This is one of my favorite spots to railfan, the Woodruff Rd. crossing on the EJ&E just north of CN’s Joliet Yard. If you want to look in Google Earth the exact coordinates are 41.546241° -88.066114°
Anyways, back to that truck. So that’s some sort of white SUV - I have seen what looks like the same SUV as in the satellite photo parked there multiple times - day and night - and it’s on RR property so I’m assuming that it’s from the RR.
Now I’m on my scanner and I never hear this guy giving trains run by’s or anything, in fact he ussually shows up, waits for a train, and then leaves shortly after the loco’s pass.
So is this a supervisor tracking train times or something? It reminds of me something the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) does for buses - sometimes they put supervisors on a street corner which track when exactly the buses roll by for performance standards. But then again, the RR knows where it’s trains are, so I’m not sure if this theory makes sense.
Just curious because I’ve seen that vehicle there a number of times now, and I cannot figure out what purpose on the RR that has! And it’s always in that exact same spot!
May be a signal maintainer…or pehaps there is a manually operated switch there for a siding and they don’t want to stop the trains so he/she throws the switch??? All possibilities.
All possibilities except crew change. This point is like literally 1000ft from the yard - if they were doing a crew change might as well just do it in the yard.
If RR police then it’s unmarked.
Could be a guy throwing switches, but if it is he could have parked closer to the switches.
Might be a yard truck that brings the conductor to the headend after he has re-lined the yard-to-mainline switch when the triain leaves the yard. Beats walking to the headend of a mile long train!
The fact that it leaves soon after the engines go by, sounds like it might be a supervisor. They’ld be looking more for proper whistling (or not in a quiet zone) bell, headlight and ditch lights etc. That it’s done so often in the same spot is a bit puzzling. Might be other issues particular to that area that they are watching for.
Railroad police would probably be more interested in the train, rather than just the engines. Unless there have been reports of rocks being thrown at the cab in the area. (It seems like in my area, they’re more worried and keep watch over intermodal trains.)
Or it could be a railfan like someone said. You never know.
It’s too close to the tracks and too far away from the road to be a railfan - at least it’s not a prudent one, unless he’s on really good terms with the local RR officials. Plus, why at night - photos are tougher - unless he just really likes to watch trains.
I don’t believe it’s a supervisor checking up on the crew’s performance, unless he’s giving them quite a break and/ or looking to compile a record that shows a lot of compliance with whatever the rule or procedure of concern is - that truck should be plainly visible from the approaching train, and being there so consistently makes the ‘test’ pretty predictable.
What’s the tower about 30 ft. to the upper left from the truck - floodlight or cellphone ? If the latter, maybe it’s related to that ?
I lean towards some supervisory or security duty such as making sure the crossing gates are working, being available in case something goes wrong, etc. But that’s not very persuasive to me either, so it will interesting to see what th explanation might be.
That tower you are referring to Paul is a light tower - however in years of coming to this location I have never seen it used - it’s always off. I don’t even know if it works. My best hunch is still some sort of a supervisor, but the question is for what?
If it is a railfan, and he leaves after the locomotives pass, he obviously does not suffer from the same affliction as I do. I’m a compulsive car-counter.
Not necessarily best done in the yard. Depending on the layout of the yard and where the crews tend to get to a convenient spot to stop before going on the law, the crew change could very well be out away from the yard. CN does things like that around Neenah pretty frequently. Plus it doesn’t tie up the yard with a big, stationary train. This allows the locals & yard switcher(s) to keep working as well.
It could be a trainmaster/other supervisor auditing performance of the crew. I’ve seen both CN and CP do that and usually the trainmaster is in a 4 door SUV in a “plain wrapper”. With what I’ve seen they usually don’t hang around much past the power clearing the crossing. That’s where my money is.
Dan has it right. Unless there is a yard crew ready to hop onto the train as soon as they blow up - it’s best to keep the train at the yardboard. You don’t want it blowing up and blocking crossings, yard tracks, switches and everything else. But you do want it at the yard so you can show that it “arrived”. That’s probably important to some paper pusher and his little graphs and pie charts somewhere. And some crews can time it perfectly so the train blows up right before they can get in the yard and put it away.
I’ve taken trains in to Joliet’s yard. I would imagine its the utility man or possibly a trainmaster. The crossings on the EJE can’t be blocked for more than ten minutes. If a train is too big we have to cut Woodruff road, and bring the setout in the yard. This is also a crew change point as I have been relieved here before. Also, every train that leaves the yard has to be rolled by(inspected). That vehice looks like the trainmaster’s blazer.
Thanks for that vote of confidence Zug. I do recall back in March of ‘08 I watched a train depart Shops Yard-Badger “Siding” (North Fond du Lac, WI) after it’s crew got on board at 0730 (ToD was 0645) and arrive at Neenah Yard (north Dixie Siding) around 1645. The distance is about 20 rail miles give or take. The work they had in the yard was projected to be about two hours’ worth so guess what…
It is amazing the number of times crews ‘just’ make the yard board as they go HOS.
In many carriers data systems a ARRIVAL time affects a number of Clocks…Clocks that get fought over. A Arrival stops the line of road clock from which the Train Velocity is measured, it also starts the Car Dwell Clock by which terminal operations are measured. The arrival time gets fought over by both parties.
