USA Pics

Nice work there Clekev Dermmy would be wrapped seeing your work I think, Keeping an eye on this new project Maxwerks keep at it mate.
Cheers Mick.:)
 
Thank you! It's the Stockton Terminal and Eastern in Stockton, California.


Maxwerks what’s that route your building looks amazing hope is another California route or another Clovis route miss that one

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SLRR C801-1 eases north out of Bentree, WV. Two of the helpers broke down early in the trip and overworked the rest of the trains motors, but the timing couldn't have been worse - the train was stuck on a tunnel with a rather significant gradient. Thankfully for the crew, three units had been working a train in Alloy. They dropped their train and sped off south towards the stalled train. SD50s 4056 & 4044, with the unique one-off ph4c SD40-2 3872, latched onto the front and rescued the heavy coal train. The new leaders would remain with C801-1 until Boaz, where the now-DIT helpers were dropped off to be worked on and the electrics prepped for their next assignment.

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The sun is edging nearer and nearer to the horizon as the train rolls past Chloe, WV.

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Substation #8 at Mt. Zion can be seen in the background as the SD50s glide through the curve that will take the train back down this mountain. It's not a pleasant ride down that way, that's for sure!

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There's nearly 26000hp on the head end of C801-1 as it descends the St. Marys' Grade, just one of the many treacherous grades on the West Virginian sub. It is, though, one of the easiest of the tough grades - an oxymoron if ever there was one.

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Passing Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island, WV. Sometimes, trains drop off right at the power plant, other times they use the plants small yard to run-around their train to bring the coal up to Kammer Mitchell Power Plant, some 50 miles north. In this case, the coal will head straight to the yard at Boaz. Some of it will be exported, some of it will head to other industries for their own processing, and yet still some may end up in the power plant. There's enough coal left in the primary mines near Clear Creek to last the railroad and its customers for decades, but time will tell when the electrified conveyor belt will have run its course or not.

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Cheers,
SM
 
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Running an IC wheat train on a small model railroad style route I've been playing with.

Regards
Zec
 
Nice shots - Are those E44s unreleased?

Thanks! Yes, the E44s are unreleased, although the author doesn't plan to release them as he wants to remake them from scratch to correct some geometry issues and better detail them.

Leo, is there a preference for running diesel powered units ahead of the electric?

The usual operating procedures ask for the opposite, actually, and it does depend on what motors are in the lead. The C801 trains tend to run with two or three electrics on the head end - a mix of whatever is available, E44s, E33s, EF4s - and drop in a few diesels behind them if need be. Helper units can be either or - an EF1 set as mid-train helpers is common, an EF1, EF2, or EF3 is common on the rear end. Some non-coal trains will see EF4s used as helpers, even.

All electrics except for the Little Joes can be MU'd to diesels pretty easily - though the Boxcabs do take a bit of finagling - so the Joes have to be independently operated if diesels are running ahead of them. When EF4s are the leader in the consist, they don't have this problem, as they have a second throttle called a "Wylie throttle" that allows them to remotely operate diesels that are wired in. It's essentially a second throttle, as matching the Joes 37 notches to the diesels 8 is not quite so easy, and the MU cables on the Joe are... something else.

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Coal train C801-3 departs from Clear Creek yard with three SD40-2s and an SD45 to boot, meanwhile a pair of SW1500s shuffle coal cars between the yard and the mines. SD38 3007 leads a GP38-2 and two foreign motors south towards Beckley on a manifest train. The grade here is deceptive, as in fact the coal train is on mostly level ground while the manifest is going uphill.

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Four EMD 645 blocks are howling as the train powers into Mahan Tunnel, passing old ROW used by the PRR during the construction of the line over seventy years prior.

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Cheers,
SM
 
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