The leaves are changing colors, and Milwaukee Road 261 was back in action with excursions down CP’s River Sub, following the Mississippi from St Paul to Winona.
As much fun as it is to ride, you get much better photos when you chase.
This year there weren’t nearly as many people out chasing as there were in July 2004. This coupled wtih the fact that Big Girl and I had run the line before made for a much more pleasant experience. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t raining.
Of course this time 261 was running solo instead of double heading with CP’s Empress. This too played a part in keeping the crowds down.
Just about 10 AM the CP dispatcher got on the radio, and told the crew that there is a crowd of people waiting at Hastings. I swear they made an extra effort to put on a good show, with a huge plume of smoke and steam.
After leaving Hasitngs, the chase was on, except I screwed up. I thought we had gotten ahead of it, when we saw someone standing trackside with a camera and tripod. We drove ahead and found a good spot and waited.
Oops. [B)][:I]
It wasn’t a total loss, because there was a freight train which we had seen earlier back in Hastings, sitting on the siding. A few minutes later the Empire Builder blew past.
At that point I knew we weren’t going to catch before it got to Winona, so we took our time and stopped in Red Wing. I ended up taking a lot of photos in Red Wing for a couple of reasons. First, I am doing a representation of Red Wing on my model railroad, and second there were a couple of interesting freight trains that came through while we wire looking around.
As it turned out we never got all the way down to Winona. We stopped at this little grade crossin
Great photo’s on a beautiful clear day, wish it had been like that here. One of the defect reports and perhaps both were actually the fire box tripping the heat detector looking for hot axle journal boxes.
Thanks for sharing!
Will
Despite having just turned a bright shade of green… THANKS! [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
YEAH you are a lucky man, that has to be the best way to spend a day, period
Has your heart stopped racing? [:D]
That looks amazing. What did it sound like going by? Quieter than diesels?
I would love to see that.
make a fell kinda shiver a little don’t it??[^][:D]
Elliot, Some nice shots from the Northern Part of the run there!!!
A friend and I went up to La Crosse yesterday and shot 261 too, along with a few other trains. When we were chasing 261 North, we were actually chasing two trains at once. Here are my photos and notes from the day:
We started chasing 261 at Dakota MN, on the CP, awaiting the Milwaukee Road 261 steam excursion to come South. Amazingly the sky had almost totally cleared up, after being almost overcast earlier. Eventually 261 would come steaming around the corner and along the river, with a lot of steam coming out of the stack, and moving that fast, well, you can guess what happened shortly after this photo:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=121462
Now with plenty of Coal Smoke in our lungs, we headed off for Lunch. 261 was going to turn and take on water at River Junction, and head back up the river to St. Paul. We had at least a good hour before he would be going anywhere. While we were waiting, we heard 261 ask the Dispatch about the ICE train(M-KCSP) that was coming up from Marquette to St. Paul. It would have to wait behind the 261. The dispatch answered that he was to be expected at 1400, and it was about 1330 right now. So, we headed down the ICE to find him and follow him back up. We didn’t get very far before we found him, as he was already about two miles South of River Junction. He was moving slow, as he couldn’t do much until 261 cleared up. So, we ran ahead and I got this so-so going away shot of my First ICE train:
http://www.railimages.com/albums/noahhofrichter/adz.jpg
The ICE train had work to do at River Junction, and so we ran ahead to chase and set up for 261 at what is called Donehower siding. We were really early, and so I set up my shot and waited. Apparently the dispatcher decided to run two Eastbound Freights through first, so 261 wouldn’t have to meet them anywhere. So, these two freights showed up while we were waiting: