Western Iowa (Large Resolution Warning)
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MeowRailroad
CKRail
Auxiliary tender or is it moving another engines tender around?
That's how my yard and porch looked until 3 weeks ago! I shuddered when I saw that picture!
John
MeowRailroad
CKRail
Looks like hometown High Bridge (I think that's what it is called) on the RBMN.
It sure does, up north of Tamaqua near Mahanoy City on the RBMN main line. I've been through that area myself.
This one I think photo'ed out in Iowa or Nebraska.
John
When I was out that was a few years ago now, I saw the UP doing the track upgrades. We were chasing in and around Clinton and then up to Council Bluffs and Omaha that trip. Don't be alarmed if I mention such a big spread of territory. It's not unusual to cover 8,000 in 10 days or even 12000 miles on another. It depends up on what kind of show and where Mother Nature wants to give us.
That's a great story about the dispatchers and reminds me of the old Boston and Maine days, long before the B&M dispatcher operations were pulled to Billerica and Guilford (Pan Am Railways today) had taken over and consolidated things. There was a small dispatcher offices in Lowell, and Lawrence that handled both the locals and the long run through traffic from Portland to Mechanicsville. I would hang out down in Lawrence and watch the guys man the table and blackboard as you described. Then in 1982 Guilford took over and moved it all to Billerica, closed everything up, and ripped up a lot of tracks too. Around this time I got my first scanner and would listen to the radio chatter which could get amusing at times. There was a switcher stuck in a branch and the engineer read the riot act to the dispatcher, who was now in Billerica. The switch was one of those remote controlled jobs and the train couldn't proceed until the switch was aligned for him. The engineer said, "Hey Bill are going to be stuck here all day? The LASE (Lawrence to Selkirk) has passed by" The dispatcher answered, "Oh sorry Joe, I forgot to set the switch for you..."
I remember the old CNW left running and watched that in fascination when I stayed in Palatine IL for a couple of weeks as I did some repair work for Walgreens at their repair center in Mt. Prospect. The motel, the Best Western actually, was located right along Route 14 (I think) which paralleles the CNW Fox River line. I didn't sleep the two weeks I was there because I spent the nights watching the parade of Chicago Metra commuter trains and the numerous freights all night.
John