Don Clayton was on Mileage collector Trip when High Iron Train passed through Springfield, MO. I was able to meet him and tour the train. – Rex Easterly
Year: 2015
Heritage units have a tendency to sneak up on the best of us. Heads up Jim! – Rick Bivins
July 1, 2015 – CSX Q029 passes loaded coal train N308 at MP 261 at the south end of Romney siding as they head south on the Henderson Subdivision at Nortonville, Ky. – Tech Info: 1/1600sec, f/4.5, ISO 900, Lens: Nikon 70-300 @ 102 mm with a Nikon D800 shot and processed in RAW.
Bill Grady accepts his 3rd place trophy for the first official WKNRHS Photo Contest that took place on Saturday May 9, 2015. – Rick Bivins
CSX V255 is Northbound at North Sebree, KY. This One Unit Wonder is pulling an Empty Grain train back to Indiana. June 13, 2015 – -Bill Grady
Saturday May 9, 2015 brought about the first photo contest of the West Kentucky NRHS. The only rules set forth by our judge, Jim Pearson, were that you have to be a member of the WKNHRS and that the photo had to be taken on May 9th, which also happened to be National Train Day, so there was a happy coincidence. At our May meeting the chapter decided that we will hold two of these contests a year and the next one will be in November 2015. Date has yet to be determined.
The winners were as follows: 1st – Jim Kemp. 2nd – there was a 2 way tie for 2nd between Rick Bivins and Matt Gentry. 3rd – Bill Grady. Honorable Mention belongs to Blair Terry. Click on each photo to see the full picture.
Other entries were:
The May meeting in Hopkinsville went well and I hope all the members who attended had a good time. Our meeting was attended by Jennifer Brown one of the writers for the Kentucky New Era. Jennifer enjoyed the cookout and then covered the meeting and program by Wallace Henderson. I have some copies of the article from the newspaper for you to look at in our next meeting.
Wallace Henderson did a great job with the May program. Maybe some day in the fall we can make a road trip to the site in Nashville and have Wallace point out the highlights of the accident. Mrs. Brown seemed to be very impressed with the program. Thank you Wallace, you did an excellent job with your presentation.
Under new business in the May meeting I said I would have a rough copy of our proposed club membership card. This is something we can print out at home on any printer. I will give the membership an explanation on how it will work at this month’s meeting.
Jim Pearson did an excellent job chairing our first photo contest. We had a total of six entries and it was suggested that the club sponsor another contest this fall, when the leaves are turning colors. I think it would be a good idea if we take the pictures from the photo contest and print a, “2016 Western Kentucky Chapter” calendar. We can discuss the calendar in more detail as we get closer to October.
If any chapter members are in the Parkway Plaza Mall in the future, stop by the white display cases across from Godfathers Pizza and look at our display. The mall has allowed us to use another case for display. We have the artifacts from Archeology Saturday on display in the second case along with pictures taken on the day of the event. The mall arranged it so both cases are side by side so it makes it easier on the eye.
Ricky Bivins has obtained a copy of our National Bylaws for review by the membership. The officers had a meeting on June 4th to discuss upcoming events and the bylaws. Wally had a copy of our chapter bylaws at the meeting for review. We decided to do a survey of the membership after National concludes their meeting in June. We may want to set up a committee in the future, for review of both National and local bylaws. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.
The June meeting will have refreshments by Steve Miller and the program will be presented by Blair Terry. We will also have a representative from an insurance company to tell us about needed liability insurance to cover the officers and chapter members. Hope to see you at the June 15th meeting and most important bring a prospect for membership.
Bill Farrell
June 2, 2015 – Thanks to a heads up post by fellow railfan and great photographer Tom Barrows of Evansville, IN, I was able to catch my second Norfolk Southern Heritage Unit today! – Jim Pearson
When I arrived at the overlook to the Sitran Coal Dock and Abengoa ethanol plant at West Franklin, IN, the weather was overcast and it looked like it was going to be fairly bad, but the sun finally came out just as the train was leaving with Illinois Terminal Heritage Unit 1072 in the lead.
The Illinois Terminal railroad along with many others was bought up by Norfork Southern years ago and NS has repainted about 20 of their engines in the paint schemes of many of those roads.
No More Tears… Photographed on Memorial Day Weekend 2015, this GP40-2 has served CN, Grand Trunk, and started life as DT&I 409. Nowadays, this “HOG” serves the Heart of Georgia Railroad, and was parked at Vidalia, GA – the onion capitol of the world. – Chris Dees
| Title | Indiana Harbor Belt and Belt Railway of Chicago and Blue Island, IL Hot Spot |
| Producer | Machines of Iron |
| Format | DVD |
| Playing Time | 1 hr. |
| Purchased From | Trainvideodepot.com |
| Date Purchased | 5/14/13 |
| Price Paid | $23.95 |
The IHB is the largest beltline railroad in the United States. It stretches forty miles from the NW suburbs of Chicago, IL, to Gary, IN, and has three major yards: the Michigan Avenue yard in East Chicago, IN, serving the steel industry; the Gibson Yard in Hammond, IN, switching auto racks exclusively; and the heart of the IHB, the Blue Island Hump Yard in Riverdale, IL, with 44 tracks where 1700 cars per day are humped.
