Get this, I live close enough to the tracks to hear the train horn during all kinds of weather. Recently a local tree service (hired by the city) has been cutting down trees and limbs from around our power lines and poles.
Today I was walking the dog and heard a train horn. It was a nice sounding horn not the usual blan horn that UP buys. I think the nice sounding horn was on a Southern Pacific unit. The nice sounding horn was just as loud as the UP horns but sounds so much better.
When I heard the horn I looked in the direction of the tracks and noticed that many of the trees that used to block my view of the tracks were gone or trimmed back greately. I was hopeing to see enough of the engine to varify that it was a S P unit. No such luck. What I did see was the smoke plume and tippy top of the engine but not good enough to get a color of the engine. Reminds me of the ol saying, “Can’t see the forrest for the trees”. It was a real bummer to be able to see the smoke plume but not the train. I could tell exactly when the lead engine was but couldn’t see it. [:(] [:(] [:(]
Those members who visit the MR forum have already heard mine. Very simply, a small gravel “parking lot”, which the railroad does own, but which has been used by railfans for as long as I can remember, WITHOUT COMPLAINT FROM THE RAILROAD, has suddenly become off limits. Yes its their land, and yes its their choice , but YES IT DOES SUCK!!![V][V][:(!][:(!][:(][:(]
Not too big of a bummer, but just recently I was driving down by Roberts Bank where CP is always running these coal trains. There is always one engine up front, then a pusher on the very end. Anyway, I saw the train coming, but only got to the crossing in time to catch the middle and the end, so I decided to try and drive up the road to catch the train at the next level crossing. Again, I missed the front loco and just caught the middle and the end.
Anyway, it sucked because I wanted to catch the front engine number and ended going quite a bit out of my way. So after the train passed, I started back on my way.
As I was heading home, I see another CP coal train that couldn’t of been more than 15 minutes behind the first! If I had only stayed at the crossing about 10 more minutes I could have caught the whole thing!!
A year or two ago, I took the back roads to Rico, Colorado from Durango, to go see the Rico station which is the prototype for oh-so-many models.
It was demolished decades ago.
Dear jhhtrainsplanes,
Being a UP fan, it pains me to say this instead of insulting remarks of competitors, but UP should be able to buy better horns with the added revenues from charging for the use of their logo . But other than that, Long Live the Wings and Shield.
Back in my dating days I had a habit of testing girlfriends by taking them out train hunting. (Be vewwee vewee quiet… we are huntin that wascally way freight). One spring day I picked up a gal whom I considered to be the outdoorsy type and we drove from Phoenix, AZ to Picacho Peak, about midway down the interstate to Tucson. (This was while the SP was still alive.) I actually had a tripod for my camera and had planned this shot for years… so I happily set up and began to wait, having set up a stick at trackside to use as a “click” point. The skies got cloudy. I waited. It got cold. I waited. There were a couple of drops of rain. I carefully cleaned the lens of my camera, and waited. This WAS a mainline, I thought. Then the heavens opened up, and I glanced over at my “date”. She was patiently sinking ankle deep in caliche (pronounced Kah- lee- chee). So was I. Since we were now soaked to the skin we decided to try, try again, preferably on a sunny day. As I got back onto the Interstate, sure enough, SP graced us with a mixed freight barreling by at about a million miles an hour.
Sometimes you get the picture and sometimes it gets you.
I told this story once in the “Fi***hat Got Away” thread, but here it is again. Almost a year ago, on a trip I took a whole pile of photos while doing some railfanning in Swift Current, Sask. and much later I discovered that there was no film in the camera!
Does anyone know what type of horn the UP typically uses. I know it’s not the popular K5La. I’ve seen pictures of 3 chimers on a lot of the units. I wonder if Jhh heard a K5H or K5LA, both which according to many railfans (yes, me too) have very melodic sounds. CSX and NS use these horns on a lot of their road locomotives and of course, these units have been running on UP’s tracks quite a bit in the past 2 years.
