Issue 1
April 28, 1995
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I was at Tehachapi on Sunday with my wife and the little guy (Alex is 16 months old). We bagged an eastbound Santa Fe at the loop, which had 209 on the point, and 202 back in the consist. I'll get you the complete loco consist numbers when I get a chance to look at my slides/videos.
Thanks again for including me in TRACK WARRANTS. I hope you are enjoying our well-deserved and overdue spring weather.
Eric Blasko
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A few highlights from Tehachapi this past weekend:
Sunday Apr.23 Walong About 11 AM Eastbound Santa Fe
209-345-540-551-123-202
The 209 went west thru Mojave about 2 AM on the 22nd, and went all the way to Richmond.
F45 observations:
5986 was running around in helper service on Tehach the same weekend, looking clean and healthy.
5979 was seen going eastbound in the midst of a ten-unit light engine move at Walong on Sunday about 11;15 AM, with the Santa Fe lettering painted out (a la MK leasors on the SP). I don't know what the story is here.
In other news:
A Bay Area fan who was on Cajon this past weekend reports seeing Santa Fe 207 and 205 on a couple of trains, and the 90 on the point of one train. He also spotted NS 2540 (SD70) and NS 8758 (GE) in UP consists, as well as a couple of CNW Dash 9's.
Eric Blasko
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The dedication of the Jack London station is tentatively set for May12. It's being named for Ron Dellums. (Much speculation is floating around on what the MP of this station is. Does anyone know or will we have to wait for the next SP employee TT?)
Jon Pullman Porter
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Two less large MLWs, 4572, 4730 are now retired so this makes 11 large MLWs left on CPRS. Also CPRS has topped the 200 mark with leased units on its lines, and more are coming every week. Bryce Lee
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According to today's (April 22) Boston Globe and other media outlets, GTI had a runaway last night. The engine entered the MBTA main line (NH route) near Walnut Hill Park in Woburn. It travelled north to Billerica where RR personell tried to switch it onto a GTI siding near the Pond Street birdge, where it derailed spilling about 500 gallons of diesel. The reports are unclear as to whether it derailed at the switch or in the siding or whether it blocked the main. The engine did strike a utility pole dislodging some wires.
Steve Deveau
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Delivery schedule for April for SP AC's is as follows unless unforeseen problems should arise.
SP100 101 102 will be held at GE's Erie plant for engineering testing.
SP 100 will be held to film the SP "Walk Around Video"
SP103 104 depart Erie 4/20
SP105 106 depart Erie 4/21
SP107 108 109 depart Erie 4/22
SP110 111 depart Erie 4/23
Primary routing will be Chicago to Pueblo on CHROM or coal trains. Engineers must not operate trains unsupervised with remote units until required training for Harris Locotrol III and qualifications satisfied by RFE. SP200-376 will be equipped with Harris Locotrol III Units to be maintained at GE Denver
Units not to be operated in mixed consists with DC locomotives unless specically authorised by locomotive management and then only if DC units have traction motor thermal protection.
SP is certainly an interesting railroad to watch. This will be more good stuff to write in Flimsies and SP Review magazines.
Tony Johnson - Central Point OR
Today (4/26) SP CEO Jerry Davis announced SP will take delivery of 279 AC4400CWs (SP100-378) which is the numbers we have been reporting. Also SP will receive three 6000-hp AC locomotives. 226 of the new ACs will be delivered to SP by July with the remainder delivered through December. SP says this is 76 more locomotives than originally announced. This finally clears up some of the confusion as to exactly how many were to be delivered.
Tony Johnson
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A few highlights from Tehachapi this past weekend:
Saturday Apr.22 WalongAbout 10:30 AM Eastbound SP Head end: 9818-9816-DRGW5386 Helper: 8328-CR6623-DRGW5354-DRGW5393
Also spotted on Sunday the 23rd was a helper set heading east through Edison around 11:40 AM with UP9002-UP5010-UP9055 plus 2 SP SD's, and around 2 PM, an eastbound SP leaving Fresno with two 8100's.
