Train Sights

[qassaquyangli]

Tell your tales of seeing a train or two.

1. When me and my family were moving to Missouri from Nevada we went a little bit past Needles, California and we stopped at a grade xing and guess what we saw when the gates went down: a ex BN SD70MAC in colors like this http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/Lib006/BN9669.JPG. it was nice.

2.when we were moving (Once again) to Sitka AK, we went through Kansas City(I don't remember what state) I saw few Union Pacific locos in a yard I think.

3. In Montana on the same trip as 2., we saw Green mountain and western (I think) locos.

Lets see your stories!

 

[masterowner]

Ok I have two I will start with the funny one in my opinion and then onto a sadder one. Both occurred on the Sunset Limited.

On one of my numerous trips to New Orleans from Houston aboard the Sunset Limited I saw something very funny but disturbing. This particular trip was back in 09' near mid afternoon we had to stop, I don't remember why nothing special, from my view on the lounge car I saw an illegal transaction involving narcotics lol, if you can provide a better explanation for two dudes, a bag of white powder, and a wad of twenty's please let me know.

On another trip aboard the Sunset Limited, in 2003, the train was coming into New Orleans an "incident" occurred that could not have come at a worse time. Earlier in the day, during the stop at Beaumont, a man who was travelling on the same car as me had a medical problem an ambulance had to meet the train at the concrete slab, I mean "station", he turned out to be "ok" or so it seemed. The man was released after about half an hour and we where on our way. Later that night as we crossed the Mississippi River over the Huey P Long Bridge the man again had another Incident. There was no way to get medical help so we had to wait to arrive near the station. But before the stretcher was off the car the man was dead. I don't know exactly what happened stroke, heart attack, I really don't know the crew remained quiet about it. This is definitely a strong memory in my mind.

Well that's my ramble for today.

 

[jmeinig]

I remember that in the summer of 2009 my family had gone out west for the second time, but this time we took a different route that diverged north quite a bit. During a very long stretch of road (maybe about 100 miles, at least) railroad tracks came up and just kept following the road. Lucky for us, there was a fully loaded coal train heading past at extremely small intervals, about only 5 minutes!

On the first time we went out west, back in 2007, we took Interstate 80 all the was to Cheyenne. As we were going along we kept seeing stopped trains. Apparently a train had a problem (not sure what) and had to stop on the One track main, so there were at least 8 or 9 trains backed up at red signals on a one track main. I was also awesome that our hotel that we stayed in was across the street from the tracks. Plus, there were C-130's doing touch'n go's at the military base. There is one thing that left an impression on me when we left Cheyenne, though. There was a giant cat food billboard with a huge picture of a cat on it.

 

[schweitzerdude]

My funniest train sighting

I live across the road from BNSF main line in northern Idaho USA so I see it all. One day, there was a procession of maybe a dozen tiny work engines (probably the wrong terminology) each pulling one tiny flatcar with various bits of equipment on board. One flatcar had a plastic port-a-potty strapped to it. That's an idea for a content creator for sure.

 

[simulatortrain]

I've only had one real train sighting. The others turned out to be other things I mistook for trains.

One afternoon I was up in the mountains, when all of a sudden, this thing, with bright lights on one end, flew up out of the trees, hovered for a few seconds, and vanished. I swear it was a phase V F40PH. I only had time to take this photo before it was gone. It didn't make any noise besides rustling some branches as it rose up.

 

[qassaquyangli]

I've only had one real train sighting. The others turned out to be other things I mistook for trains.



One afternoon I was up in the mountains, when all of a sudden, this thing, with bright lights on one end, flew up out of the trees, hovered for a few seconds, and vanished. I swear it was a phase V F40PH. I only had time to take this photo before it was gone. It didn't make any noise besides rustling some branches as it rose up.

The wizard was right, Amtrak IS alien!

 

[Stagefright]

There's a large UP yard nearby, so train spotting is fairly easy. Last summer, however, I saw a freshly-painted SD40 sporting Western Pacific colors!

BTW, the yard is next to the liquor store...

Darrel

 

[JIb228]

I've only had one real train sighting. The others turned out to be other things I mistook for trains.



