It's Winter

It's that time of year when accumulated vacation gets used up, which explains how I wound up at Proctor this morning waiting for a transfer from Pokegema to arrive. 

It was cold. Not below zero cold, but for this winter one of the colder mornings. Which led to the hope that the sun would shine, but the lake did its normal job of creating a cloud bank that just let the sun tease a body with occasional slivers of light. 

Luckily the CN entertained me with a pair of DMIR units on the Proctor switch job. Sounded nice while they were jockeying cars back and forth. 

Clear skies to the north and west taunted me as I waited, but being the stubborn person that I am, I wouldn't budge from my position on the overpass. Eventually the transfer showed up.

As he approached, I notice something unusual about the power. Was that a cowl unit in the consist? Sure enough it was. My calculating mind led me to conclude that if I would just wait at the south end of the yard, I could get the Draper "leading" when they ran around the train. Since warming up sounded good anyway, I jumped in and drove down to the crossing after a stop at Kwik Trip. I had to wait for a limestone empty to head down the hill but I finally got the shot I was waiting for. It's not much but I don't get too many chances at these so I take what I can get. 

I thought about running down to get the limestone empty at 27th. There was something coming off the DWP, headed down to Steelton, and a southbound approaching Coons. So many choices! In the hopes of a pellet load I opted to stay at Proctor. Given that there was a loaded train sitting in the yard I should have known better. My hopes were dashed when I saw the southbound Instead of 140 cars of taconite, I got a couple of empty gons and a pair of bentonite cars. As you can see in the photo, the clouds were still taunting me with sunshine just north of Proctor. It's enough to make a person grind his teeth. 

By now, the wind was blowing, I was cold, and it seemed like a good time to head for home, so the next move was back to Duluth. I processed pictures and thawed out for a while, then settled in to enjoy some vacation time. 
 

A Dandy Lashup

 With the year end creeping up on us and vacation needing to be used before that date, I burned a day Friday. That allowed me to venture out into CN territory in the morning. I looked at ATCS before leaving the house and saw a southbound lined from Simar to Steelton. I made the dangerous assumption that he would get a light all the way to Pokegama and headed for the Wisconsin side of the Oliver bridge in the hopes of getting a drone shot of the train creeping across the river. 

No such luck, as he stopped in Steelton, and I ran out of patience waiting. ATCS looked like the main was tied up by a switch job at Pokegama. I made a swing through Superior and saw nothing much of interest, but there was another southbound waiting at Simar so I galloped up Highway 2 just to find myself once more waiting for a train to move. Since that one had his headlight on, I figured he would be moving as soon as a northbound coming up the hill cleared Nopeming. I had a little longer to wait, though, as the northbound was through Munger before the soutbound started to roll. I figured I would shoot him at Maple Grove Road since it would allow me a quicker getaway than waiting for the whole train to pass. Here's what I got:

As the train rolled by me I noticed the consist was interesting enough to warrant a second look. Draper bodies are getting rare and deserve a bit of extra effort, so I tried to think of where I could get a good broadside to capture the whole mess of power and settled on Steelton Hill. Off I went, and after a short wait he rolled down the hill and into view. The train, along with a late season fisherman, passed me at the same time.

That's a nice change from the steady diet of late model GE's that are usual on these CN trains. 

And that was it for my Friday adventure. I headed home and went to work (yes, on my vacation day!) for a couple of hours. But any day I get to take a train picture I will count as a win!