Eric Blasko
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This Sunday, April 23, 1995 we saw the first AC units being delivered to SP via CR. The units were on CR train SEEL and numbered 101, 102, 103 and 105. The thing we noticed that the speed lettering was smaller than the lettering they use on the other units. Don't know why, these AC units are big enough :) . From what we hear, all deliveries will be made by SEEL. In June the GE plant will send 80 units to SP!!! That's 4 each day. Was too busy making pics and did not really see the units. Shame on me. Choice was between pics or a good look but no lasting memory. When I get the pics I can see what I saw. :).
William J. G. Frey, Bill & Tim. . . . .father and son.
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Of historical note, the RPO/baggage car being used for storage at the Fremont, CA yard is still in its original number, not a MOW number series. The 5810 was built by Pullman in 1941 and still rests on 6-axle trucks. Interestingly, UP's final RPOs, 5903-5911, were delivered in 1963 -- a late date in mail service. I believe Santa Fe bought the last RPOs (#99-110), in 1964. I think they went to Mexico after mail contracts ended in the U.S.
According to Hal Lewis of the Pacific Limited Group, the E-units will arrive Oroville, Friday, 4/28 at 2 p.m. Departure 4/29 will be at 8:15 a.m. arriving at Portola 1:30 p.m. Train will then proceed to Reno Junction for turning. Departure from Portola for Oroville will be at 3:30 p.m. Jon Pullman Porter
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An electronic newsletter about railroading, published on a weekly basis.
Special editions a piece of cake for hot news!
Yes it's time has come!
This newsletter will be all text and distributed only via E-mail. It will be text only so it can be sent to anybody running any system. It will carry railroad news from the US-Canada-Mexico and *IT* *WILL* *BE* *FREE.* (But I may ask for VOLUNTARY contributions to defray the cost of the service I am using and the Web Site I hope to build here.)
I will ask that all news submitters please break up your news by railroad.
There will be minimal editing, it won't be FANCY but it will be FAST. It will be the quickest news source short of being there.
Send this to all your friends!
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FLIMSIES is not associated with *TRACK WARRANTS* BUT HAS ENDORSED IT!
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Date: Fri, Apr 21, 1995 7:47 PM EST From: Flim4449 Subj: Re: TRACK WARRANTS---RR NEWS To: SteveSln
Oh Hell Yes! Sign me up! We endorse this project 101%. Should we, could we put a note in Flimsies regarding this venture? Let me know, tonite or tomorrow since 187 will close soon. Do it to it.
Bill
========================================================================== "...it won't be FANCY but it will be FAST."
Haven't I heard that somewhere before??
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> PS-Does this mean you're subscribing to "Hyper-FLIMSIES?" (a nickname I knda gave this project at one point-Steve)
I dunno...
Since it's once a week, go ahead and add me.
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Great idea for something whose time has come. I'm surprised Kalmbach or Pentrex hasn't started an online service yet. Would be great for up-to-the-minute rosters, excursion news, etc. One of the things I'd love to see online (and would probably pay for) is all-time rosters of as many roads as possible, plus current rosters for today's remaining railroads. Designing all-time roster databases is one of the hardest tasks I've ever tried to do. So far none have worked.
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Someone did a newsletter in the past called RailOnline. It was a failure simply because it was good. It was distributed for free, and its circulation went far and wide. It grew to be of such importance that its owner had to stop publishing so that he could have some free time.
I hope that this doesn't happen to you. I wish I had a solution; right now I don't.
It would be neat if the newsletter included pictures (GIFs). You may wish to explore the possibility of a WWW newsletter (see the Hotbox at HTTP://www.cris.com/~felixg/HOTBOX/P1.html).
(I havent been able to get it to open on Netscape--Steve)
Best wishes!
P.S. You may wish to ask around in rec.railroad about RailOnline to see what other people think.
