Some Blue and Yellow

One of the best parts of spending a few days in the southwest part of the state is getting the chance to catch some blue and yellow engines while they are still around. Having left for Westbrook Monday afternoon, here is a sampling of what I was able to shoot while travelling from town to town for work.

This first one has already been shared on Flickr. With a 6:00 PM appointment in Westbrook Monday evening, the L4T official chase Escape was meandering down a county road paralleling the DME near Tracy when the tail end of a train appeared. Putting on a burst of speed, I was able overtake the head end as it crossed Plum Creek near Laura Ingalls Wilder's former home town of Walnut Grove. Here is the shot after stepping across the road and cranking up the ISO on the Pentax.


After overnighting in Windom, it was back to Westbrook on Tuesday. I've mentioned before that there are no trains in Westbrook. However, the road to Marshall goes through Tracy, and there is always a chance of finding something on the east side of town. This cloudy Tuesday afternoon was one of those days when you get lucky, as four units were sitting with a short train and no crew.


The last unit in the consist was a four axle EMD, and even though it's front coupled it seemed like it was worth the electrons to shoot it.


After spending most of Wednesday just a few feet from the tracks in Tyler, and not seeing any trains, my aim on the trip to New Ulm was to stay as close to the tracks as possible. This resulted in a good helping of "county tar" along with some gravel, but didn't yield any blue and yellow locomotives. There are some scenic spots along that line, though.

I stayed in the Microtel Inn in New Ulm, and was serenaded by three trains after dark and before bed. Guess the DM&E knew I was out looking and held the trains til dark. The next morning on the way to a meeting, a pass by the depot found a pair of blue and yellow units switching. With no time to spare I had to take the best shot offered and this was it.


All in all a good week. Got to shoot the classic paint scheme three days out of four, and got a good look at a reasonable section of the railroad. Every trip down there makes it more evident why people are so drawn to the area.

An EMD Festival

Imagine yourself in New Ulm, MN, at 5 PM on a HOT, what-used-to-be-sunny-but-is-rapidly-becoming-high-overcast Tuesday, with a hotel reservation in Springfield for the night. What would you do?



Might you swing by the depot before leaving town, to see if the former DME left some power parked facing the sun for you to photo? If so you would have the chance to shoot a pair of EMD's that look like this:





And as long as you're in town, why not stop at the Hanska Farmers Co-op elevator, down by the river, to see how the pair of former Soo Line GP's with torpedo tubes on the roof are parked today? With any luck, they too might be facing the sun.





If I encountered such a situation, I'd be sure to keep my eyes open on the off chance I catch a train running into the sun, or even because we may meet something. You might make it all the way to the hotel parking lot before hearing the horn on an eastbound, in which case a short chase would be in order. Isn't that 4 more EMD's bringing a long freight up the hill out of the Cottonwood River drainage, doubling the EMD count for the day while spotting nary a GE? And putting on a smoky show while doing it?





Finally, since the sun was still trying to peek through the overcast and the engine was pointing that direction, you might decide to stop at the huge Harvestland Elevator just east of Springfield to shoot one final EMD. That one might bring back some happy memories.





That's how my day went Tuesday. How about you?

Snowy Southwest Minnesota

So last week, I had to make a trip to the Tyler and New Ulm areas. I was hopeful about catching a little DME or Marshall Sub action, but came away with little to show from a railfanning perspective, although I was suitably impressed with the massive snowdrifts that were everywhere. They have much more snow on the ground than central MN, with the amount increasing as you travel south and west.

I followed the Marshall Sub from Willmar all the way to the DME crossing near Highway 14, but a section crew replacing a rail near Raymond kind of dashed any hopes of BNSF trains for the day. This was a disappointment as the section south of Marshall is one of my favorite sections of railroad in the state. Then, to add insult to injury, the DME ran a train through Tyler just as the meeting I was there for started. After that appointment was complete, I headed for New Ulm. The blue and yellow railroad doesn't really parallel the highway for a lot of the way. I swung into Tracy to see if I could repeat Jer's catch of the pride of the DME but had no luck. However, when I passed through Springfield, I was greeted by the sight of a BNSF shuttle train sitting at the massive elevator there. I grabbed a shot in the fog. This is a massive elevator that loads many trains, and I've heard they have the ability to store 10 million bushels of corn. I know they can load trains fast, as I was lucky enough to stumble across one loading three years ago. Today everything was quiet, as I think the train was waiting for a crew to take it west to the BNSF connection at Florence.


On my way to the office in New Ulm the next morning a swing by the yard caught a set of GP40's sitting in front of the depot. It's always neat to shoot some trains out the car window.


When I finished up in New Ulm, I had to run back to Tyler for another meeting. The train in Springfield was gone, but now there was a different power set sitting at Lamberton. I'm not sure what the purpose was, as there was what looked like a complete grain train and a complete ethanol train sitting near the Highwater Ethanol plant just west of that burg. Again, no action at the elevator. The neat thing, that I didn't even notice until I uploaded the pictures, was the ES44C4 on the head end of this power set. First one I've seen in a while.


The only trains I saw the next day were at Perry's Hobbies in Morgan, where I managed to convince myself to invest in an Exact Rail MDW boxcar, an Intermountain covered hopper, and a set of Walthers Bethgons for the stunningly low price of $59 plus change. And, no shipping fee!

A stop in Bird Island revealed no TCW action, nor was the CP doing anything when I went through Belgrade. So trainwise, it was a quiet week. That's all!

Southern Swing

I was off to New Ulm this morning bright and early, with visions of some DM&E action dancing in my head. When I arrived I noticed a shuttle train was loading at the elevator. So, after I was done with my meeting, I swung by the New Ulm yard for a look at the power for this shuttle.


I have heard in the past that these trains run with 4 units (including an ACe, a pair of Dash 9's, and an ES44DC in this case) in order to make the grade leaving New Ulm headed west. Rumor has it they have stalled in the past with three units climbing out of the Minnesota River Valley.

As you can see in that shot, there were many clouds about. That affected my next photo negatively. When I made it to Mankato, a train was headed south out of town. I'm not very familiar with the trackage, and I didn't see the power but I made a u-turn and chased the slow moving train down. As the UP line winds out of the valley it passes through some scenic territory. This shot doesn't do it justice but you can get an idea of what the stretch of track is like before they make it up to the plains again.


Very pretty area, I really like the rock retaining wall the train is passing by, and I got a friendly wave from the engineer (you can see him waving if you look close). You can tell how the designers of this line wound it around to help the trains beat the grade out of town. Still, these AC units were really working hard lifting the train up the hill.

As my final destination was on the north side of the cities, a swing by Northtown Yard seemed in order. I made it about 4:45 and got a couple of shots of the deadline south of the St. Anthony Boulevard bridge. There were 19 GEVO's lined up with their stacks capped. I suspect that these units require turbocharger inspection prior to being operated again. Makes the lines of SD75's a little shorter than I have seen in the past. It was good to see the Green Giants again-I sure hope they get back on the road soon.


That was it for today. Not a lot, but way better than nothing. Maybe I will have a little time to get out tomorrow evening, if the weather holds and I don't end up with too much work to do after tomorrow.

Jim