Pig Farmer, message me if you want while you’re in the area. I just saw a shot of some of the south-side bowl tracks taken out below the retarder. Did they tell you track numbers?
We’ve been working from 1 up to 11 if memory serves me correctly. Sometime this half we’ll be jumping over to something like #25. We’ve been rolling up the retarder right there at Tower C. We also did Mains 19 and 20 from the High Xover down to the Mannheim Xover.
I’m going to brag just a wee bit. I’m about a mile south of Clearing’s bi-directional hump and there’s almost always something going over the hump, often in both directions at the same time. In addition, the IHB is about 2 1/2 miles west, with trains about every half-hour.
I live in Aurora, IL and when I plant myself at the west end of Eola yard (and if I were there for a full 24 hours) between BNSF freights and yard movements and Metra and Amtrak I 'd say we get about 100 plus a day…or about an average of 4 to five an hour, but during the daylight hours it can get really busy with ten plus an hour in the peak hours.
Edit: Please see the “Hot Spot” article in the latest TRAINS magazine which mentions Eola yard, which is where we local fans hang out.
In Fall Creeek (Where I live) gets 4-6 trains Sunday-Tuesday, 6-10 Wednesday-Friday, 10-14 Saturday.
To MP173:
I havn’t listened to the old scanner in awhile,but I will Thursday and get that time for you.
Things have been busy here lately.
Hi
I’m here on the Garrett sub as well between Garrett and Deshler in Defiance Ohio.We have the trains that mp173 mentioned plus the y101 local.He takes care of the gm yard,omni and runs cars to the MAW(maumee and western).They rock and roll cars to Napoleon Ohio at a slow speed due to bad track conditions.Csx likes to run them in spurts here so you could see nothing for 2 hours then 8 in 30 minutes.
stay safe
Joe
One of the best places to train watch is in Hershey, PA. About every 20 minutes or so day and night, a Norfolk Southern freight runs through. If you park in the free parking Inter-modal, Museum parking garage. You can even cross over the tracks on a glass enclosed bridge for a birds eye view and stay dry on rainy days in the shelters. It’s a great place to set up a camera or just take a lawn chair to relax and watch trains. Oh yeah if you get bored there is also all that Hershey entertainment too.
I live in Lexington, SC which has the NS r-line. Normally we have through freights 191/192 and 155/156. We also have local P75 aka the Johnston Turn. Not much activity around here in a 24 hour period and the through freights come through in the wee hours of the morning, putting a serious damper on railfan activity.
Same here in NE Oklahoma, SK&O territory. [:'(]
Acela
Kirkwood, MO has a large amount of traffic, that’s why it is known as a prime spot for railfans.
I’ve been there waiting on Amtrak or just hanging out and have seen 3-4 trains in an hour, all UP of course.
I live closer to BNSF Yard where Dad used to work for Frisco and it’s hard to determine, because they are always making up trains. I have seen trains waiting to enter the Yard when I’ve crossed over on our light rail Metrolink.
About 60 per hour here from 07:00 to 22:00. Almost all passenger trains. Spread over 5 tracks - 15 each way on the fast lines and 15 each way spread over the three slow lines. No more than 4 freight trains each way on an average day.
Here is South Croydon, UK - looking out of my window. I accept that everything being multiple units is not that exciting, but the sheer volume (4 so far typing this message - no make that 5) is quite impressive.
Here in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, all rail lines are stub ended since the last of cross-lake carferries quit a couple of decades ago. There is a round trip heading south of Cadillac about every day or two on the former Ann Arbor line. About 90% of the traffic is sand from the Yuma pit headed to auto parts foundries. The rails can get a bit rusty during the usual August auto plant shut downs. At least the RR is accepting of fan trips (both diesel & steam) and we often see PM 1225 or NKP 765 once a year.
Allright after a few moronic weeks I got the scanner rollin…For MP173…I havn’t heard the Q500 & 501 since
listening on Friday to now as I write this. I will stay dilliegent till I do hear 'em.
I thought I’d write down a few symbols I have heard for anyone’s reading pleasure jhust to show the varied trains the Toledo sees.
Q559 20:03 ols Q324? 22:32
Q231 20:34 Q342 23:16 NB
UNK 22:00 NB UNK 23:27 SB(waited for 342 at SD Cabin)
Those were just in a two and half hour listen on Friday night. You will notice the UNK (unknown) symbols. Thank you for trying to listen to the static prone radios. Csx can spend 2.7 billion on track improvement but not 2-3 million for a radio upgrade? OK off soapbox…This is what I have heard today:
UNK NB Q366 11:31 Q325? 12:30 SB Q241 13:12 SB & Q272 13:42 NB
also heard a J782 pass NB 13:50 that’s new to me. Two more Q200 series have passed but again static so no specific symbol…sorry.
It’s humming today!
I actually live beside the CSX were 4 divisions run into Russell,Ky but don’t have a clue as to how many trains go thru Russell in a given day.
But I work on the NS’s Kenova District which is just across the Ohio River and can tell you about it.
Regular scheduled freights which include intermodal and time freight are as follows :
East: 188,18m,194,186,272,234,218,236 West: 17m,189,217,233,185 (13)
This does not include the grain trains (loaded/empty) or the ethanol trains (loaded/empty) or extra freights like an m8m or m7m,some extra pigs like an I-34 or one running as an 80k.
Also this doesn’t include the empty hopper or loaded coal trains which run on various symbols such as 80k,80e,SOE,851 and others I can’t remember .
Locals include jobs out of Kenova,WV and Wheelersburg and Portsmouth,Ohio.There’s a total of (16).The symbols run from the J-05 to the J-22.
Then Portsmouth Yard has (5) yard jobs and one regular work train .
Now any given day there may be extra empty train moves to Kenova or Wheelersburg for loading and extra locals are called all the time both in Kenova and Portsmouth.
So on a given day there’s on average of (34) regular trains that pass or work here,but not including the CSX traffic I don’t know about.
Zero, like most towns, cities, villages in Canada 90% of them are not serviced by trains or if they were they are not now, most people in North America have no idea what it’s like to hear, let alone see a train.
Doc: What is the reason there is so much traffic through Cranbrook, I always thought it was basically a spur line, as it goes to (from) the U.S. what are they hauling on the trains? is Canada importing that much stuff that has to go to Lethbridge? conversley what is Canada sending to the U.S. wheat??? smarties? shreddies? cheezies? what warrants a large rail yard in Cranbrook?
The line handles all of the export potash, sulphur, and grain to Portland, OR, that Vancouver can’t handle.
Both Sultran and Canpotex have American subsidiaries, using different names, that own dock facilities in Portland.
This business began in the mid-seventies when Longshoremen strikes on the Vancouver docks became an annual event. Vancouver lost so much business that relative labour peace set in.
Bruce
The station nearest me is Fullerton, CA, in north Orange County. Nice comfortable place to watch trains. In addition to the BNSF Transcon, which caries about 15% of all the goods imported to the USA from Asia, we see Amtrak CA’s Surfliner series, Metrolink commuter trains, and the Southwest Chief.
That adds up, on weekdays, to 56 passenger trains and from 50 to 100 freights, depending on the economy. Of course there are more during the day, for the passenger trains don’t run all night. I figure that train frequency varies from 6 per hour during the day and 2 per hour at night.
Jack_S
tatans. Union Pacific hauls potash and wheat through Cranbrook down to, I believe, Portland. Plus they have a couple of mixed or general frieghts come through on the way to Hinckle, Oregon. Plus there is the Golden wayfrieght every day and once a day there is a frieght that goes to the Cominco Smelter in Trail. Canadian Pacific got a good deal on real estate in the late 1890s which is why Cranbrook is the divisional point not Fort Steele.