-Jeff
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Railroad Stock Report for Thursday, 27 April 1995 -------------------------------------------------------- Market Data from Wednesday, 26 April 1995
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Big Board (NYSE)
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Line Symbol High Low Close Previous
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ATSF SFX 23.625 23.375 23.375 23.500
Burlington Northern BNI 60.375 59.750 60.125 60.000
CSX CSX 81.500 80.750 81.500 80.750
Conrail CRR 54.875 54.500 54.750 54.625
Norfolk Southern NSC 65.750 65.500 65.750 66.000
Southern Pacific RSP 17.625 17.250 17.500 17.625
Union Pacific UNP 54.625 54.125 54.250 54.625
Illinois Central IC 35.250 34.875 35.125 35.125
Kansas City Southern KSU 37.875 37.500 37.875 38.000
Florida East Coast FLA 72.500 72.250 72.250 72.500
Sea Container SCRA 14.500 14.000 14.125 14.375
XTRA XTR 47.375 46.500 47.250 46.500
Greenbrier GBX 14.375 14.125 14.375 14.250
Wabash Natl. Corp. WNC 29.375 27.750 28.500 29.125
Trinity Ind. TRN 38.750 38.500 38.750 38.875
Ameri. President APS 22.625 22.250 22.250 22.625
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NASDAQ
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< P>Line Symbol High Low Close Previous===================================================================
J.B. Hunt JBHT 18.187 17.500 18.187 18.125
Wisconsin Central WCLX 55.500 53.750 55.500 54.125
RailTex RTEX 28.000 27.500 27.500 27.500
RailAmerica RAIL 5.250 4.875 5.000 5.000
Providence & Worc PWRR 8.250 8.250 8.250 8.250
Delaware Otsego DOCP 10.250 10.250 10.250 10.250
Compiled by Jim Czarnecki
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The following is condensed from a note a person who worked on a tourist RR wrote one of my friends:
Tourists can ask some pretty unbelievable questions. For example: I had a guy come up to me while I was filling the tender with water. He asked me if the engine was powered by steam. I replied, yes, it was. He then asked me what I was filling the tender with water for.....
Other examples:
Can we board the train before it gets here?
Why do all locomotives face the same way?
Why doesn't the locomotive have less power going backwards then forwards?
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http://storm.simpson.edu/~tinder/detour.html
This is an account in pictures and text of an excursion from West Des Moines to Stuart on the evening of April 25, 1995. The pictures were taken with an Apple QuickTake camera and processed into JPEG images with the program PhotoFlash.
Mostly interesting for the information. The pictures are very low-res.
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Schedules for CalTrain, BART, and other local transit agencies are on-line via WWW at http://server.berkeley.edu/transit/
========================================================================== Victoria Division World Wide Web presentation accessible today to over 50 countries via the Information Highway, the interNet.
http://coastNet.com/CPRdb
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REC Railroad
To subscribe just send an E-mail to LISTSERV@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU and say "subscribe listserv."
Tired of not getting E-mail, boy will those days be over. I got 97 messages one day. Plan on an hour a day to read it all! It's great, some stuff is esoteric, some really informative. Just don't do what I did and reply directly to the list serv... As for me I plan to stay on one more week, I don't have the time to read this and my newsletter mail.
This is the only issue I intend to post.
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These are a little old but included here to give an idea of some of these stories I think would be fun to run.
This is a trip report from March, first I waited for the pictures and then I procrastinated ... This is longish, but I know there are people out there who will enjoy this, including many who provided a lot of good advice on where to go to see what. Thank you, cyber friends.
"Here" is Oakville Ontario, on the CN lakeshore main line between Toronto downtown and Hamilton, at the corner of Lake Ontario. We get GO Transit, VIA, AMTRAK Maple Leaf, CP Freights on trackage rights, and least of all CN ! They mostly join / divert this line near Hamilton coming from/going to the CN MacMillan Yard just north of Toronto.
We have a medium size yard switching auto parts and empty auto racks to Ford Oakville, and empty parts cars and full auto racks out. Also some tank cars for the local refineries and aggregate for the cement factory. Yard power is a mixture of CN and CP SW1200RS, they seem to operate these in turn. Also to be seen are CN's weird SWeePs, a strange mixture of GP7/9 carbody rebuilt onto a SW frame. They are numbered 7100-7106 (that's all I've seen) they rotate in and out of assignment here like the SW1200RS's.
