On Sunday 8-26-07 I caught 143 trains in 24 hours around Kearney NE! Surprising eh? I didn’t think it would be that busy, but I’m not complaining (though it was the cause for some very interupted sleep that night!). Included was an incredible 79 Coal trains (42 WB mt and 37 EB lds), 33 Freight/Grain/Potash etc (20 EB and 13 WB), 22 Intermodal (11 both ways), 6 Auto (1 EB, 5 WB) and 3 others (1 EB pass. special led by drgw heritage and 2 WB pipe trains)!
Is there a way to tell grain apart from potash/soda ash? There were some trains with solid reporting marks, like CGAX (cargill - probly grain eh?), TILX, CMO and some trains with a mixed bag of hopper cars.
Also, does anybody know the destination of loaded coal trains with UCEX, AEPX, COEH, OVEX or CAEG reporting marks? Thanks
I also stayed 24 on Wednesday 8-28-07 and caught 139 including 77 Coal, 41 Freight/Grain/Potash, 16 Intermodal, 4 Auto and 1 unknown (I forget why its unknown). Again, I didn’t think it would be that busy, especially for a wednesday.
Traffic was moving pretty good across Nebraska but I’m still confused over why it moves so slowly across Iowa and Illinois. I travelled 30 all the way from Illinois. I paced a stack train out of Clinton and he was moving well - low to mid 60s - then all of a sudden around mechanicsville he stopped completely I guess because of congestion into Cedar Rapids (Why?). After a break from the tracks, I see more stopped WBs into Marshalltown (WHY?). I stayed the night in Carroll that evening and never saw my WB stack train. About 7am the next morning he finally arrives moving about 40-50mph with the next WB an hour ahead of him (WHYYY?). I then head towards Kearney and arrive at about 5pm. At 5:33 the same train shows up 15 minutes behind a WB JECX coal train. It’s shocking to see how clogged this line is across IO and IL, but atleast NE is moving well (atleast this far from North Platte). Why were the trains just stop
Congestion around Cedar Rapids is usually because of trains or yard engines working at Beverly Yard on the Southwest side of CR. Fairfax, just west of Beverly, is where the CTC ends until just a couple miles east of Marshalltown.
Marshalltown also has a yard where some trains work. Since both places are the end of CTC, trains will also be stopped to let other more important trains get around them onto the stretch of current of traffic track.
Out around Missouri Valley (the beginning of the single track Blair sub to Fremont) is another place where westbounds get held if a more important train is coming. When they are “sorting” trains, a few hours being stopped is not unusual.
Concerning Carroll, there is a 55mph permanent speed restriction thru town. Throw in a couple of on ag
That bridge was expanded to double track back in 2000.
In addition to the Beverly Yard traffic, they’ve also been working on installing a new interlocking/crossover just to the east of Beverly. Last I saw, it still wasn’t operational.
For the past three summers, I, too, have spent from 48 to 72 hours watching the parade along the triple-track UP mainline in Gibbon, Nebraska. Sleeping in my car in the small “railroad” park across the street (U.S. 30) from the mainline, I have seen between 120 and 140 trains per 24 hours (and I may have missed some as I have dozed off). Slightly over 50% are coal trains. What I find amazing, say, compared to 30 years ago, is the number of manifest trains now is almost nothing. 30 years ago, the majority were manifest. I have also spent a good part of my train “marathon” in Grand Island near the BNSF and UP crossing. More coal trains there than in Gibbon (BNSF) is over 90% coal. Fewer UP trains than in Gibbon (where the Marysville Sub divides eastward to Kansas City), but there are still well over 100 trains a day. I find both locations very friendly and easy to watch trains (although the photo vantages are not the greatest). Grand Island, in addition, has a motel on the west side of town near the overpass where there is excellent train watching even at night. And, it is reasonable.
In September we followed the BNSF from Alliance to Grand Island. We passed 5 E/B coal trains and 1 manifest train. We met 17 W/B empties and 5 manifest trains. The dispatcher was moving 3 to 5 trains in a group. Many of the empties were stopped on sidings or bunched up on the double track portions.
I remember a couple of summers ago coming back to the Twin Cities from Pueblo, Colorado I was able to take one of my many sojurns on the “Overland Route”, this time from Julesburg, Colorado to Ames, Iowa. Coming into Ogallala I saw at least 3 stack trains that were stopped; presumably because of congestion in and around North Platte. It seemed a bit more fluid east of Bailey Yard and North Platte but then when I got east of Missouri Valley it seemed to be crammed up again with trains stopped everywhere. No wonder UP doesn’t want Amtrak on the “Overland Route”.
Even though I remember the “Cities” Streamliners running through Marion on the Milwaukee Road as an elementary school kid up until 1971, I can only imagine what the glory days of the pre-1955 years must have been like on the CNW’s portion of the “Overland Route”. Must have been so incredibly cool to see it all. I even did a research paper in H.S. about passenger service in Iowa; even dedicating an entire chapter to the service on the “Overland Route” and the subsequent switch to the Milwaukee Road on October 30, 1955.
Jeff Hergert is correct on the flow of traffic in central Iowa. With the CTC extension in Eastern Iowa between East Marshalltown and Fairfax this will slow down the traffic as the new signals come on line. As a conductor out of Boone all I can say is welcome to our world this is something that Jeff nad I deal with on a daily bases. Hi Jeff CNW FOREVER LONG LIVE THE ROCK ISLAND Larry
Well hopefully he won’t get “redirected” to too many yard extras, as Road Train Randy won’t shut up about it and that is enough to drive everyone nuts.