Dave's Railroad Photos: January 2008

MARION , OHIO
on the afternoon of
JANUARY 25, 2008

I It being a Friday afternoon and bright and sunny with a fresh inch or so of snow on the ground we eventually gave into temptation and headed to Marion to see what was going on in the railroad world. Arriving there about 1:20pm the first train we see is the NS Marion local pushing gons to Marion Steel about 1:55pm.

Here is NS 9364 pushing its train of gons.

Telephoto of the 9364 and its gons.

Next up is a short southbound NS trailer train. Power is the 7652 and 6625.

Going away view of the trailer train as it heads south towards Columbus and beyond.

When I said short I meant short!

An eastbound freight on former Conrail track hits the NS diamond with the 7870 in the lead.

Trailing the 7870 is SD50 8518. This freight had a lot of box cars from Guilford, to include two in the blue Pan Am scheme, plus box cars from the Green Mountain RR.

We had noticed that the NS local, returning to the NS yard from Marion Steel, had stopped will back from the crossing. With nothing coming on the former Conrail tracks, we finally deduced that it might be waiting for a southbound freight to pass it as the local would need to cross over to the other track to access the Marion yard. We were right (of course!) and here we see the northbound freight passing the waiting NS local.

Better yet, the northbound has two CN units for power.

The northbound train with two CN units passes the waiting NS local.

The two CN units are the 5351 and 5798.

It is very nice to see a solid lashup of foreign power on a NS train. That black gets to you after a while!

The going away angle provides the best light.

The Marion local finally gets its signal indicating a crossover to the other track so it can return to its small yard with the cars from Marion Steel.

That seems like a lot of power for a local switcher. I remember when they used to use GP38's.

A northbound coal drag approaches the Marion depot and diamonds with the 4505 and 317 for power.

Whoops! I am on the wrong side of the tracks for a photo.

Approaching the diamond and the depot.

The 9364 comes by for the third time with a load of empty gons for Marion Steel.

That is a big loco for local switching!

Coming around the bend southbound on CSX at 4:10pm is a loaded grain train. It has passed under one ex C&O cantilevered signal and will soon pass through another. I am standing on the platform of the old C&O Freight House. The Freight House was torn down about 1979 but the platform still exists.

I have always like the C&O cantilever signals and it is nice to still be able to photograph a train in 2008 and get two of the signal towers in the photo.

Former Conrail #7331 is on the point with SD40-2 8047 in the dark blue paint.

Going away shot and even though the sun angle is not good I like the SD40-2 in the dark blue paint with the former Conrail unit.

This has nothing to do with trains but I thought it interesting from an aesthetic point. The wind has blown the grasses growning in the cracks of the freight house platform, being strong enough to cause the grass to bend all the way over thus sweeping the snow.

Same as above with several clumps of grass.

At 4:40pm a northbound NS coal train passes through Marion with 3 locos, the 9704, 2546 and 8349 still in Conrail blue.

The 9704 passes the postion light signals and the Center Street crossing.

The coal train consists of "Top Gons", gray gondolas which must be unloaded by running the cars through a rotary unloader.

TROYTON, OHIO, just a few miles north of my home in Delaware where the double track from here south to Columbus goes into single track which extends north about 15 miles .to South Marion

I usually drive from Marion back to Delaware on back roads, checking CSX and NS along the way. A southbound NS empty coal train has just cleared Troyton and a northbound freight will soon be on its way to Marion and Bellevue.

The headlight gleams in the distance as the train moves up to the switch for the single track.

Power for this train is two Canadian National units with the lead locomotive being #5793.

JANUARY 18, 2007
MARION, OHIO
20 degrees and brisk wind, temperature falling

BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO GET A FULL SCREEN VIEW!

NOVEMBER 19, 2007

This is the Norfolk Southern's bridge across the Maumee River at Toledo. It is on the mainline to Chicago. Originally New York Central and later Conrail this bridge sees huge amount of railroad traffic. During the shipping season numerous lake boats and salt water ships need to pass by this bridge in order to get to and from the grain elevators just to the left of the bridge.
The bridge tender's "office" can be seen at the top of the bridge where the little cabin with the light on is located. Ships have priority over trains so when a ship is due the bridge swings open for the ship to pass regardless of how many trains have to wait for it.

DECEMBER 21, 2007

DESHLER, OHIO

December 21 started out as a ship photo expedition to Toledo. I was positive there were at least 3 and maybe 4 ships in Toledo loading or unloading. That was enough to get me headed north on an extremely dark and scuzzy day. Alas, my intelligence was about as good as President Bush's: only one ship in Toledo, the Algomarine loading grain. We have plenty of photos of that on a nice sunny day so after exploring a bit we headed back south stopping at Deshler to deliver a Christmas present. Deshler is a busy crossing of two CSX lines (both former B&O) so we decided to spend the remaining hour or so of what passed for daylight at the diamonds where there is a small railfan park. There are still several old B&O position light signals at Deshler and given how dark it was they were the main attraction. The photos posted below are NOT what I consider even halfway decent photography but I wanted to get some signal photos and see how the digital camera handled trains in extremely low light. What you see below are the results.

DECEMBER 31, 2007
DELAWARE, OHIO

There was some sun on December 31 for just a bit and since we had a lot of errands to run we took the camera with us and just by chance went by the CSX crossing on Park Ave. and saw a green signal for a southbound so in about 10 minutes this train went rushing by.

JANUARY 3, 2008
IN AND AROUND DELAWARE, OHIO

Feeling a definite need to get out of the house a bit we looked for a few trains today even though it quickly turned dark and scuzzy. First at Troyton, just north of town a NS southbound with a trailing BNSF unit beat us to the crossing.

Those are the "new" signals which replaced the former position light signals that were knocked down in the derailment last summer.

CSX at Park Avenue in Delaware

CSX northbound at Delaware.

A CSX southbound comes out of the gloom at Delaware. The last two units are a slug and its mate, a GP40-2. They were dead in tow.

JANUARY 4, 2008

ATTICA JUNCTION, OHIO

THE CROSSING OF TWO BUSY LINES, ONE NS (EX PRR COAL LINE FROM SANDUSKY TO COLUMBUS) & THE OTHER THE CSX (EX B&O) DOUBLE TRACK MAIN WEST TO CHICAGO.

NS 9916 on the point of a southbound freight at Attica Jct.

NS 9916 southbound at Attica Jct.

Northbound NS freight crossing Ohio Route 4 at Attica Jct.

Going away shot of the same.

We tend to take a lot of photos of coil steel cars. This is NS 165145.

Although an imperfect photo this shows coil steel being transported in a coil steel car without hoods and also in an old ex Pennsy Conrail gondola.

A BNSF eastbound coal train with Montana or Wyoming low sulfur subbituminous coal approaches the diamond at Attica Junction at speed.

The BNSF had an interesting (to me at least!) assortment of BN and BNSF coal hoppers. I note that the entire consist was bottom unloading hoppers instead of the rotary unloading coal gons.
Here is BNSF 652267.