West of Wadena

A trip to Perham last Friday morning (April 9) gave me the chance for a little incidental railfanning between Wadena and my destination. It's just barely over 20 miles, and travelling at freeway speed the trip is less than half an hour, but as I approached the overpass west of New York Mills I was lucky enough to spot an eastbound headlight. Turned out the train was a GEVO led bare table, headed who knows where at a good clip.


Morning light is just about perfect in that location this time of year. I also like seeing the Perham water tower in the distance, along with the large crane working at the site of the new Perham hospital. The little farmstead peeking through the trees is just a bonus.

On the way home after lunch, I chased a worm train out of Perham heading east. By this time the sun was pretty much gone for eastbounds but I caught him in New York Mills anyway. The train seemed to be slowing as he passed me, creating hope for another catch somewhere near Wadena.


However, I soon passed the train as it drifted to a stop just outside New York Mills. The plan of shooting him again near Bluffton was dashed.

It soon became clear why he was stopping-another train was stopped as well, just a couple of miles in front of him. This one turned out to be a unit DDG train. Throttling up just as I approached, he called for quick work, and I barely beat him to the CR 75 crossing just west of Wadena. Here the pair of Dash 9's have just made it to the top of the short grade out of the Leaf River valley, and are working at picking up speed as they approach Wadena.


And with that, another short railfan adventure on the Staples Sub was concluded. Three trains in less than an hour on a work-mandated journey are hard to beat. I'm a lucky guy.

Jim