Track Warrants

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Issue No. 32
October 18, 1996

• Track Warrants Menu
• Sloan Home page
• stevesln@aimnet.com

EDITORIAL

THIS ISSUE CARRYING RED MARKERS

This issue is the last section containing news covering the period ending Oct. 05. Again, I am sorry about the delay.

This issue was supposed to be the Mojave issue. I had planned to put it together on my formerly trusty laptop in the Motel 6 in Mojave. But, the disk drive died. (No Ken, it was not a Mac.) Anyway, these issues are going to the same list as issue 29.

Thank you, again, for your patience:

RAILNET DAY '97

Here's an idea for all you cyber rail nerds out there. I want to put together a global team of railfans to do a railfan day, on a global scale. This will be a combination of a "Day in the West" and "Net Day". I believe we can get facilities to use for production and can solicit digital photos, perhaps video, text and other railroading information, all the day it is happening and publish it on the web. Maybe we could set up a "live cam" at a railroad yard, or on Tehachippi or something so people could go to the tracks, digitally. It will be an evolving project all done using volunteer labor. I'd like to do this in the first quarter of '97. It'd be nice to coordinate it so it proceeds Winterail and we could have the end product on display there.

What does EVERYBODY think?

(With a salute to Rick Smolan, the who's "Day In The Life Of" books started that whole genre and the person who was the coordinator of "Net Day," covering non-railroad subjects.)
Steve

UP

DIRECTOR'S SPECIAL

Sep28--Hello Lance, this is Paul Greenfield in Sandy, Utah. I went down this morning to catch the UP Passenger Special (Bill Farmer said it was a Director's Special on the Flimsies Hotline, but have seen it referred to as an inspection train so not sure). Thought you might be able to use the following for Flimsies Northwest! Not sure how to address an e-mail to John Peralez... is it seahawk15@aol.com or in upper case, or??? Anyway here goes:

A 17 car UP passenger special, which toured former SP lines, arrived Salt Lake City via the former SP line to Ogden (Lucin cutoff). Train arrived at Amtrak Station 8:55 a.m. September 28th with the following consist:

UP 8012 (SD-90MAC), UP 7044 (AC4400CW), passenger cars 208, 207, 202 Cabarton, 314 Columbia River, 6203 Sun Valley, SP 150 Sunset, SP 140 Stanford, 114 Feather River, 1602 Green River, 201 Wyoming, 1610 Portola, 1605 Powder River, 9004 Harriman, 5779 Promontory, 9005 Walter Dean, 302 Overland, and 9449 Arden. The train was turned on the wye at Grant Tower and backed to the station for departure at noon on the same day.
Paul Greenfield

TRAFFIC REPORT FOR UP/SP 9-26-96

----------------------------------
UNION PACIFIC
Eastern: In Chicago, Proviso Yard has a heavy inbound line upm, with 600 cars already on hand in yard nine. Trains caught up time along the Iowa Service units eat/west corridor last night. The Des Moines yard is heavy with a stiff inbound lineup this morning. UP/SP Chester Subdivision has recovered from congestion. SP crews on short time caused this. At Kell, Illionois a locomotive derailed at 7:40am and delayed five trains until the track was restored to service at 2 pm.

MIDWEST:
North Platte Sub a surfacing and welding gang has requested a 3 hour window today at Lusk. A tie gang will work on the Council Bluffs Sub at Schafer, and the DC-13 will work track #2 between North Platte and Gibbon. Council Bluffs will hold 3 trains this morning for the intermodal curfew. On the Marysville Sub, a train had an axle lock up on the single track at 12:30 am . Six trains were delayed, requiring 5 recrews.

SOUTHERN:
UP interchanged 396 cars to Mexico at Laredo yesterday, and 160 AR scheduled to cross the border today. The central service unit has 5 empty coal trains en route to the midwest. A semi-tractor trailer loaded with wood chips struck a train at a crossing yesterday morning at Mer Roughe, Louisiana. No one was injured.

WESTERN:
On the Cheyenne Service Unit, the P-811 intalled 1571 ties last night, while clearing the track 4 times for westbound trains. Trains are operating on a 2 hour spacing over the Seattle Sub. 2 soda ash trains are holding at Nampa for DPU power, and 2 others are en route from Pocatello. In Nevada, the Elko Sub has heavy traffic and congestion following the stop of a train by a Hi/Wide detector at Ellerbeck. Banding on one car of a four car shipment of Telephone poles had shifted, which delayed 9 trains.

----------------------------------
SOUTHERN PACIFIC:

CENTRAL:
A train coming out the east end of the MOffet tunnel in Colorado lost communications with its EOT device causing a delay.

SOUTHERN:
On the San Antonio Division The Eagle Pass Gateway to Mexico is congested with tri levels awaiting interchange. A Track-Maintainance curfew is scheduled in west Texas. On the Elpaso Division, a tie gang will work between Astec and Stovall.

Some other news I heard from Hutchinson, Kansas Tie gang will start tomorrow 9-27 and install 100,000+ railroad ties Started at Preston and work west. Hopefully getting done before the ground freezes. Hutchinson will be handleing about 650 grain cars next week for all the elevators in town. The Pratt to Liberal local will be handling 500 loads of grain a week for a while.

