An Unexpected and Pleasant Surprise

Railfans go to great lengths to determine when something special is coming down the tracks that they want to photograph.

They’ve set up Facebook pages, online chat lists, websites and texting networks.

Yet there will always be a place for dumb luck in getting something out of the ordinary.

Such was the case during a recent trip to Pittsburgh. We had set up at California Avenue to get Norfolk Southern train 21Q as it came across the OC bridge on the Mon Line.

Leading the 21Q was the Pennsylvania Railroad heritage unit, a fact we had learned about through the website HeritageUnits.com.

We had only been there a few minutes when a coal train came rumbling out onto the bridge.

The trailing unit of the coal train was DC to AC conversion No. 4004. There are thus far only a handful of these conversion locomotives in revenue service wearing one of the special liveries that NS designed for them.

No. 4004 features the a black nose, gray body and blue lighting accent stripes. Yes, it would have been nice it had been leading, but I was still quite pleased to get it as it was.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Day in Durand: Part 1

The first photo of a train that I made in Durand, Michigan, last July was one of my favorites of the day. A local is coming around the High Wye from the Holly Subdivision to the Flint Subdivision to head to Flint.

One in a periodic series of images that I made last summer

Back in July we made a trip to Michigan to visit with some of my wife’s relatives in Flint. While she and her cousins went shopping I drove to Durand to spend a day at one of Michigan’s most famous railroad junctions.

Three railroads serve Durand, but there is no guarantee that you’ll see all three on a given visit because two of them are short lines that might have one or two trains a day, if that.

I sort of saw the Great Lakes Central. From the Durand Union Station I saw a GLC locomotive come to the far end of the yard for head room.

But the GLC road job that works in Durand and takes interchange traffic to the Ann Arbor in Howell, Michigan, went north out of Owosso on the morning I was in Durand.

A local railfan told me that meant that by the time that job came through Durand it would be dark. So much for seeing the Great Lakes Central.

The other short line is the Huron & Eastern which shows up pretty reliably on weekdays in the afternoon.

And then there is Canadian National, the primary railroad in Durand. The CN tracks once belonged to the Grand Trunk Western, which actually was a CN property for several decades before the GTW identify began disappearing in favor of the CN brand.

Interestingly, the first train I saw on this day was a local led by a former GTW GP9r still wearing its Grand Trunk colors and markings.

It was leading a local headed for Flint that I was told had originated there last night. The train goes east from Flint, works its way to Detroit via Mt. Clemens and returns to Flint via Durand and the Holly Sub.

I had timed my visit to reach Durand in time to get Amtrak’s westbound Blue Water, which arrived early and had to wait for time to depart.

The local railfan I was chatting with said that typically a westbound intermodal train follows Amtrak into Durand.

There was a westbound not long after Amtrak departed, but it was a manifest freight. The intermodal must have been running ahead of Amtrak and I never saw an intermodal train during my approximately nine hours in Durand.

Because I was in Durand so early, it’s tough to photograph a westbound because of the lighting conditions. I tried to get the westbound CN manifest freight as a side shot with the depot but it didn’t work out that well.

If you’ve spent time in Durand you know the CN traffic is about the same level as that of the CSX New Castle Subdivision through Akron. There are going to be some long gaps between trains.

It would be about two hours before the next train arrived, a Powder River coal train bound for the Huron & Eastern.

It came into view with two BNSF units on the lead. As is standard procedure, the coal train ran east past the westbound home signals and backed up on the Port Huron Connection.

The CN crew tied the train down and cut off the BNSF motive power. The H&E would use its own power to deliver the coal to a utility plant.

The CN crew could either run light to Flint, where they would go off the clock, or they might be directed by the rail traffic controller — CN speak for dispatcher — to make a pickup in Durand.

I’m sure the crew would rather run light to Flint because it would mean less work. But that would not be the case on this day. They had work to do in the yard.

It would be another hour before another train passed the Durand depot, an eastbound CN manifest freight.

Ten minutes later the CN crew that had been picking up cars in the yard appeared on the Port Huron connection and headed for Flint. Another nearly two-hour gap between trains was getting underway.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Former GTW No. 4623 would be the only locomotive I saw on this day in GTW markings. It is coming around the connection from the Holly Sub to the Flint Sub.

Amtrak’s Blue Water leaves town en route to Chicago but its next stop will be in East Lansing. It was the first time I had seen those signals beneath P42DC No. 126 in operation.

After going about two hours without seeing a train the sight of a BNSF locomotive, or any locomotive for that matter, was welcome. A Powder River coal train eases its way into Durand.

Backing up on the Port Huron Wye to deliver loaded coal hoppers to the Huron & Eastern.

In case you were wondering where I made this photograph here is a big clue.

As the coal train crew worked in the Durand Yard an eastbound manifest freight rolled through town on the Flint Subdivision.

