What I Stumbled Across this Weekend

The furniture quest continued on Saturday, as Mrs. L4T and I made the trek to Perham to check out 4 floors of stuff at Karvonen's in Perham. It's nice stuff, too, but we still didn't find just what we were looking for. Still the trip wasn't a complete loss since it was a lovely day and I got to shoot a train. Twice. First near the Highway 10 overpass:


And then once more, this time close to Wadena. I might have passed this one up but with a pair of H1's in the consist it seemed worth shooting.


A heads up from Jer on possible unusual traffic across the Staples Sub this afternoon resulted in a short railfanning trip. With ATCS showing a pair of westbounds after lunch, and me not knowing which one might be the mystery train, I headed out to investigate. The first train was another Dash 9 powered manifest, but the second was worth shooting. Loram was moving a grinder around and I got them at Bluffton.


Railfanning was capped off by COLX loads that must have met the grinder close to the 174.1 detector. I shot him at CR 75 west of town, which was the best I could do for nose light on an eastbound at this time of day.


With that, it was home again to work on the ceiling some more.

Grind 'n Squirt

A look at the calendar for Monday April 5 told me to go to Hawley after lunch. Meetings were scheduled for afternoon and evening, but I fetched the camera along just because. Just west of Perham, something appeared in my vision far ahead on the tracks. I quickly overtook it and discovered Loram rail grinder RG319 hard at work on the curve between Perham and Frazee, rounding off the ball on Main 1.

Since the sun was not yet far enough west for a nicely lit shot, I ended up with these. The dry spring must have made the railroad very aware of fire danger, as the Loram crew was applying a liberal coat of water to the right-of-way as the grinder did its work.


Seems that only the curves were being ground, as the sparks had quit blying and the water was already slowing down when I got this shot of the tail end of the train.


Even with this level of fire protection, I suspect fires are possible in the ROW. The area between New York Mills and the overpass west of their has recently burned, and it seems rail grinding could be the cause. This isn't the first time I have seen a fire that may have been a result of rail grinding operations.

Since I wasn't able to head for home until well after dark, this turned out to be the only train of the day for me. Still, it was fun to see something out of the ordinary.

Jim

Fire One

Mrs. L4T and myself were set to celebrate Mom's Day with a trip to the Staples Dairy Queen this evening. After a lazy day recovering from the physical effort of helping our son move yesterday, we decided to head out about 5 PM. A quick glance at the ATCS display revealed a westbound train approaching Wadena, so I prompted the guest of honor to hurry and get ready. Even with my cajoling, we were a bit late in getting uptown as the train was just clearing the crossing. I vowed to catch up with him, even though he was headed away from Staples. After all, Perham has a Dairy Queen, too.

We reached the Bluffton curve in time to see the tail end of the train. When I glanced up towards the tracks to dream of what might have been had we left a few minutes earlier (could have shot this train in nice light rounding the curve), I caught a glimpse of smoke coming from the ROW. I immediately decided my citizenly duty was to investigate the source of the smoke. As you can see above, it wasn't a conflagration, but the smoke was enough to indicate something was definitely burning.

I wasn't going to try and put the fire out, and thought someone needed to know, so I called the BNSF emergency number and gave them the crossing number as a location. I noticed later that the rail looked freshly ground, and suspect that might have been the cause of this fire.


By this time the westbound was well out of reach. We decided to head east again, in the hopes that something would develop from that direction. I had an inkling something was coming up the Staples Sub, but just as we reached Aldrich, I heard a coal empty call the Staples dispatcher for a warrant as he came off the Brainerd Sub. He got his ticket, and word that he would have to wait for a westbound Z on Main 1 before he could enter the plant at Staples.

This gave us a chance to swing through the drive up at the DQ and grab some tasty fast food-chicken strips for me, and popcorn shrimp for the Mrs. We settled in for supper and to wait for the coal empty to head west. Soon enough the zipper passed and the coal train throttled up. I grabbed a shot as he swung onto the Staples Sub.


After trying a shot of the DPU ACE passing the depot, I decided that maybe we could still get ahead of this train for one more try. Turned out to be quite a struggle.

It took all the way past Bluffton before I could cut him off. I got him again at the Ottertail County 147 crossing as he rounded the curve.


All in all we saw three trains this evening, two backlit eastbounds and the westbound coal train. I guess you could call the tail end of the first westbounder a fourth train but I never caught up to him. I think we did our good deed for the day, reporting a tie fire, but the reaction at the emergency number didn't really tell me if they appreciated it or not. Anyway, it was a gorgeous evening to spend travelling along the tracks in early May here in central Minnesota, looking for trains.

Jim, out

Catching Up

While I'm sure no one has missed my lack of recent posting, I have been a bit negligent in adding any current information to this blog. Mainly, I haven't had time to spend trackside to generate anything interesting to post.

However, over the period of a few days, my travels and the time I have been able to get out have resulted in a few photos to share. Only a few of these were shot on dedicated railfan outings. Just as many were captured while out and about for other reasons. Sometimes, I think, these are the most enjoyable shots for the photographer. Not because of quality or anything unique, but because they seem like a bonus. When you head out on a mission to railfan, the expectation is that you will come home with train pictures, but when you are just looking for trains during your daily routine, anything you get is a pleasant surprise.

OK, enough with the philosophy lecture. Let's get to the trains.

The evening of July 7 called for an outing in our new Escape. Since we had been favoring Staples side of Wadena, Mrs. L4T and myself decided to head west for some sightseeing. Just before we reached New York Mills I overtook a merchandise train and jumped to the south side of the tracks for this shot:


The spartan cab look is less common all the time on the Staples Sub. There is also a story behind this photo, as this was taken about 20 seconds after the clutch linkage on our brand new 2008 Escape with 400 miles on it self-destructed. We made it home that night with no clutch, and I will never be able to look at this picture without that memory popping into my mind.

Luckily, I was able to get the clutch hooked back up well enough to return the unit to the dealer in Baxter for repairs the following evening. Mrs. L4T followed me in the other Escape and we headed back to Wadena together. The bright spot in the return trip was the opportunity to catch an ACe in good light west of Staples.


The vehicle was repaired on Friday, and we ran over to Baxter to pick it up. On the way home I heard the dispatcher talking to a westbound as they entered Staples and I was able to get a shot at the infamous Oink Joint Road crossing just outside Wadena. It was a real color show, with four units up front, all in different paint.


This photo was taken within about a half hour of a strong thunderstorm passing through the area,the remnants of the storm are barely visible in the sky to the east.

My lone dedicated outing in this group was on the morning of Saturday the 12th. I ran over to Staples for about an hour and a half first thing in the morning and managed to catch a few trains. There were a bunch of loaded coal trains stacked up in the yard, with another coming into town just after I arrived. Here's the power on one of the parked trains.


A brand new SD70ACe leads another coal train into the yard.


A "Z" train passed through on Main 1-I caught him from in front of the depot.


Then came coal loads powered by SD70MAC's in a 1x1 configuration. I still don't understand how BNSF decides to assign power to trains-sometimes there are four units up front on coal loads, sometimes 1 front and 1 back, and just about any combination in between is possible as well.


And isn't it the duty of all rail photographers to record the infrastructure of the railroads as well? A shot taken on the Staples depot platform:


Work found me in southwest Minnesota Thursday and Friday with no trains anywhere near, but on my way home I encountered a Rail Grinder waiting to head west in Staples.


That's it for now. I have a few shots from Saturday evening's jaunt I will post soon. Until then, I will be looking 4 trains.

Jim