Sit back, relax, and enjoy the clickety clacking of a container free train passing by. Here’s what I know:
So, what did I see?
Jeez, aside from an oversized freight train with a DPU, and actually way to big for my liking, I have no idea. [^o)]
Just a plain ol’ manifest freight?
Is this supposed to be a trick question or something?
I see a train. A mixed manifest train like many others. Nothing unusual.
Yeah - pretty much your garden variety manifest. Ten thousand feet has gotten to be a realtively normal consist.
OK. To be specific:
I always see a lot of info when fans post videos but I don’t know how to find that kind of stuff out.
They normally have scanners and listen to the railroad frequencies to get symbol and other information.
I don’t bother with scanners. I have enough voices in my head as it is. [:O]
There are fan websites with that information - some good, some not-so-much.
If you fan a given section of railroad enough, you tend to learn what’s what.
The Deshler rail cams have an associated spreadsheet (linked in the description of the cam) that tracks daily traffic. The regulars can spot the usual suspects and know the symbols. The scanner does come in handy, unless the crews neglect to call signals - and there’s plenty of signals to call at Deshler. There is a link to the local scanner, as well.
The recent change by CSX of a number of their symbols has caused a little confusion.
Experience, Experience, Experience
When I was working as a Train Order Operator - inspecting trains as the passed my location - day after day after day - you learn the relative make up of the various trains - Western route cars, Canadian cars, Southern route cars, mostly loaded box cars, mostly empty box cars, lots of small covered hoppers, lots of large covered hoppers - watch trains day after day as a employee and you begin to understand what each scheduled manifest train carried. That was back in the day before we at merged the rail system to the point that we only have six class 1 carriers. Two East, Two West and now Two N-S through mid-America.
To discern train identities today one needs a radio scanner able to pick up the road and dispatcher channels for the line segment you will be observing. You will also need to be able to understand the train naming conventions of the carrier whose line you will be observing. No two Class 1 carriers have the same train naming conventions. Employees of each carrier have at least a nodding acquaintance to their carriers train name conventions, use them as a resource when possible.
CSX rules require trains to announce Signals and Block occupancy by each train over the road channel, such as - Q21713 engine 666 West on #1 track - Clear Signal 21.3 - in the example Q217 is the basic train ID; 13 is its scheduled date at origin - everything else should be self explanatory. The Operating Plans of each carr
It could have been one of several manifests, like NS 13Q, NS 14N, NS 310, or many others based on location, so not sure on train.
Locomotives -
NS 4347 is a AC44C6M, a rebuilt GE dash 9. (Was NS 9-40CW #9081.)
UP 5891 is a AC44CWCTE (GE AC4400CW).
NS 4315 is a AC44C6M, rebuilt from NS #9158, also a former 9-40CW.
(Locomotive info is easy to find on http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/ website. Example of NS 4315 - http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/Locopicture.aspx?id=254103 )
It is a scheduled manifest based on size.
I did not notice anything unusual, just a standard freight. A few fallen flag* cars, but not unusual.
*Fallen Flag - For those who don’t know the term, this refers to railroads that are no longer in existance, such as Norfolk & Western, Western Pacific, Erie Lackawanna, etc…
You’d do better on http://nsdash9.com/ to get the renumbering of the AC44C6M’s, SD70ACC’s and various other NS rebuilds.
I looked at that site. Thanks! [:D]