The SWeePs are rated at 1300 horse power, I've heard they were made to improve on the cooling system of the SW's but they don't seem to make any more. They appear to use the dynamic brake bulges as engine air intakes!
Anyhow, about this trip. The idea was to get the family to Disneyworld in 4 days with a bit of train watching and shopping on the way. I started looking for trains in Buffalo, NY. Found GP10 7524 stopped on a spur beside Bailey St. Followed the water level route along Broadway, past a CR yard (saw engines but distant/moving, did not stop). Past I-90 Ellicot St forks off Broadway, saw a train conveniently stopped beside the road:
6826 SD50 + 6435 SD40-2 + 1958 B23-7. Believe it was doublestacks. Picked up an AMTRAK timetable at Depew, NY station, where a FAST intermodal came through eastbound:
5522 SD60M + 3395 GP40 + 5052 GE -7 + 3319 GP40-2 . After that we drove and drove, along 20 to I-390 south, bwcomes 17, and then US 15 into Pennsylvania. Through Williamsport, across the Susquehanna, and at Lewisburg PA - a short line / tourist operation, the Lewisburg and Buffalo Creek. They have a SW1 (I think) 9425, mostly black, with a wide red stripe with narrow yellow bands top and bottom. Only owner marking is a dp in a keystone outline on the cab, anyone recognize this ?
They also have a few cabooses, some old passenger cars, a Black PRR GP30 2233, and a newer 1-stack SW number 1500, seen south of Lewisburg at Agway. After that we pushed on to Harrisburg, PA arriving long after dark so no Enola pictures that day :(
Sunday morning in Harrisburg we went to the ex-PRR now Amtrak station in town. A very interesting structure. A GG1 4859 in Brunswick green PRR colours is preserved here coupled to a wooden PRR caboose 980016. Light under the canopy is not great but a whole lot better than inside most museums. Also seen that Saturday morning was AEM7 916, first time I saw one, so I wasn't bored :) It was out in the sun looking very nice. Thanks to AMTRAK Police who allowed me onto platforms when the doors were locked to get some great pictures. After this we went over the river to look at Enola, but the light is wrong in the morning, plus there was a little mist from the river, so we left. More about engines at Enola on my trip back report.
We drove down I-81 to Hagerstown, drove into town until we came to tracks, and followed them to the roundhouse museum (closed at that time of morning). CSX has offices and some engines parked there, I saw:
GP38-2 2710 in "Family Lines" paint, GP40-2 6356 in current scheme, GP ??? 6619 in "Stealth", and GP ??? 6062 in current scheme. First two were photographed, second two are visible in the picture. Also in the yard were Conrail SD50's 6722 and 6726. Close to this line, on a junction track, I saw CR GP38-2's 8091 and 8092 moving some cars of scrap. The old roundhouse is large and dilapidated. CSX posts white no trespassing notices with an amazing list of all the sorts of activities not permitted. One last item of interest here was Chessie bay window caboose 904040.
We rejoined I-81 and continued into West Virginia then Virginia. I can recommend the state maps issued free in the welcome centers of Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia as being of good quality and showing fairly complete rail networks, including those in major towns and cities. Another good point about the Welcome Centers is they have coupons for discount rates at motels in their state, these worked out well for us. Between Winchester and Staunton we paralled I-81 on highway 340, which offered nicer scenery and the followed a NS line, with some impressive long high steel bridges, but alas, no trains were seen. After this we hurried down I-81 to get to the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke before they closed for the day. Arrived about 1/2 hour before closing, and raced around photographing there large but cramped outside collection. For me, the highlights were Virginian EL-C 135, N&W ALCo C630 1135 in Blue and N&W ALCo RS3 300. Being East-West aligned, like the adjacent NS main line and yards, the best lighting seems to be afternoon for the west end of the units and morning for the east end. I made do with evening light. Everything is outside, some of the units are suffering a bit, and photo angles are not all that good due to clutter (bunch of old busses!), a wide angle zoom lens came in handy.
