Ocala Findings

While there isn't much to report here, because I mostly got skunked, I did find an interesting tidbit or two.  Ocala sports a nice depot at the diamond where the old ACL and Seaboard crossed each other.  The ACL line is now run by Pinsly's Florida Northern, and the Seaboard is now the "S" line of CSX and will soon be the primary CSX line to the southern part of the state.  The CSX "A" line (old ACL main) was recently sold to provide a state run passenger line. 

Amtrak remnant.  Only a bus connection now.

Bus and cab terminal on the ACL side.

Looking toward the diamond on the ACL side.

Sign at FN office in Williston.

The Florida Northern provided most of the  skunkage.  I heard them switching on the scanner but was never where I needed to be to actually see them.  A local fan told me I just missed them but I was not able to find them amongst the industries they were serving.  Osceola Street downtown also features street running which they apparently did the day before too.  This is over the diamond and a few blocks into town.  I saw a CF-7 in the yard off in the distance a few blocks the other way but it wasn't visible enough to shoot a photo.  I did get a photo of one of their signs in Williston and that is their interchange to the right of the CSX train below in Ocala. Apparently the two lines don't connect.  Williston is on a line that serves a power plant well north of Ocala and FN provides the local switching while CSX sends in unit coal trains with CSX power.  Map here.

Aside from the boo-hoo stories, I did see a northbound CSX pass through minutes after my first trip to the depot.  I had my 'throwdown' camera and was in a hurry so it's better than nothing.  The next thing was the feature of the covered platforms still in place.  They are curved on the SAL side.  Apparently the bus lines use the ACL side and Amtrak used to use the SAL side.  Other than some leftover Amtrak signs, the bus connection is the only reason the full sign still has reason to exist.

FN crosses over the CSX rails!  No cuts.

The coolest find I had seen but didn't recognize until the local fan pointed it out.  That is the FN crossing; it goes over the CSX rails.  No cuts in the CSX rails.  Look carefully.  I'd heard of these but never recognized one before.  I certainly didn't know I was looking at one the day before so I may have seen a hundred and not known it.  The wide girder structure would give it away.  Something odd about it caused me to photograph it. 


It's only some odds and ends this time.  I still have to type up a visit to the platform at Folkston, GA.  That provided a bit more action.

BC

North Platte or Bust: Part 11, La Grange, KY

August 16

We deliberately stopped a bit north of Louisville in a smallish town called La Grange.  The fact that they have street trackage, and practically celebrate it, drew our attention.  It turned out to be a terrific town to spend a few hours in.  It was nearly the only railfanning we did on a "travel day".

The old L&N depot on the west end of town was the future home of some local railfan's visitor center.  We found the very European looking steamer sitting out front.

From the end of town we drove back down into the street trackage area.  A stretch of track running about two city blocks through a busy and vibrant downtown area.  There was room for curbside parking on both sides and two lanes of traffic.  However, trains pretty much used one lane when they passed.


We located a good place to sit on the east end.  There were benches on the street corners so we picked the one with the best camera angles and lighting.  These happened to be metal rockers.   I had to get Charles to pose for a shot to show the street, the rockers and our vantage point.  We call these L.A.R.F.'ing chairs.
(Lazy A-- Rail Fanning)  This time they were provided by the city of La Grange and not pulled from the car's trunk.



The city spent a lot of energy keeping the town clean and maintained.  The streets were swept.  Flowers were growing everywhere.  Businesses seemed to be doing well.  Rather than fight the trains (CSX puts up to 30 per day through town) they celebrate it.  The city logo and slogans referred to the trains.




Amazingly, when a train came along, chaos did not develop.  Locals knew the drill well.   The business people we chatted with seemed to expect train nuts to visit and they were friendly people anyway.





Once we caught a couple of northbounds we moved to the other end of the street trackage.  Here we were next to a courthouse square and more businesses.  While we were basking in the shade of the courthouse park, a local reporter came by and asked if we were from the media (Charles' camera looks like a reporter's).  We had stumbled into another sensational murder trial (locally big this time).  We looked around and saw the people in a new light.  Lots of media types, security types and lawyer types.  I crossed the street for the next train.

We ate lunch outdoors at the One Nineteen Restaurant.  They had sidewalk tables that kept us about ten feet from the tracks.  Before, during and after we saw about 3 trains from that spot.  The staff was tickled to have a couple of rail enthusiasts around.  They were as excited about the trains as we were.  Of course, they had a business that was also across from the courthouse.  The food was good and our perky waitress kept my iced tea full.  We could see the end of the street trackage from out seats.


The light had shifted in the four hours we were around.  We decided it was time to leave.  However, there was a set of signals on the north end of the street zone that told us that a train was out there.  Red told us it was a southbound and probably at the siding north of the depot.  We headed to our original perch by the "LARFing chairs".   This gave me a chance to try some more wide angle shots.




