Friday and Saturday were the type of days I will not venture out anymore except to the mailbox and to feed the birds.
Why I didn’t really need to go trackside is because I am more than satisfied with the results I got in Perry in March 2013 in similar conditions. However, things were worse on Friday than they were in March 2013 when there was heavy lake effect snow but not the extreme cold.
Of course I wouldn’t have been able to see Amtrak No. 48 anyway if I had gone out since it was cancelled. Stay warm everyone.
For several years in late January or early February, I would get together with Ed Ribinskas and Marty Surdyk for a day of railfanning in Lake County. Sometimes Jeff Troutman would join us.
We would spend much of the day on the CSX Erie West Subdivision and the Lake Erie District of Norfolk Southern in and near Perry.
This being Northeast Ohio, we always expected winter weather. By that I mean snow. But not every year saw bountiful snow on the ground despite Lake County being in a region of Ohio known for heavy snow.
During a few of those outings, the day was dark and dreary with little evidence of the beauty of winter.
That was not the case, though, during our outing of Feb. 2, 2014.
Overnight it had rained and then snow fell as the temperatures dropped.
The wet conditions meant that snow clung to just about everything in sight and pretty much stayed that way all day.
The result was one of the best winter railfanning outings I’ve ever had.
Several image from that day I’ve posted on this site before and Marty has shown during Akron Railroad Club programs some of the slides he made that day.
Ed won a monthly “best photograph” contest at Dodd Camera and received a free framed enlargement of that image that he has hanging on a wall of the dining room of his house.
That winning image was made late in the afternoon of westbound NS manifest freight 145 crossing the trestle over the Grand River in Painesville.
Last week I was rummaging through some of my digital file folders from early 2014 when I came across the images I made on Feb. 2.
Much to my surprise, I’ve only posted a few of those images on my Flickr page.
So I spent a couple days selecting and processing in Photoshop some images that had never been processed.
Shown above is a three-image sequence of the 145 crossing the now replaced Grand River trestle.
We were standing just beyond the west end of the bridge with all of us taking slightly different angles. What I liked about this series is how each image offers a different perspective.
The sequence begins with the train approaching the trestle from the east end, which captures that sense of anticipation that something memorable is about to happen.
It continues with an image of the train about halfway across the trestle and offers that compressed view common with images made with a telephoto lens.
The final image is what many would consider the money shot. Ed won the photo contest with an image similar to this one.
The train has reached the west edge of the bridge but is not yet off of it. The image combines the elements of a close train with a wide scenic view in a sort of convergence.
When I originally processed that image nearly eight years ago I converted it to black and white. There wasn’t much color in the scene and the conditions just seemed to say “black and white world.”
But after working with the image in color I decided it looks good in that form, too.
This day was one of the very few times I ever photographed NS operations on the Painesville trestle at the west end. I have numerous images from the east end, but rarely sought to do the west end.
The trestle had been built decades earlier by the Nickel Plate Road and was one of those structures that was always there even though ownership of the railroad changed to Norfolk & Western and then to Norfolk Southern.
It was always there even after the steam locomotives were retired, after the passenger trains were discontinued and after one generation of diesel locomotives had made way for another.
Generations of railroaders hired out and later retired after having crossed this bridge countless times during their long careers.
And then, so it seemed, one day the trestle was gone, replaced by a bridge that seems nondescript by comparison.
When viewed in this context, I’m even more pleased that we took the time in 2014 to get the photographs that we did of the 145 crossing the trestle.
Interestingly, that day was the only time I ever photographed an NS train crossing the trestle from ground level. But that is a story for another day.
Extreme winter conditions across the country prompted Union Pacific to nearly halt its intermodal network.
UP told shippers it would no longer accept loads at most intermodal terminals starting at 8 a.m. local time on Tuesday morning. The suspension is expected to last for 72 hours.
An exception was made for international shipments to and from on-dock facilities at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, and westbound domestic interline shipments from Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern.
The service suspension, UP said, was necessary to maintain fluidity at its intermodal terminals.
“Several areas of our operating territory have experienced widespread interstate and road closures as a result of this weekend’s winter storms,” UP said in the advisory sent to shippers.
The advisory said shippers should expect delays of a minimum of 72 hours.
BNSF also said it is experiencing delays due to the weather conditions but stopped short of suspending acceptance of new loads at its terminals.
In an advisory sent to its shippers, BNSF warned of “extended delays” although it didn’t say for how long.
A severe snow storm hit New Jersey on Thursday. Since I live within walking distance of the old Erie/Erie Lackawanna Bergen County Line I wandered down to the station at the height of the storm to see the action. All the trains I saw (except for one) were on time to the minute. Our station is seeing its 88th winter, still doing its job sheltering passengers from the weather. The trains keep rolling on the old Erie, moving passengers just like they have for over a century.
Some meteorologists are calling this year’s winter one that we’ll remember. Here is a preview of what might happen.
This Baltimore & Ohio freight is heading east beyond the B&O passenger station where I am standing and approaching downtown Kent in the late 1960s. That is the Erie Lackawanna passenger station on the hill above. Now, do you remember winter?
The snow is flying as the NS 65V with the Central of New Jersey heritage unit in the lead passes through Vermilion. The former New York Central station is the right.
The wind-angle perspective of NS 1071. The Vermilion railfan platform is the far right.
My friend Adam and I were doing to get in some railfanning before attending a banquet Saturday night in Berea.
As we drove out that way we saw an online report that the Central of New Jersey heritage locomotive was leading a westbound 65V and getting a new crew at CP Ram in Cleveland.
Our plan was to intercept this train in Olmsted Falls. It was snowing steadily and traffic on I-480 was slow. As we were passing by Cleveland Hopkins Airport Adam saw an online report that the NS 1071 had just passed trough Berea.
We would never make it to Olmsted Falls in time. Plan B was to drive to Vermilion. We easily got ahead of hit despite the snowy conditions.
Much to my delight the snow continued to fall as we waited beneath the overhang of a shop on the north side of the NS Chicago Line.
After waiting longer than expected, the headlight of the NS 1071 came into view to the east. That gal looked good in the snow.
In the wake of a water pipe break incident and an episode in which some 170 passengers for the Lake Shore Limited froze and shivered their way through the night, Amtrak said it is changing traffic patterns for pedestrian flow at Chicago Union Station to improve temperature conditions.
The changes will be in effect through Feb. 28 and was undertaken in cooperation with the Metra commuter rail agency in Chicago. Amtrak owns the station.
The plan includes limiting the use of some doors, which Amtrak said will improve the control of the influx winter air into the station.
Amtrak said this should reduce the likelihood of such incidents as the sprinkler pipe break that occurred last week.
No changes are planned for the entrances at the Chicago River, and to and from Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard., Those are the highest volume routes for most station users and Amtrak said all exterior entry and exit locations will remain in service.
The connecting corridor between the north and south Concourses will be closed between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.
Foot traffic to the ticket offices for Amtrak, Metra and Greyhound, to and from Canal Street or to and from other services will be redirected.
Use of the automatic doors and escalators between the east side of Canal Street and the concourse will be limited in off-peak times. Elevators will operate at all times.
Doors to the service drive will be limited to emergency use or open only events in the Great Hall. Pedestrians will be directed instead through the Great Hall or to and from other entrances.
akronrrclub.wordpress.com 