I saw some NS units stopped on the main line and I was tempted to get pictures from NS property. An NS guy saw me and explained I couldn't go in, and gave me a useful NS contact for this sort of thing: Mr. Nunez at 981-4944 in Roanoke. I called him the next morning, Monday, he wouldn't let me on property, but told me roughly where to go to see NS action from the road and told me to take all the pictures I liked. This is better than it sounds, because NS in Roanoke even gets upset about people taking pictures from PUBLIC property. I photograghed the following NS in Roanoke: 1587 SD40-2 + 9918 RP-F6Y CC slug heavy switching 1614 SD40 + 7089 GP50 stationary coupled to white covered hoppers, etc. 2291 + 2296 SW1500 switching in the yard 2293 SW1500 parked outside shops east end of town 6190 SD40-2 + 8743 Dash8-40C moving back and forth 6517 SD50 + 8852 + 8763 Dash8-40C + Cotton Belt 8056 waiting coal train e.b. 8639 Dash8-40C + 2853 GP38AC + 8036 C30-7 waiting with coal train e.b. By the way, the advice I received was to follow Shenandoah Avenue in Roanoke for good views of NS along the main line. As this was NORTH of the mainly East-West main line, I instead took roads along the south side of the tracks, to get better light for pictures. There are a few bridges over the track but wire mesh screening interferes in many locations. Not too bad though. Heading out of Roanoke Monday morning we continued SW on I-81 and then south on I-77. At Charlotte NC we went looking for lunch and trains. My instincts failed me here, but for anyone else, the best bet seems to be exit from I-77 onto -277 and shortly after exit onto North Tryon. Go north-east to first the NS yards and further on is AMTRAK. I only looked at NS, since we were running late. An access road leads into the yard, and up a 150 foot high (approx) tower far into the yard is the yard supervisor's office. Having come that far he permitted me to get pictures as I drove back out! I sure hope no railroad official every gets into trouble from the RR for permitting me to take pictures in their yard - it's a real possibility and everyone should keep it in mind - be careful! Here's the list of what I saw and photographed in NS Charlotte:
5086 GP38-2 switching railcars 5140 GP38-2 stationary below supervisor's tower - birds eye view! 5209 GP38-2 + 2776 GP38 + 8017 C30-7 beside locomotive facility 3524 Dash8-32B same place, adjacent track.
Those were the last train pictures I got, we had to drive past the museums and off-highway RR attractions to stay somewhere near schedule and keep my marriage together. Once again I can recommend the FREE state maps available from the welcome centres of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, which show pretty complete rail networks. Florida's is not as good for the railfan, the only rail lines shown are passenger routes on the city area enlargements.
On Tuesday, the final day of the drive, I stopped off at Savannah GA to look for more trains. Discovered the NS yard, and wandered in, but chickened out on pictures - there were lots of containers and cars, but the locomotives were distant, plus it was cloudy/dull ...
Continuing down I-95 to Jacksonville, Fl I exited just south of a bridge over a large number of tracks. I wandered into a neighbourhood where we didn't seem to belong, encountered no trains whatsoever, and gave up. Could have done better with more careful mapreading, but anyhow my family had had enough. I had more success in Jacksonville on the trip home. I reckon I was close but not close enough .
The last "real" train I saw was on a Kennedy Space Center tour - a modern GM switcher NASA 1 was pulling some special cars which had a number of long thin shiny metal tubes structurally attached (I think). Presumably for some type of pressurized gas.
No one wants to hear about the Walt Disney World Railroad and monorail do they? Actually the monorail is a good ride if you can get permission to ride in the driver's compartment (try asking when things are quiet - forget about it during morning and evening crush periods). I got pictures of WDWRR 2-6-0 #2 Lilly Belle and 4-4-0 #4 Roy O. Disney . I was told they are Baldwins retrieved from Mexico. At least they're real steamers, even with highly superfluous wild west stacks. Standard gauge I think. Mickey's Starland station in the afternoon worked out best for pictures. That's all folks - except for the trip back - aren't you glad I didn't tell you about the Tomorrowland Transit Authority ? John.Pittman@amail.amdahl.com
CN is one of the lesser users of the Oakville subdivision but AMTRAK with 2 trains a day is probably the least. Also that old 1-stack SW at Lewisburg PA #9425 is probably not a SW-1, but it's got one of those rectangular boxes in front of the rad. You should provide mention the author for everything you include.
