November Picture Worth A Word or Two.

Who says model railroaders create unrealistic landscapes?

I was looking for something to write about when I came across this photo taken last month. There was a lot of luck, timing and wide-angle lens work to get a pretty mediocre shot. But that's not why I took it. It was the unusual setting that got my attention, in addition to the train itself. This is Tyrone, PA, on the edge of Altoona's "railfan mecca" zone.

In the last couple of years, the coal trains passing through on the old Pennsylvania that were once powered by legions of SD40-2's, have received newer power. At first they got SD50's and SD60's, many still in blue paint. I hear those units were less likely to be overhauled due to the cost relative to emissions standards, so they were on borrowed time. SD60I's seem to be the norm lately and the other units are being de-rated into SD40R's for helper service. I enjoy seeing those wide cab units, especially blue ones. Many were assembled in the Juniata Shops just down the road. My photo files show many in the lead of hotshot intermodals, still in Conrail blue. There's just something about those "isolated cabs" stuck on the head end of a typical high horsepower EMD. They also became visual precursors for the waves of SD70's to follow. Indeed at first I had to look at the trucks to see the difference. Wide cab SD60's were just unique.

In this photo, a coal train is diverting from the mainline through Tyrone and up the Nittany and Bald Eagle line. Here I am standing under the remnants of a bridge, part of a wye that used to be squeezed into this narrow valley town. As you can see from the photo, the road I am on also passes over a bridge to get under the bridge the train is on. Mixed in among all this is a pedestrian bridge to the center of the wye. A model railroader would be laughed at if he built something this unusual. Sometimes reality is better than fiction.

P-448 @ 19:40 24 - 137 - Baggage 1701 ViewLiner Sleeper 62036 2 AmFleet Cars and Horizon Fleet
Dinette "LAKESHORE LIMITED" (Boston).
P-529 @ 19:50 1065 - 6 cars cabcar 1719.
P-536 @ 19:57 Cabcar 1719 - 6 cars 1065 pushing (Boston).
P&W Loaded Coal Train To PanAm Railways in Gardner,Ma. @ 20:10 P&W 2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2006 - 2008 - 4001 30 loads of coal and 1 covered hopper. Past Garden street in Worcester.
NRWO @ 20:45 (P&W) 3906 - 2215 - 4004 30 cars.
Q-115 @ 20:55 587 - 7772 - 5403 lots of J.B. Hunt containers out of Beacon Park Yard.
P&W WX-2 @ 20:55 3001 Stacks to CSX East Worcester Yard. # 1 main track.Returned lite to the P&W's Worcester Yard.
It was fun railfanning with fellow W.F.P.T. member Kevin Castonguay and his girlfriend Ann.Between
Amtrak, MBTA Commuter Rail, The Providence & Worcester, and CSX there was lots of "HOT ACTION".
Thanks to Mike Delage for posting our cell phone reports to the groups. Also proud to note the
ProvidenceandWorcester Yahoogroup now has 300 members! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/providenceandworcesterrailroadgroup Check Em out!

Billy Leazer
W.F.P.T. / H.A.P.T. Worcester Foreign Power Team.Hebron Any Power Team.

Colton Diamonds - Early Morning

This latest trip to Southern California is off to an encouraging start. I flew into Ontario airport last night (and boy , were my arms tired...) and snagged a cut-rate room at the Colton Hampton Inn. Outside my window there were sounds suspiciously similar to train whistles, all night long. This boded well for the morning.

It's easy to be a morning person in the west when you're from the east. Just never change your clocks. I didn't, and was up at 5AM. It was still dark, though the whistles were still blowing. About 6:15AM the sunlight started to appear, so after a quick b'fast I ambled over to what I thought would be a decent spot to catch a few trains.

Within walking distance of the Hampton Inn is a place I'll call The Spot. The Spot sits in the NE quadrant of one of the busiest sets of railroad diamonds in the United States. At this point, the tracks trending east-west are owned by Union Pacific, immediately east of their enormous West Colton yard. These tracks are the famous Sunset Route, ably described by Debate Coach in a previous post. Eastbound lies San Timoteo Canyon, the Salton Sea, and Yuma AZ. The tracks trending north-south are owned by BNSF, and are the tracks the Santa Fe used to gain access to the Los Angeles basin. Just north lies the Santa Fe San Bernardino yards and depot, and beyond that the wonder of Cajon Pass and the high desert of California. Just south the tracks make a right turn on their way through the Anaheim Hills, to Fullerton and beyond. UP maintains trackage rights on this route as well, through Barstow to their cutoff at Daggett.

