I just wanted to tell everyone that recently we have been very lucky here at Fairfield. Usually, we don’t see anything very unusual on the NS tracks through here. In the last week though, NS has been using an NS C40-8 and a CNW Unpatched C44-9W to do the local grain service. I have never seen an unpatched CNW unit before!! It was all clean and looked brand new, even though it’s about 10 or 12 years old. From what I’ve heard, there’s only 7 of those unpatched CNW units around. Of all the places that it could be, it chooses to pull around 5 or 6 old grain cars around Fairfield and Golden Gate!!! Later, I’ve heard that another CNW unpatched has been coming through and a UP SD70M and NS C40-9W have been doing the local grain switching now. Also, today a Norfolk Southern executive car with a former Conrail D8-40CW in NS paint came through. It stopped at Golden Gate, and everyone aboard waved at us. I’m not for sure if David Goode was on board the train, but I sure hope he was.
Fairfield is along the NS St. Louis District of the Illinois Division (former Kentucky Division) with about 20-30 trains per day.
The middle of Fairfield is MP116 and Golden Gate is MP126. The NS executive train was a research train that was inspecting the track work that has been going on for the last two days.
drfizzix, I certainly understand that RR crews definetely have to work in all kinds of miserable weather. However, look at it like this, when we are down by the tracks we have to stand out in hot miserable weather for an hour or more to see a train, a railroad worker sees a train or several trains all the time, still has to work in hot weather, but GETS A BIG PAYCHECK for doing this. So, in the end the RR workers have life a lot better than a railfan, that is of course only on bad weather days.