Coming out of the Durand Yard with a load of freight cars.

And away to Flint we go.

Central of Ga. H. Unit on the Former NKP

Norfolk Southern No. 8101, the Central of Georgia heritage unit, passed through Cleveland around noon on Monday.

It was leading an 888 coal train en route to Buffalo, New York, and came through Painesville at 1:45 p.m., where Akron Railroad Club member Jeff Troutman caught it with his cell phone.

The train took the former Nickel Plate Road mainline all the way east from Bellevue after coming up the Sandusky District from Columbus. The train originated in West Virginia.

Photograph by Jeff Troutman

CSX Moving More W.Va. Coal Trains

Trains magazine is reporting that coal traffic has been on the upswing in West Virginia on CSX during the past two weeks.

It reported that Contura Energy’s McClure Complex has increased the number of loaded unit trains of metallurgical coal trains it moved in the third week of July from two to six.

Five additional new trains this week were also slated to be moved. The magazine said there has been a decrease in the number of stored coal hopper cars being stored on the idled former Clinchfield Railroad.

The uptick in business follows Contura’s reorganization in bankruptcy court as a new company that is comprised of the top lien holders of Alpha Natural Resources, which had mining operations in West Virginia.

Contura acquired the complexes of Alpha’s Nicholas, McClure, and Toms Creek complexes in West Virginia and Virginia.

It also owns mining complexes in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and in Pennsylvania.

Black and Slow vs. Blue and Fast

I managed to catch the New York Central H unit negotiating the new bypass track at Battery Park near West 73rd Street in Cleveland on Thursday. It was leading a 553 empty hopper train. Main No. 1 is still in its original location and being used, but it, too, will get connected to the other bypass main. You can see both original mains off to the right. The lunchtime show was the Navy’s Blue Angels flying team, which is in town in for the Cleveland Air Show this weekend at Burke Lakefront Airport. I know this is a railroad blog, but I thought some might enjoy the jets.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee

Clearfield Cluster Loses Coal Customer

The last coal train has departed from the mine and over the tracks of Cherry Tree branch of R.J. Corman’s Clearfield Cluster in central Pennsylvania.

Amfire Mining’s Clymer Prep Plant shipped its last unit train earlier this week. Just before 1 p.m. on Tuesday, a Komatsu WA600 loader dumped the final scoop of coal into the train.

An hour later 55 cars of the 105-car train departed Clymer for the final time. Thus ended the shipment of coal by rail by the steadiest coal producer located on the Clearfield Cluster. The Rosebud Coal processing plant at Bigler shut down at the beginning of the summer, ending the operation of the railroad’s shuttle trains.

Unit coal trains continue to move from smaller operators, but those moves are irregular. An ethanol plant at Clearfield is the operation’s largest customer. Corman acquired the line from Conrail in 1995 and made it part of its Pennsylvania Lines operating group. It was once a joint operation of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad.

Trains, Planes and an Automobile

NS 412 is about to rumble past the Olmsted Falls depot with its consist of high top hopper cars.

Olmsted Falls is one of those railfanning spots that is well known by many locals, but which tends to be overshadowed by the better known and “patronized”  Berea a few minutes away.

The advantage of going to Berea is that you get CSX traffic as well as the Norfolk Southern’s Chicago Line. But I like Olmsted Falls because there tends to be fewer people there and you can easily get on both sides of the tracks to take advantage of whatever lighting conditions may exist.

On a recent Sunday, I went to the Falls to catch a very late running Amtrak No. 49. While I got “bonus coverage” when NS 8100 (the Nickel Plate Road heritage locomotive) led the 20W past. I covered both of those trains in earlier coverage.

This post is devoted to a few other trains that I captured while waiting for Amtrak No. 49.

I begin with three images of an eastbound coal train. Although not as flashy or “glamorous” as a passenger train or a train led by an H unit, I thought this train reflects the heritage of the Norfolk & Western of hauling coal from the West Virginia mountains.

I converted these photos to black and white because the flat lighting conditions resulted in muted colors. But I also did it because, well, certain trains just seem to call for being in a black and white world. A coal train is one of them.

As I watched car after car roll past with the term “high top” on them, I kept thinking about high top sneakers, which were popular in my younger days. If I recall, those were black and white. If memory serves me correctly, this train carried symbol 412.

There always seems to be an outlier in every group and so it was with this train.There was one “low top” hopper car in the consist.

A while after the passage of the 412 came another coal train, this one carrying symbol 417. The Toledo East dispatcher told this train to pace itself going west because it would soon come to a halt behind a 15N that was stopped ahead.

NS was single tracking for 18 miles west of CP 218 and the 417 would spend several hours waiting for a route and be passed by at least one train, which was carrying a load of empty crude oil tankers.