So, these diamonds hold some promise for itinerant railfans looking to see something not normally seen in New England - hot, frequent and fast train action! What happened on this random Sunday morning?

In 80 minutes I saw 12 trains. There were more coming, but after 8AM the sun angles are such that the entire UP line is in harsh shadows. Also, it's not cool to cross any of these tracks, so I stayed put in the NE quadrant. I had no complaints. From 6:40AM to 8:00AM here's what I saw:

• EB Metrolink (BNSF tracks, north) to San Bernardino, including a Utah Front Runner Bombardier coach.
  
• EB UP stack train (UP tracks, west) into West Colton Yard
  
• EB BNSF stack train (BNSF tracks, north), including a Santa Fe War Bonnet in position #2 of the consist
  
• WB BNSF stack train (BNSF tracks, south)
  
• Meet on the diamonds of an EB and WB set of BNSF stack trains. The EB included an NS unit in position #3 of its consist
  
• WB Metrolink (BNSF tracks, south) - the same set seen earlier, headed to Fullerton & LA Union Station
  
• AMTRAK Sunset Limited WB (UP tracks, west), which had held for all the cross traffic for 20 minutes. Its consist included two P42s and an AMTRAK California F59PHI, along with a baggage car and 8 Superliner cars.
  
• A WB UP general freight (UP tracks, west)
  
• A WB BNSF stack train (BNSF tracks, south)
  
• An EB UP stack train (BNSF tracks, north)
  
• A UP WB drag freight (UP tracks, west), including many, many gondolas of scrap metal (fluff). It appeared to be headed through West Colton yard toward Ontario.
  

At that point a UP WB was waiting just east of the diamonds, but just sat there. I left at 8AM, and on the BNSF tracks just south of the road crossing was a Sperry truck checking the westernmost rail.

More fodder for the next HAPT slide show.

Picture Worth A Few Words

Folks tend to get a bit excited by the unit coal trains headed to New England power stations - all two destinations! The trains destined to go to Bow, NH are the most notable because they cover more distance, but Mt. Tom gets a few too. Bow's trains offer a lot of variety when you toss in the P&W's contributions from the Port of Providence. I figured it wouldn't hurt to note one of the others, though it is not a "unit train" and pretty much only one railroad is involved. There might even be other places using a few cars of coal in New England too.

The photo above was taken in Peru, ME. There used to be a healthy yard here. A large Diamond Match factory complex was located behind the cars in the photo. A spur still curves off to the remaining plant area. The siding is now called "Dixfield", which is the town across the river, and the cars are located at "Dixfield East". The old depot is now a Legion hall. The photo was taken from the road which takes you from Peru village to the bridge over the Androscoggin River to Mexico and Dixfield.

The New Page Paper mill in Rumford has a smallish coal fired power plant on it's back side along the balloon track surrounding the mill. EDRU, or whatever letters they are using lately, will bring around a dozen cars at a time to the mill often but not daily, making the coal cars an easy way to identify the train. The cars mainly have MEC reporting marks and some still have the old Delaware and Hudson paint under the coal dust.

The coal hoppers are not coming from the mines. They are coming all the way from the Portland waterfront. I'm no authority but I think the Sprague Terminal transloads the coal from ships or barges and I'm also forced to admit I don't know if it is domestic or imported coal. Since I commute on the road where I took the picture, I'm glad they use rail transport. All the extra trucks for coal mixed in with all the pulp, chemical and paper boxes one sees in the area would add to the joys of Route 108. When you see how tight the Rumford mill area is, you can see why they don't have a coal pile for the plant. Besides, that would be even more handling. See how easy it is to move the coal to the siding a few miles short of the mill until it is needed. Good old on-board storage.

Anyway, I've seen this "overflow" of coal cars sitting in Peru a grand total of 2 times now. Boxcars or log racks are common at this spot but hoppers are unusual. The mill is declining like most and one paper machine is being removed. That means less need for energy. Hopefully we'll have a few more years before the whole line is no longer needed.

BC