In the early 1950’s, the Toledo Peoria & Western advertised itself as the “Magic Carpet of Railroading”. Over the years, this classic midwestern line has rostered red-and-white GP38-2’s, ran doublestack intermodal service, and served as the Santa Fe’s only reach into the Hoosier state.
Now part of the Rail America family, the TP&W can still be considered a “magic carpet ride” among Hooser railfans. On a balmy 60 degree day in early January 2012, TP&W GP 20 #2048, a former Santa Fe unit, rests after a long week of work in Logansport, IN.
Bill Heaton shot this switcher/geep combo at Atkinson Yard, Madisonville, in early December 2011. According to RailPictures.Net the rare EMD SW1001 was originally built for the Reading in 1973. Frank Orona should be credited with this information. You can find more shots of this locomotive on the above mentioned website.
Left: AMTRAKS Hoosier State is racing towards Indianapolis splits the semaphores. Nearly all of America’s semaphore signals are gone. They had motors and mechanical moving parts, the bane of management. Newer models have LEDs and other gizmo’s and are driven by computer chip technology. So capture those digital images soon folks.
This line is the former MONON, officially named the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad, how dull. No wonder they used the Potawatomi Indian word meaning “tote” or “swift running.” The Monon rails connected Chicago with Indianapolis, and Michigan City and Louisville, forming a big “X.” The City of Monon marks the “X.” Indiana claimed the railroad as its own, calling it the Hoosier Line.
Someone even coined a poem: Up and Down the Monon, everything is fine, cause that root’n, toot’n Monon, she’s a Hoosier Line! What I miss about the semaphores is that as a railfan trekking around the country you could see the position of the semaphore from adjacent highways. The color indicator was not pertinent. If they were pointing toward the sky, tracks were clear. If one was horizontal there was traffic nearby, either coming or going.
(Now maybe one of you can tell me why one semaphore is pointed, and the other squared ?? Really, I don’t know.) The photo was captured by my friend and videographer Tim Lab of Owosso, Michigan. MONON rails have morphed via mergers into today’s CSX Transportation.
An ex-NS dispatcher sent Dr. Fred Riply this photo of the New River bridge (built by SOU 1962-63), which he took on his reconnoiter. The short line for which the old bridge was kept open for, for a few years anyway, was the Brimstone RR. All of this is the vicinity of Helenwood and Robbins, TN (between Oneida and Harriman). Submitted by Fred Ripley.
This is a very good DVD covering the Illinois Central RR from the 1950s through the 1980s. It is a two-DVD set and the first DVD is almost entirely devoted to the last days of steam locomotives. At the end of the first DVD we see the transition to diesels.
The video quality is surprisingly good for the 1950s scenes and we get to see 4-8-2 mountain type locos, 2-8-4 Berkshires, 2-8-2 Mikados (mainstays on the I.C.), and even some 2-10-2’s.
There are several train meets, lots of scenes with steam locos billowing huge clouds of black smoke, and some nice high speed pacing shots of steam locos.
Disc 2 shows trains with diesel locomotives from the 70s and 80s mostly shot in Illinois. There is a scene showing the City of Miami on its last run before Amtrak took over.
This DVD set is worth the purchase price in my opinion.
CSX's P921-5, a Southbound Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Train (Red Unit) sits in the cutoff at Mortons Gap, Ky as it waits on a northbound to pass before heading south on the Henderson Subdivision on December 5, 2011. The train had a total length of 5,332 ft and was headed up by CSX 7531 (a C40-8) with 5324 (ES44DC) as the second engine. (Photo by Jim Pearson)
"Keith is getting some practice time for retiring by watering the steamer on the Black Hills Central at Hill City, South Dakota. The way Keith drives, he has no problem being back to work for CSX on Monday mornings." Submitted by Bill Grady, Louisville, KY.
I was catching up on my railfan surfing tonight and ran across a post on the P&L forum that indicated that Dennis Carnal had passed away. I quickly pulled up the West KY NRHS website and saw the information about his death in the newsletters.
