Just Another Road Trip

Driving-it's just how I roll. Not that I'm a truck driver or anything like that, but the Excape does pile up some highway miles. This week was no different, with a trip to Hallock to start the week, drive back to Wadena on Tuesday, an easy Wednesday with only a visit to New York Mills in the evening for a meeting, followed by another meeting Thursday, this time in Rosemount, and wrapping up with yet another meeting on Friday in Plymouth. The trip up north yielded a couple of photos.

And so did the drive to the cities yesterday. An eastbound oil train appeared out of the woods just as I passed Lincoln, which was a prime opportunity for a photo. After abject failure just south of Randall due to a long dead battery saga, I had recovered enough upon reaching the old Soo Line overpass south of Gregory to clamber up the hill and grab a photo as the train approached.


Since the train had no need to stop for fuel in St. Cloud like I did, he passed me once more. This was a good thing as it allowed for another shot. This time the targeted location was the curve where Chris and I wandered around in the grass for a bit last fall, which idea was promptly foiled by a westbound stack train. So I moved down the line to the potato farm crossing, where the tank train soon came into view.


This should be a precious photo, as it shows how I can cover up some painting mistakes on the front of a BNSF GE. In real life this one appears to have spent some time recently in the body and fender shop.

The trip home turned out to be pretty uneventful. During a stop in Randall ATCS showed an eastbound near Philbrook. I decided to take the back roads home and try intercepting the train. The gates were already down as I drove up, so after leaping out of the car and running up toward the tracks I snapped this.


And then it was off again, to reach Wadena in time for supper.

NOTE: I did catch one other interesting thing on the trip. This jumped out at me as I drove through Rosemount and seemed unusual enough to rate a u-turn.

Another day of looking for trains, in the book.