Another feature of Olmsted Falls is that it lies beneath the final approach path of runways 6R and 6L at nearby Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

When air traffic is landing on those runways, as it was on Sunday, you get nice close-up views of the planes. Air traffic in and out of Cleveland isn’t what it used to be following the closing this year of the United Airlines hub that had been built by Continental Airlines. United still, though, operates the most daily flights from CLE.

I was standing by my car between trains and planes when I looked over and saw two small convertibles following each other northbound on Brookside Drive.

I wasn’t in a good position to photograph both of them with the zoom lens I had on my camera at the time. The best I could do was this going away shot of the second of the two. I don’t know what make or model this is, but I’m sure this guy enjoyed toolin’ around town in his toy.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

There is always an outlier in every group. Here is the only “low top” hopper in the bunch.

One “low top” in the consist did not spoil the uniform appearance of this coal hoppers train.

NS 417 is taking it easy going west. Note the BNSF “Grinstein” as the trailing unit.

The motive power lash up, er, I mean motive power CON-sist, of this eastbound stack train featured an array of colors and ownerships.

I’ve always enjoyed photographing the uniform profile of unit trains. The 65R rolls westward although not for long. This train would later be routed around the 417.

Delta 1474 from Atlanta has MD88 equipment.

United 1092 from Fort Myers, Fla., arrives with a 737-900.

I think you can figure out which airline this is. It is flight 520 from Denver and features an Airbus 319. Frontier has been picking up some of the markets abandoned by United earlier this year.

Enjoying a Sunday drive.

SP Heritage Unit Does the Mon Valley

On Friday night the Southern Pacific heritage locomotive of Union Pacific came through Cleveland. Saturday morning found it sitting at Shire Oaks, Pa., waiting to take its train to Bailey Mine.

We burned rubber to Pittsburgh and looked for the NS Interstate heritage unit which was reportedly sitting at Conway.

Not finding anything there, we continued to Shire Oaks. At the south end of the yard was the SP heritage unit trailing a four-unit consist.

After an hour, he was rolling south to Bailey Mine with NS train N22. After getting some decent sunlight shots we proceeded to West Brownsville. A northbound CSX train then a southbound NS went through before our train showed up.

No less than three cars cut in front of the train on the street running trackage there, with one of them cutting it very close. We chased further south, catching him again at Clarksville in some sweet light. We caught him once again before the light started to give out and we headed for home.

Article and Photographs by Todd Dillon

Unit Coal Trains in Northeast Ohio

A CSX westbbound loaded coal train of DKPX hoppers enters the Sterling, Ohio, interlocking at 2013 hours on June 2, 2010. Ties are piled ready for installation on the CL&W subdivision. (Photographs by Richard Jacobs)

As I have been out railfanning lately, I’ve photographed two separate unit coal trains passing through our area of Northeastern Ohio.

One was on the W&LE. I first heard it called on the scanner. I knew it was not the usual W&LE train due to the BNSF locomotive numbers. On Sunday, May 14, 2010, I caught it eastbound at the Ohio Route 57 crossing just south of Orrville. It was a 12,000- to 16,000-ton train of 125 cars.

I later caught the returning empties on a different train westbound at Creston on Wednesday, May 26.

I found out from the Wheeling that it is a Powder River Coal train handed off from NS at Bellevue to the Wheeling. It travels on the W&LE to Rayland on the Ohio River. There is a train to barge transload facility there. The coal is taken by barge to power plants on the river.

The second unit coal train I saw and photographed was on CSX at Sterling. It was a westbound led by CSX No. 533 on Wednesday, June 2. The T388-31 train was loaded, with a mix of DKPX (Duke Power) and CSX hoppers, mostly DKPX.

I found out from Tony Dannemiller that it started in Newell, Pennsylvania, and ended in Terrell, North Carolina, at the Duke Power plant. This is a roundabout routing for sure. It goes westbound through Sterling to Greenwich and then travels via Columbus and Russell, Kentucky, over the former C&O east to the CSX route that serves North Carolina south of Richmond, Virginia.

Not all unit coal trains in our area are Powder River ones. The CSX loaded coal train that I caught at Sterling had coal that had been mined in Pennsylvania.

There is something about a long train of matched loaded hoppers of coal that inspires my railfan photography. I don’t have to go to Wyoming either!

 Richard Jacobs

A W&LE unit coal train is led eastbound by BNSF No. 8947 at MP 123 (Route 57) on the Brewster Subdivision on May 4, 2010. The train of Powder River coal is received from NS at Bellevue for delivery to the rail-barge facility at Rayland on the Ohio River.

BNSF SD75MAC No. 8878 leads a westbound empty Powder River coal train into Creston on May 26, 2010. The train is coming from the rail-barge transload facility at Rayland, Ohion, on the Ohio River. It will deliver the cars to NS at Bellevue for westward return.