One afternoon I was up in the mountains, when all of a sudden, this thing, with bright lights on one end, flew up out of the trees, hovered for a few seconds, and vanished. I swear it was a phase V F40PH. I only had time to take this photo before it was gone. It didn't make any noise besides rustling some branches as it rose up.

Swap gas.


I live a few miles from two different Class 1 roads, CN and CSX. I hardly ever see trains, but I hear them all the time. Im told they raom the rails late at night and feed on lost rail fans.

 

[masterowner]

Can we try and keep this serious?

 

[JIb228]

Can we try and keep this serious?

Half of what I said was. I do hear trains all the time as I do live about a mile or so from two crossings. Oddly enough I hear them better when in the bath room....

 

[JCitron]

I was taking the back roads instead of the highway home from my girl firend's house a few days ago because I-495 was tied up due to construction and probably and accident. It was dark and I was on Leominster Road in Shirley, MA which parallels the old Fithburg Div. of the B&M Railroad (Now PAS/PAR). It was quite dark and I knew the tracks were on the left of me. All of a sudden there was a blast of a PAR GP40-2 as it crossed through the gates at the Shirley MBTA station. I pulled over to watch the train.

What's funny is there was a cop behind me and he pulled over too, probably to see what I was doing. He than passed me and kept going, after he realized I was just sitting in my car watching the train pass by.

This stretch is pretty awesome for train watching because the road parallels the tracks and it's pretty straight almost like it is out west.

----

Over the past few years I've been storm chasing in the Midwest. Last year while we're driving across the Great Plains from one end of Oklahoma through the Texas Panhandle we paralleled the BNSF and UP mainlines as they paralleled the road we were on. There was a constant parade of freights including locals serving the feed mill in Stafford, TX. It was quite the sight to see the autoracks coming through the signal gantries behind the big UP locomotives (SD70's?) at a speed higher than 20 mph, which is the norm up my way.

----

When I go out storm chasing, I take the local commuter rail into Boston to save on the parking at the airport and or the cost of a limo to the airport, which would be over $100 a oneway trip. Instead I pay only $7.50 including the subway and trolley, and that's a lot less!

Anyway. I had the opportunity to get the cab end of the control car, and could see out the window ahead of me. It was an awesome sight as we went through the signals. They were mostly what looked like type 06 searchlights as well as some new tri-colors like CSX has. During my last trip a freight got ahead of us just as we were going to leave Haverhill station. We waited for a yellow, and pulled on to the bridge across the Merrimack on our way to Bradford on the other side of the river. You could see the freight just ahead of us as he crossed over from the wrong iron back over to the right hand side. It was an awesome sight and reminded me of some of the things I've seen while driving in Trainz. We lost him as we stopped in Bradford, and by the time we were at trackspeed again, he was long gone.

John

 

[wholbr]

Hi Everybody.
I know that in some parts of America railways hardly exist, so can I suggest that if you really wish to see railways in action the UK is the place to come.

You can stand on any of the London terminus stations (especially Paddington) and see high-speed trains entering and leaving the terminus every 2 to 3 minutes. The Heathrow and Gatwick express services also leave on separate lines from that terminus.

If you go westward down the line a mile or so from the overhead bridge at Royal Oak you can watch the HSTs passing through the huge switching and signaling complex on approach to the station.

Best of all, if you travel out a further couple of miles but still within londons central radius, there are numerous road bridges which cross the tracks and from there you can watch the diesel high-speed services entering the center of London passing within feet of buildings, roads and pedestrians still doing up to 90 mph on approach to Paddington,

Going in the other direction you get the HST's leaving Paddington probably traveling at around 50 to 60 mph ( I would not be too sure) but on full throttle with their turbo Chargers giving out that high pitch scream above the low diesel rumble.

The above sights and sounds I have always found to be the best there is in any railway. Good reason for any railfan to holiday in Britain if only for that experience.

Most weeks I travel on the HST's to London or around the country. However I still like to stand back and watch from a platform or bridge a passenger railway system operating at maximum capacity as in the above with all the wonderful sights and sounds.

Bill

 

[qassaquyangli]

Going to Bethel AK soon...

...and when I'm coming back we stay at anchorage for about a day..
, Might have pic's soon. That means I can see BNSF50's grade xings in real life! Or go see the trains instead of the gates