Thinking this was it for a while, we looked at the signals again to confirm.  Still lit.  Something else was around.  We had gotten the idea from someone earlier that a local we'd seen would return south.  Sure enough, it appeared fairly soon.  This time the GP30 slug was leading.

We could leave now that we saw it.










I don't recall where Eminence fit in on the map but it was an important stop on the L&N once.  The line is gone now but was cut back to here in recent times.  Apparently bourbon was one of the chief products of the town and today Eminence Speakers are produced there.  The depot was unique enough to photograph.  It turned out to be the last significant rail shot of the day.  We were traveling to our last night's stop at the Elkhorn Inn in Landgraff, West Virginia.

We were headed into the hills.  No more straight and level roads for a while.  We had to go past Frankfort and Lexington to get into the serious mountains, but it was already getting rugged outside of La Grange.  We'd see it all by the time we found the Elkhorn Inn.  It wasn't exactly off an Interstate highway on the prarie.

BC

North Platte or Bust: Part 10, Goodbye Mid-West

Pacific, MO

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 15, 2012:

We arose to one of the best accidental findings of the trip:  Pacific, Missouri
Pacific is a railfan hotspot, complete with park and visitor center that we barely knew existed - but should have.  The Trains "Hot Spots Guidebook" listed Eureka, the next town east.  Close.
The Route 66 Railfan Visitor Center is hosted by some great railfans who were as helpful as could be. The town also had some railroad and Civil War history to check out.  We were sitting near the point where the Missouri Pacific was vying for first transcontinental status and the Frisco was born.  That same history made it a target in the Civil War.  The two roads in town were one once and Frisco split from a branch that originated here.

Pacific, MO

Route 66 Railfan Visitors Center

And, we found it all by chance.  We asked Expedia for a motel in Eureka, but it found a better one in Pacific.  We may not have found it otherwise except that we thought we might as well see what this town had for trains, since we were here already.  So many ways we could have missed it all...

Back at the motel, we heard scanner chatter almost as soon as we turned the radio on.  We reconnoitered the area and headed to Hardee's for breakfast since it was handy.   Charles spotted the visitor's center on the first pass through town and I couldn't miss the covered

Returning local.  Pacific, MO

picnic tables next to the tracks.  We returned after eating and parked in the public parking between the old Frisco and MoPac lines.  Our first stop was the visitors center.  I thought it was just a well located hobby shop.  Charles went in first and didn't come out.  Curiosity led me in fairly soon after I determined that a train wasn't nearby. 

BNSF GE's Pacific, MO

The folks at the center were busy with organizing a fundraiser or something but they were exceedingly helpful with railfan information about the entire St. Louis area.  A computer provided ATCS information for both lines.  I'm not one for crowds so I walked over to the shelter to wait on a BNSF train I thought would appear from the west.  Charles stayed inside and got to know people.  I also had a vague idea that an Amtrak "Missouri River" train from KC was around.

Pacific, MO

  The BNSF did come along, but far later than I expected and the Amtrak totally surprised me.  I like the "old and new" paint schemes on the BNSF GE's.  The fact that I managed to line up the Civil War Monument with the passing of a relatively speedy Amtrak train is mostly luck.  It looks stopped, but wasn't.  A returning local on the UP side gave a chance to try some new angles.  This may have been the first train we heard earlier.

Unfortunately, without prior knowledge of this place, we didn't allow ourselves much time to stick around.  It seemed like a waste of good info to move on.  However, we both vowed to return with a vengeance.  The  St. Louis area has so much to offer railfans and the visitor center can help take the mystery out of such an adventure.

Ex-C&EI/L&N Nashville, IL

Nashville, IL

Down the road and over in Illinois again, we were tracking eastward over side roads again.  We crossed many lines that existed or had been pulled up.  At one point we stabilized on a route parallel with the Evansville Western Railway.  We pretty much followed it over most of its route, but saw no trains anywhere.  We investigated many of its interchanges too.  Nothing.  However, the chase did get us into a couple of other sights that we might have missed otherwise.

National Railway Equipment

National Railway Equipment, Mt. Vernon, IL

Mt. Vernon, Illinois is the known home of National Railway Equipment.  However, when we stumbled into it, I couldn't have told you that.  I never made the connection until I saw the signs.  Never have I seen such a collection of old relics.  There were FM's, BLW's, MLW's, ALCO's and GE's mixed in the stuff laying around.  Some of them had to be from the 1940's.  We were following a string of diamonds and interchanges on "short range sensors" when I spotted this final shot below.  That led us around the block to see what else was about.  Very cool but the place seemed hostile with plenty of no trespassing signs and fencing. 