Good websites to hear and learn the differences between locomotive horns. On your search engine (I use MSN) type “Five Chime Horn Consultants” and also “Chris’ Train Horns”. Jhhtrainsplanes if you go to these sights, you might be able to hear what you heard recently.[tup][^]
Erik, this is like right out of the Twilight Zone!
This happened to us today!!!
We have been together for almost a year now, and Big_Girl had the day off, so we decided to go out looking for trains. She decided to buy some new tennis shoes in case we needed to do some walking. While she was in the shoe store, I heard the horn of a passing train. She came out a few minutes later with her new shoes on.
We drove a few miles up the hiway that follows the tracks, and there it was sitting waiting at a signal, so we went a little further, and got ahead of it. We parked the car in a small newly paved parking lot and got out to cross the street. There was a six foot wide boulevard between the parking lot and the stre
Well put Erik. I plan on making full use of this little adventure too. Now I have a “do you remember that time we went train hunting and I was wearing my new shoes…” for the next time I DON’T pass a test.[(-D][(-D]
I figure this incident should be good for a quite a few giggle sessions when we are laying in bed at night rehashing events.
Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.[:P][:P][;)]
Well put Erik. I plan on making full use of this little adventure too. Now I have a “do you remember that time we went train hunting and I was wearing my new shoes…” for the next time I DON’T pass a test.[(-D][(-D]
I figure this incident should be good for a quite a few giggle sessions when we are laying in bed at night rehashing events.
Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself.[:P][:P][;)]
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Mrs. Mudchicken sends her condolences and, after all, it only was a pair of shoes (plenty more where those came from, right?[:D])…This poor gal had our first date interupted by strike duty and then endured “dinner and a derailment” on several occasions…managed to put up with the life of a railroad supervisor and still tolerates an occasional sidetrip to watch other people’s trains. [bow]Congrats on earning your “attagal” in pursuit of the other half’s vice[bow]
Thanks for acknowledging my “rite of passage” I am glad to hear of the lasting affects these type of incidents have had for some of you. I think it was a good sign that we were both laughing instead of frowning (as others BB and I know might have done instead[sigh][sigh]).
The dirty ice cold feet are a small price to pay for the mileage we will get from that day of train hunting.[:D]
It happens too often. I find a great place to photograph trains and wait there for a couple hours or so. Waiting and waiting. Nothing shows up. minutes after leaving a parade of trains comes rolling through. By then i’m too far away to turn back.
Heard the DED/HBD key up tonight on the way home tonight. Knew that it was probably a southbound, thus already past me, but, what the heck. You never know. It was a southbound.
My Father and I went on a steam heritage trip along a branch line that visited a small country town that was having it’s annual agricultural/industry show. Everything was fine till the return journey.
Just as we pulled out of the station, waved off by literally hundreds of local townsfolk, one of the connecting rods on the steam loco sheared right through. So we came to an embarrassing stop not much past the platform! Ugh!
After a lot of attempts to fix a steam engine in a small country town , (basically impossible), we had to wait for Queensland Railways to send a diesel up the line and tow us all the way back to Brisbane.
The saddest part was watching the steam loco being uncoupled from the train, and then shunted into a siding at the workshop. The day had gone well, but a very disappointing return journey.
(The steam loco was repaired and continues to enjoy many steam heritage trips all around south-east Queensland)
Anyone else had a major drama on a steam heirtage rail trip?
My wife, God Bless Her, has developed an interest in trains. It started the day she let me off my leash near a railyard and then had to chase me over most of Western Georgia… all she had to do was follow the tracks and the flecks of foam.
She will proudly point out a GE (the builder’s plate is a giveaway) and identify it as such.
She got me Train Simulator one Christmas. Not enough memory on our computer. She bought a new computer. That’s love.
Is she totally converted? Not yet… she still gets jealous when she catches me looking at pictures of “naked locomotives in that TRAINS magazine.” (By the way, my back copies seem to end up as teaching tools in her classroom.) She just doesn’t understand that I’m… reading the articles. Yeah, that’s it.