I first met Dennis though my quest to complete my collection of L&N Employee magazines. He had posted that he had some for sale and I contacted him and found out that he had several that I needed and I had extras that he needed so we arranged a trade. Dennis and I arranged to meet at his house on one of my visits to Henderson and traded magazines, traded stories, and discussed the Cardinals vs the Reds.
My primary RR interest is in the tunnels [I’ll spare you the long story why] and Dennis and I hooked up on a couple of different trips over the next couple of years to explore tunnels and sites. I had permission from the owner of the land where the original tunnel west of Dawson Springs is located to hike in and check it out and Dennis went with me. On another trip, he hooked me up with one of his friends from Greenville who knew about the buried tunnel on the original O & N alignment near Cleaton. That day we also checked out the daylighted IC tunnel sites on the P&L at Echols, Rosine, Black Rock, and near Stephensburg-that was a fun day.
Enough rambling, I just thought I’d express my condolences to your group on his loss. He was very gracious to me and willing to share any information that he could. He also kept trying to get me to come to one of your meetings, but I was never down on a Monday that you were meeting.
Hello, I thought that you might want to put a link up to this page http://www.railroadkeys.com/history/EHNRR.html If anyone has other items that they want to put pictures of on the page that would be great. I would love to get some photos of the early lines to add if anyone has one. Thanks, Michael Orange.
FYI: Website and Facebook page for Ozarks Model RR Association. Thanks to Greg Sullivan for Website update and photos for Open House. New Website is: omraspringfield.org Greg took the photos and created the FB page. Good work, Greg. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ozarks-Model-Railroad-Association/337691496249198?sk=wall. Thanks to Greg for your good work. Rex Easterly.
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad freight train makes it’s way Eastbound through the Tehachapi Loop East of Bakersfield, California. – Video by Jim Pearson
This is a video I shot on my September vacation to California and back. It’s in the Cajon Pass on the Union Pacific track that passes through Morman Rocks, East of San Bernardino, Ca. – Video by Jim Pearson
Here's a shot Scott Wartchow (friend of chapter member Fred Ripley) took of east-bound "Franklin Industrial Minerals" train on former Tennessee Central trestle east of Crossville, TN. A very lucky catch! (Photo by Scott Wartchow)
Well, after 4 years, I finally caught this guy on the move leaving Alcoa/Vectren. He normally doesnt leave til 11:00-12:00 as I can hear it, although faint, from my house, and doesnt return til 2:30-3:00am. Thing is I went down to where it normally sits off Eble/Sharon Rd. and there was another one sitting on the main and not the siding. He was all lit up and ready to move too. Waited for a bit but he didn’t move, so I left. Hope you don’t get motion sick, took the video on my phone 🙂
Thought this would be neat to share with the group as its not common for anything to move on this set of track anymore. I can only assume they started using rail to haul the coal in back in 07-08 due to high cost of fuel and therefore using trucks to bring it in. (Video by Matt Gentry)
Jim Pearson gave me a heads up and I caught this train at South Latham. It's G150, a southbound grain train with some interesting power - CP 9767 (GE AC4400CW) on the point with IC&E 6410 (SD40-2) trailing. (Photo by Chuck Hinrichs)
Bill Heaton took this photo of CSX Snap Track loaded in gons, ready for action at Atkinson Yard, Madisonville, KY. This would be a simple, but effective modeling project in any scale. (Photo by Bill Heaton)
Ricky Bivins made this telephoto lens shot looking south towards Morton’s Gap, KY, on the CSX Henderson Subdivision. I always marvel at how the changes in grade and rail irregularities are exaggerated with a long lens. (Photo by Ricky Bivins)
In the early 1950’s, the Toledo Peoria & Western advertised itself as the “Magic Carpet of Railroading”. Over the years, this classic midwestern line has rostered red-and-white GP38-2’s, ran doublestack intermodal service, and served as the Santa Fe’s only reach into the Hoosier state.