National Railway Equipment, Mt. Vernon, IL

We continued east, checking out the various rail lines we encountered but didn't find anything significant for the rest of the day.  The last major railfan stop was Bluford (south of Centralia) where the old Southern crossed over the old IC.  Interesting but little access, bad light and not trains so no photos.  We were headed to La Grange, KY so we had some miles ahead of us.  Nearby I-64 got us started toward Louisville.  Interestingly, we passed the Indiana coal fields and even the massive pit where Peabody Coal came from.  The SPV atlas showed enough convincing detail to confirm it.  Too bad there weren't some of those Peabody yellow unit trains kicking around anymore...

BC

North Platte or Bust: Part 7, Nebraska

SUNDAY AUG. 12, 2012

When we left KC on Sunday 8/12, we pretty much chose the fastest route to North Platte.  That meant heading north to Nebraska City and west to I-80.  All roads are fast in this part of the world so that was easy.  We wanted to follow the UP transcontinental route from Grand Island to North Platte along US 30.  This would take us by Gibbon Jct. where the line from KC comes in and forms a 3 track main to North Platte and O'Fallons. We passed many lines radiating out of KC and Omaha.  Some were busy and some were long gone.  The GPS "short range sensors" kept showing tracks that were no longer in place.  The Rand McNalley Railroad Atlas was the best we could do this far west. 

Grand Island, NE

Grand Island, NE

Once in Grand Island, NE we simply had to seek the point where the BNSF crosses the UP.  This is a single track overpass that is roughly 10 years old now.  The line used to cross at grade but with Powder River coal traffic on both lines, the bottlenecks would have been a disaster.  BNSF is even now seeking to double track this overpass because it is becoming a bottleneck.  The next day we would see two trains stacked up waiting to use it. 

Grand Island, NE

Grand Island, NE

Grand Island, NE

The UP was curiously quiet when we arrived but that didn't last forever.  We got a steady stream of coal loads heading east on the BNSF while we waited.  Eventually we even got one train passing over another.  The lead units were not synchronized but the trailing DPU's were close enough to see each other. 

Grand Island, NE

Grand Island, NE

The UP then provided a couple of westbounds, though the yard seemed active too, just out of sight.  The coal train's trailing DPU had a door swinging in the breeze, and we played tag with that train most of the way to North Platte.

Grand Island, NE

Grand Island, NE

Grand Island, NE

WB Gibbon Jct., NE

EB DPU Gibbon Jct., NE

 Our next target west was Gibbon Jct.  This is where the Marysville line from Kansas City joins the transcontinental line.  Depending on your perspective, this is where the 3 track mainline begins or ends.  Coal traffic has caused the UP to double track the Marysville Sub and add the 3rd track to the transcontinental line. 

Gibbon Jct., NE

KCS unit Gibbon Jct., NE

We saw a continuous barrage of trains in the short time we sat at the crossing there.  Something on every line.  The westbounds we saw coming as we arrived from the east, all seemed to be held at the junction for a short time.  SP and KCS made appearances.  I think we stayed less than an hour.



Down the road to the west we ran into the city of Kearny to see what we could see.  The original

Local power, Kearney, NE

depot is now gone but UP has one of their yellow brick square offices near there.  Down the tracks along a parkway we found some local power idling.




We didn't linger in Kearney and headed west.  Here we encountered the curious town of Cozad.  The depot was in an attractive little park now

The 100th Meridian - Cozad, NE

and everything highlighted the fact that the 100th Meridian passes through here.  In fact, there was a commemorative plaque for the ceremony when the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad reached Cozad.  UP also provided a caboose to the park. 

The 100th Meridian - Cozad, NE

West of Gothenberg, NE

Along the 3 track line we noticed that the small towns had elaborate, and new, pedestrian overpasses.  They seemed to be of a common design.  As it became apparent that these might be useful, we scoped one out for future use.   When we passed the town of Gothenburg the sunlight looked like it might fail soon and it was time to find a crossing to watch the action from.  We found a very isolated crossing as it turned out.

West of Gothenberg, NE

West of Gothenberg, NE

We had grabbed some Subway sandwiches in Cozad so it was time to eat too.  We saw several trains and a meet while we parked at that isolated crossing.    The sunset made for some spectacular lighting.

A couple of crossings west of Gothenberg, NE

We ended the day pretty much as planned.  We had passed grain elevators from tiny to unit train sized.  We'd passed ammonia plant and ethanal plants.  All manner of plains agribusiness.  US 30 proved to be ideal for our travels.  We were near enough to North Platte to call it a day and we had scoped out the overpass in Brady for our return.  Now all we had to do was retire.   One of my last shots turned out to be pretty good for someone who generally avoids the artsie-fartsie stuff

A couple of crossings west of Gothenberg, NE

BC