I heard NS heritage Reading #1067 and LV #8104 are out west on a BNSF coal train at Lincoln, NE. I’m amazed NS would let their brand new heritage units wonder off in run through service so far from NS tracks so soon:)
Interesting bit of News!
I’d love to see them out here in South Central Kansas, on the Transcon at track speed![2c]
If you’d put “Lincoln” in the thread title, it may have caused a certain Forum Kitten’s ears to perk up!
There had been speculation that these units would come off at Galesburg. Now I wonder whether they’ll go west from Lincoln or be turned there.
Out here in South Central Kansas, the BNSF tends to run their own power as leading units. They retain NS units on the Triple Crown moves (via Mulvane, JCT off the Ark City Sub). I have seen UP units leading but only a couple of times. CSX units don’t hardly get down here, at all.
Would be interesting to see some of those NS Heritage Units to come through on the Triple Crown moves to Ft. Worth. I know BNSF would probably run them as they came.
It seems that the customer (Detroit Edison) needed more western coal after the pair were assigned to the trainset, so they ended up taking it to Chicago, where they ran them through. I managed to get them on Saturday morning on the BNSF going through Mendota, IL–quite the site.
As for taking them off at Galesburg, the BNSF rarely takes motors off westbound empty trains there. They will sometimes take locos off the eastbound loads, but even that is fairly uncommon unless they are low on fuel or need servicing.
The Reading and the Lehigh Valley made it to Lincoln, NE–sounds like they were headed up to Laurel, MT next, departing from there on Sunday late afternoon. They could bounce back down to Lincoln, or maybe come east toward the Twin Cities from there–who knows! But it sure was neat to see them.
Lance