By the way, you should TRY not to send personal messages to the whole RAILROAD list, some people don't even want to see my stuff once !
Ooops I got this news off the railroad list serv. On this and a couple of other bits of news I hit reply, A BIG MISTAKE! Boy did I get a lot of E-mail!
Steve (still putting out the flames) Sloan
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We left our home in San Jose at about 5:00 Saturday morning for a mad dog father-son rush to the hill. The last time I've been to the hill to railfan was so long ago that I don't remember when the last time was. The first RR stop was at Roseville. I was surprised to see the Antelope Road grade crossing is gone. An overpass is located west of where the crossing used to be. In the early 70's my high school buddy Paul and I were going to make one of our many trips to Roseville. The battery in my 69 Chevy Nova was dead that morning so we didn't go. Later that day we heard that the place blew up when a Navy munitions train caught fire not far from where we were going to go.
Besides the new overpass I saw the first of my SP wide cabs, an SD70. It was in the fuel racks not far from where my dad and I once walked through an ALCo Hydraulic.
Back on the highway, going up the hill, we heard an SP westbound click off a dragger. We shot him at Alta at what was once a good photo location that was now overgrown with trees! You know you've been railfanning a long time when one of your favorite photo spots is now blocked by trees. (Break out the chainsaw Verne!)
We got back in my Explorer and doubled back to Magra. I tried to get way back in there driving in the mud in 4-low. My way was blocked by a downed power pole so I turned around and barely made to a place where I once shot 16mm movies of UP3985 and then UP 8444 double heading. Both then and now, I got what I think was a pretty decent shot (that movie, 16mm Kodachrome is pure cool.)
Back on the road we got to Soda Springs in time to shoot a westbound. Then we drove down to Truckee and saw a grain train waiting for a second set of helpers to come down from the first westbound. We shot it leaving town.
We headed back to Norden, but was unable to find a quick path to the sheds, so we again shot the grain train at Soda Springs, after hiking in a bit to get a different angle. Later we shot the westbound Zephyr which was running late. (The train I've shot on the hill in the past with ex-SP F's, ex-UP E's and SDP40F's had F40's on it.)
After a bit we decided to explore Norden and shoot the eastbound Zepher there. The little community that used to exist under the snow is now bulldozed. One of the mainlines is gone Giant doors block what was once a piece of busy railroading. It was so weird seeing blocksignals sticking out of mountains of snow where once rotaries and cab forwards roamed. The little grill cafe is there but is now a shambles. The interlocking board was nowhere to be seen. There are still a few cots about, but nobody to use them.
We shot Amtrak coming out of the shed and hiked up to the truck. At the truck we heard there was two more westbounds coming and one had stalled on the hill. The second one was sending units up to help the first, which had two GE's and a tunnel motor on it and had one of it's GE's die.
We made a frustrating trip to Truckee. We got there in time to see the second train's units speed by. We tried to get to the tracks west of there but were frustrated by an inaccurate map. Finally, we went back to Norden and shot the train as it finally got to Norden in the last of the days light.
Skiers were everywhere like fleas on a dog that lives in a kennel.
The SD's off the second train cut off and the train continued past with an eight wheel dash eight on the point. As we drove home down the hill an eastbound climbed by, in the dark.
Steve Sloan, alias Mr. Al Coe (from olden FLIMSIES days)
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PLEASE SEND THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR RAILFAN BUDDIES. Also, let me know if anybody else has used the name, in case I have to pick another. But I like this one, it is like FLIMSIES---gone electronic.
To subscribe send an E-mail to Stevesln@aimnet.com and say, "sign me up."
Steve Sloan stevesln@aol.com