed a train. Fortunately for us, it coming westbound into the late day light.

A closer view of the motive power of the garbage train stepping out in the sunlight again. Note the tall shadows that Ed and I cast in the snow.

I just liked the contrast of dark and light on the endless string of garbage containers.

The sun is about to set over Perry as the rear of the snow-covered garbage containers catches the dying rays of light.

I managed to catch a piece of the setting sun in the notch in the trees in front of the nose of this eastbound stack train. If only the train had been here a few minutes earlier.

Passing stack trains beneath the old signal bridge at Perry.

A good look at the Union Pacific leader on the westbound stack train.

The snow caked on the pilot and trucks of Union Pacific No. 8178 show that it’s been traveling through snow for a while.

The last rays of sunlight of the day reflect off the sides of the containers of a westbound CSX stack train at Perry.

 

Snow . . . and ICE at Perry

The remnants of the high pressure system that brought sunshine to Northeastern Ohio over the weekend following Saturday’s snowstorms lingered over the region on Monday morning before giving way to cloudy skies and warmer temperatures. With Monday being Martin Luther King Jr. day and a holiday where I work, it was an ideal time to catch some snow action.

Fellow Akron Railroad Club member Ed Ribinskas and I headed for Perry where we managed to find a parking spot next to the CSX tracks. Lake County was particularly hard hit by the Saturday storm, with some areas getting up to 2 feet of snow. Perry was one of those places with deep snow.

To be sure, the snow had packed down by Monday morning, but there was still plenty enough of the white stuff around to make for some interesting photography. We had scarcely parked when we heard horns to the west, which signaled what turned out to be the first of three eastbound intermodal trains running in rapid sucession.

We had heard the dispatcher on the radio tell a K symbol train at Collinwood yard that he would be following a couple of eastbound van trains.

Soon enough the K train showed up and added some ICE to the scene. OK, so technically these are Canadian Pacific locomotives and not Iowa, Chicago & Eastern units because the former has controlled the latter since 2008. 

Still, it looked like an ICE train pulling ethanol tank cars. Leading the way was SD40-2 No. 6367, the City of New Ulm, wearing Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern markings. Trailing was No. 6445, also an SD40-2, the City of Bettendorf, in a traditional ICE livery.

The train lumbered through Perry, leaving a swirling mist of snow in its wake. Yes, the ICE had been nice, real nice.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders