This last Sunday, from 10:00 in the morning until 01:30 Monday morning. I had the opportunity to rail fan at Depew station, in Buffalo N.Y. While there, eastbound trains were stacked up on the stations four tracks, due to a derailment in the Rochester N.Y. area. This site sees up wards of 50 trains a day. Lots of Con Rail, CSX, NS, BNSF and other freight as well as Amtrak and VIA connections in the states. I was surprised to see U.P. power on many freights. Met many other rail fans, great folks! Two I talked to were former NYC engineers and both had seen the end of steam on this road! They were there waiting for the American Oriental Express, which was held up and 24 hours late, due to the derailment. Finally around 21:30, the AOE showed up and was it a beaut! Only the crew was aboard, as the passengers had been shipped by bus to their next destination, which the AOE was en route to meet. Talked quite some time with the Amtrak engineer taking the AOE from Depew to Washington D.C. Lots of fun! You guys out east have great opportunities with places like Depew to rail fan at.
Deschane,
That is great! Sounds like your railfan spot is a gold mine! And with the American Orient Express that indeed was a super treat!
If you took any pictures, please post them!
An Amtrak trip is always a super way to take lots of neat pictures, see lots of neat things (a lot of the NEAT stuff always goes by when your camera is packed in your bag) and meet neat people who generally also like trains and travel.
When I take train trips to visit friends or family, I always bring a camera and lots of film, and find that my ratio of photos of trains, trackside structures and industries to friends/family to be about 3:1!
A real treat was this summer, when UP was working on their lines in western Colorado and the California Zephyr had to detour through Wyoming–a great look at lots of “rare miles” trackage normally only seen by freight crews and train-hoppers!