Sixty percent of the IHB’s business consists of service to local customers in NW Indiana and Chicago, with half of that being steel-related. The other 40% is serving to connect other railroads.
The first 50 minutes of this video is dedicated to the IHB, leaving very little time for the Belt Railway of Chicago. Since the IHB is the largest beltline railway in the U.S., it is appropriate that so much of this video involved the telling of their story.
This is a very good video for anyone interested in the operation of a beltline railway. Yours truly will never understand why so many RR videos are produced without maps, and this one falls into that category. It would have been nice to see where we were at any given time in relation to Downtown Chicago and in relation to other locations covered in this video.
In summary, this is a very good in-depth look at the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad that could have been even better with the use of maps.
Every May for the last number of years has brought on Fullerton Railroad Days. This free event takes place in the parking lot at the former Santa Fe Railroad Depot in Fullerton California one weekend out of the month.
This year was particularly special again at Santa Fe Northern #3751 was on hot display. Hot display meant that the locomotive was brought in under steam on Thursday and left the depot under its own power Sunday evening.
While anticipating when the locomotive would make the move from downtown Los Angeles to Fullerton, my co-worker, Craig, again used his connections to find out that the locomotive would leave Los Angeles sometime after 7:00pm Thursday evening, April 30th. So another co-worker, Dave, talked me into going downtown to watch it leave through BNSF’s Hobart Yard and then try and catch it through Norwalk, CA. The key was hoping that BNSF could fit the move into traffic right around 7:00pm. All we knew was it would move sometime after 7:00pm.
Luckily Dave has a good scanner and after we watched the BNSF GEVO couple to the locomotive we moved out and waiting at the diamonds at Hobart Tower, on the west end of Hobart Yard. Not long after, BNSF #8357 keyed the radio to leave Amtrak’s coach yard with ATSF #3751 in tow. The reason the locomotive was pulled to Fullerton was so that BNSF did not have to spend more time tying up the main taking the train down towards Anaheim to turn the locomotive on the wye. This way, the locomotive was facing the direction they wanted to display the locomotive and would allow it to power itself back to LA on Sunday.
Interesting note is BNSF #8357 was going backwards as well since it would be on display at Railroad Days also. So since the GEVO was running in reverse, and there are no ditch lights on the rear pilot of the locomotive, the move was limited to 30 mph.
The fun part of the night (for me) was when we were able to pace the locomotive along 26th Street, which parallels Hobart Yard. There were 3 vehicles pacing this magnificent engine, and Dave and I were one of them. So I like to say I was one of the first to see 3751 for the weekend. Below’s a video of the pace and of the locomotive leaving Fullerton.
After we ran out of road to pace 3751 along Hobart Yard, Dave and I decided to forgo Norwalk and just wait at Fullerton Depot for the locomotive. As most know, I have helped Wally at the Adam’s steam show a couple years, so I know what coal smoke smells like while in a steam application. When 3751 rolled into Fullerton, the feel and smell and character of this locomotive is totally different, since it burns oil, to what I have ever witnessed before. It is quite an experience to say the least.
Hopefully, since the locomotive has been fired and fueled once already this year, I will be able to chase this great locomotive at least one more time this year.
This view, taken on May 2, 2015, looks east on the former C&O main line at Alleghany, VA. At 2072 ft. above sea level, Alleghany is the summit of the C&O’s crossing of the mountains (note the spelling, “Alleghany”, vs “Allegheny” of PA and the PRR and B&O’s crossings). Coal here has always moved eastbound exclusively, towards tidewater at Newport News. In the final days of steam, loaded coal trains had two of the world’s most powerful steam locomotives, the C&O’s class H-8 2-6-6-6. The rear helper, put on at Hinton, WV, would cut off here, and return light to Hinton. With dieselization in 1956, the C&O settled on a standard lash-up of five GP9’s, which negated the need for a helper. Although long closed, the tower, “A Cabin” (cabin being the standard C&O term for interlocking towers) is in the classic C&O brick style, a plan used with variations system-wide. (photo copyright 2015 by Frederick J. Ripley).
NREX engines 3531, 3528 and 3520 sit in the service area at CSX’s Atkinson Yard at Madisonville, Ky. From what I’ve been told the engines have been out of service for over 6 years and are on their way, via the Paducah and Louisville Railroad, to Progress Rail in Mayfield, Ky to be rebuilt. -Jim Pearson
This was taken at the Hopkinsville depot with a dogwood in full bloom in the park on the right as southbound Q029 from Chicago to Atlanta and it is headed by SD50-2 #8660 with the second unit a C40-8. Both are ex-Conrail. -Wallace Henderson