While returning home from Galesburg RR Days, I followed UP from DeWitt, IA over to Cedar Rapids, and saw nothing but sitting eastbound trains, more than half a dozen of them. Never caught up with anything going west, either. Is the swing bridge at Clinton out, or what?
UP has had an ongoing crew shortage at Clinton. Perhaps that was related?
I saw that through here about a week ago there must have ben 5 of thme sitting from the west side of town to the east side of town plus a few more out in the desert outside town
While waiting for a room at Fremont the other night, a conductor said there was a derailment at one of the yards in the Chicago area.
Eastbound trains were backed up west of Boone because of no place to go also.
Great. Welcome to the wounderfull life of the Railroad.
That explains it. Thanks, Jeff!
I took an impromptu drive from Geneva to DeKalb (IL) mid-morning on Sunday, seeing successive UP eastbound trains at what had to be minimum spacings. Made for a number of good (but hazy) photo ops, but I never recalled seeing that kind of train frequency under normal conditions. A sole intermodal (K Line unit) was westbound.
On my way home from Galesburg Railroad Days, I had to stop at the Rochelle Railroad Park to drop off some of our Trains magazine brochures at the gift shop for the Park’s pavilion. Right after we arrived, a UP high-rail truck went by heading east. A few minutes later Ketih Schmidt pulled up and said he heard on his scanner that there were concerns about the heat because a detector recorded something like 104 or 108 degrees. I can’t remember which one he said, but hot none the less.
Maybe that contributed to the problem as well.
Next year if we’re all going to Galesburg Railroad Days we should have a rendezvous at some point so we can all meet each other.
Bergie
When I went up to visit my friends in Clinton, IA. That used to be a regular thing up there. I would see UP trains stretched plum from Clinton, IA all the way back west of Dewitt, IA. and if I went the other way they would do the same thing as well they would be stretch eastward all the way back to Galt, IL. And this is with the lift span in place. The trains were rolling very slowly if at all for while.
I don’t understand how UP does this as BNSF line that goes to Fort Madison has its congestion but they at least keep there trains moving.
Speaking of Dewitt reminds me of a 8 hour trip from Boone to Clinton a couple of years ago.
4 hours from Boone to Dewitt, 4 hours from Dewitt to Clinton. Dewitt is only 20 miles from Clinton.
Jeff
Trains backed up from Geneva to Dekalb is quite normal… but not on Sunday mornings. A lot of UP freights+Metra delays+yard congestion+track work=delays.
Not to mention some questionable dispatching from Omaha DS11.
I’m not sure what day Bergie is refering to with those detector temps. I took Metra 506 (10:05 am Geneva) from Geneva to Elmhurst on Saturday 6/25 and brought my scanner with me. The detector at Turner (CPY 29) spit out a temp of 92 degrees at 10:20 in the morning! I didn’t hear the temp from the Turner detector on the return trip to Geneva aboard Metra 505 due to radio chatter. I’m guessing that the temp at the detector had to be approaching 100 degrees at two in the afternoon. I do know that they stopped taking westbound trains out of Proviso Yard after 1pm - Omaha DS11 was nice enough to inform the crew of IG2G3 (Global III transfer) who had been roasting in their un-airconditioned engine for over an hour at Park (CPY 15) of this little detail. I’m not sure if WB traffic out of Proviso was shut off due to heat related issues. The move might have been made just to open a window for the hot ZCSLT (Canal St/Chicago,IL - Lathrop, CA).
CC