On October 3rd the UP business train will be going thru Hutchinson on a tour of the line. Most of the big shots will be on it.
Todd Wilson

SIGHTINGS

9/29/96
SP  DALAF   9682,9197,9360                              Hearne.TX
SP  LAMFF   8505,9677,8390,7442                             "
SP  1MBSMF  7411,8007,8061,9372                             "
SP  MFEGT   8036,8034                                       "
UP  CHMXZ   3656,MPI9017,5015                           Valley Junction, TX
UP  SPOG    3435,B4253,2510                                 "
UP  FWHO    5542(*),CNW5522                                 "
SP  WCPBM   8118,8127,9659,8065,7774                    Hearne,TX
UP  MXCHZ   5058,CR3292                                     "
UP  53LCL   3638,3579                                       "
SP  WORK    CSXT5922                                        "
UP  NLSA    2400,EMD831,5550(*)                             "
SP  NSEGC   NS6566,NS6513,NS8827                            "
SP  CLAIC   142,182,292                                 Tatsie Siding,TX
UP  NPHO    CNW8676,3319,CNW6889                            "
UP  GLWTHO    3637,2424,CR561,CNW6882                       "
* Freshly painted "We Will Deliver" units.

LETTERS

HUH? MY BIRTHDAY'S AUGUST 25

From a previous issue:

August 3rd was the birthday of the man who saved me from Flimsies and Flimsies from me, Charlie Baden.
(Steve Sloan)

Huh? My birthday's August 25.
C. Boston Baden
(oops-Steve)

HELLO TO ALL

I just got my newsletter from the Poway Midland RailRoad volunteers. In it is a trip you may be interested in, so I will pass the info along and if you are interested let me know and I will get us logged in.

YUMA VALLEY RAILROAD STEAK DINNER RUN
Starting in November and running through May 1997, the Yuma County Live Steamers is offering a special "Steak Dinner Run" on the Yuma Valley Railroad. This excursion is approximately three hours long and offer the opportunity to see four states in two countries as we travel on a 22 mile round trip alongside the Colorado River dividing the United States and Old Mexico.

Because there are many other interisting things to see and do around historic downtown Yuma, we plan to make it an overnite bus tour complete with motel accomodations, special parties, and sight seeing side trips. Cost is expected to be $125-150 and will include:

R/T bus with drinks and snacks Train ride with steak dinner 5-Star accomodations Saturday nite Buffet breakfast Sunday morning Admision to Yuma Territorial Prison Shopping time in Mexico on way home

No date set yet. Departure wil be a Saturday morning from Old Poway Park around the 7/8AM hour, with return to same on Sunday around the 6PM hour.

As of the press time there were 10 who expressed interest and it will take 30 to make it happen.
Richard Hamilton, richardh@electriciti.com

ROCK ISLAND LINE

My grandfather, Wilder M. Werner, was a conductor on the Rock Island Lines (he lived in Herington, KS, in the 1930s-1950s). I am eager to get any information about him or the railroad that I could use in a family history. Thank you. I miss hearing the trains go through town...something incredibly glorious about those wonderful old days!
carol benson, cbenson@ainet.com

ARKANSAS BIG ALCO/MLW's?

Steve Sloan wrote:

Any new news on the CNRR Alco's that are going to the A&M?
steve sloan

Hi Steve!
The news has been all over the map - everything from they are going to use 12-15 in mainline service, to they are buying them only for parts. I haven't had any confirmed stories yet, so I was holding off any announcement... Thanks for dropping by!
Tom Gibson
AlcoHauler Locomotive Page: http://members.aol.com/home/alcohaul.htm

TILLAMOOK RAILROAD

Sep25--In a rather unexpected place, there is an article about the history of the railroad to Tillamook, Oregon, which has been of great interest to railfans.

The article. "Oregon Railways - The Beach Train," appears in the September issue of _La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History_.

It tells why E.H. Harriman built it and also why he chose the rather difficult route he did (to block expansion to the south by the James J. Hill interests [Great Northern]).

It tells about the beach resorts that grew up, the passenger trains that were scheduled to serve them, and, of course, the Railway Post Office service that ran over the route (from December 29, 1911, to March 27, 1933).

The article is accompanied by several maps and photographs, including a post card view of the last mail stage leaving Bay City, north of Tillamook, its reason for existence having ended when the railroad began operation.

The author, Richard W. Helbock, is also the publisher of La Posta, but the magazine carries articles by many authors and is not simply his own mouthpiece. It is, indeed, respected in its field. Bill Helbock's, and the magazine's, e-mail address is laposta@teleport.com.

The article says the author does not know whether environmentalists were successful in preventing its rebuilding after the 1995-96 winter washouts, but he believes that the odds favor rebuilding.
Wes Leatherock

TIMELINE

Sep21--I was wondering if you would know of a source where I could find a timeline of major railroad mergeres over the last 30 years. please e-mail me if you can help. Thank you in advance.
bob, rghati@usaor.net

TAKING STOCK