April 22, 2015 – Paducah and Louisville engine 2111 leads a military train past loaded coal train 4516 at Cimarron Mine, which followed it north toward Louisville at Madisonville, Ky. -Jim Pearson
Year: 2015
April 30, 2015 – Thanks to the Ky Highway department I was able to get this clear view of CSX Q026-24 as it headed north on the Henderson Subdivision through Romney at Nortonville, Ky. They’re clearing brush and trees along highway 41 in Nortonville which is making for some new nice views! To the left used to be nothing but brush and scraggly trees along the railroad which made it impossible to get clear views. -Jim Pearson
Long known for hauling intermodal stack trains between Macon, GA and Savannah, GA, with high-nose GE units, one can now see GP30s hauling double stacks in 2015 on the Georgia Central Railroad. CGR operates 170 miles of railroad in the central portion of The Peach State, interchanging with CSX Transportation, Heart of Georgia Railroad and Norfolk Southern. – Chris Dees
Tom’s DVD of the Month Review |
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Title | Into the Desert! BNSF’s Transcon Fullerton to Cadiz |
Producer | RailTrek Media |
Format | DVD Wide Screen |
Playing Time | 1 hr. 52 min. |
Purchased From | Trainvideodepot.com |
Date Purchased | 4/17/15 |
Price Paid | $23.95 |
This is a very good video. The eastward journey starts in the Los Angeles area on the San Bernardino Sub and continues over the Cajon Sub and into the western part of the Needles Sub. Our journey ends at Cadiz, CA. This route sees 100 trains a day!
Points of interest along the way include Fullerton, San Bernardino, Cajon Pass, Barstow, Ash Hill, Siberia, and sections of old Route 66. The desert scenery is great and the train action is plentiful.
The producer uses Google Earth to show the viewer the route and the topography that will be encountered. The video was shot in wide screen format and the image quality is very good. It looks like RailTrek Media is going to be a reliable producer of railroad videos. This is my third video of theirs and they have all been good ones.
This one should be in your collection.
Well, we all get to travel for the next meeting, all aboard, next stop, Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Wallace Henderson has promised to provide us with a very interesting program for the May meeting. Also be sure you come with an appetite for our annual spring cookout.
In the April meeting, we talked about inviting a representative from one of the Madisonville’s local insurance companies. It was agreed that Wally will have someone on hand for the June meeting. We also sent a check to the Kentucky Railroad Museum for the sum of six hundred and fifty dollars to be used toward the boiler restoration of locomotive 152. In total our chapter and individual members have donated over one thousand dollars toward this worthy cause.
The City of Madisonville is going to start charging for venders spots in “Friday Night Live”, along the court square. We looked at the pros and cons of participating in the event and it was decided to forgo the event this year. It might be a good idea to revisit our participation in this event in April of 2016.
Our “Photography Contest” is just behind us by only a few days. Jim Pearson has done a real good job with it and we are lucky to have a member with his expertise. I did talk with him on Sunday morning and he did not indicate how many pictures have been turned in by the membership at that time. I hope all of you that participated had a good time on the day of the event. We were certainly blessed with great weather while out enjoying our favorite hobby. Jim and I came up with a great idea for the entries in the contest. We will talk more about this in the May meeting.
Well I have to go and cut grass, nine weeks ago I was shoveling snow, it doesn’t seem possible. Oh yes, send Matt Gentry a bottle of water, California needs it. See you at the meeting.
Bill Farrell, Chapter President
March 18, 2015 – Norfolk Southern’s NDN1 heads up the SIGECO lead at Mt. Vernon, Indiana with a load of coal for the “Sitran Dock,” a subsidiary of M-Class mining that also owns Savtrans (the 12 miles of rail between McCleansboro and Sugar Camp mine). Once unloaded at the dock the coal is transferred by conveyor to their state-of-the-art barge loading facility nearby. Photo by Jim Pearson
Title | Windy City Rails Volume 6 |
Producer | C. Vision Productions |
Format | DVD Full Screen |
Playing Time | 1 hr. 49 min. |
Purchased From | Trainvideodepot.com |
Date Purchased | 8/31/12 |
Price Paid | $27.89 |
This video gives us a look at some short line and regional railroads in the Chicago area. Specifically, we see action on the following railroads:
Elgin, Joliet, & Eastern (“the J”)
Chicago Rail Link
Chicago Central & Pacific
Chicago Terminal
Indiana Rail Road.
This video could have been so much better if it had included maps. We visit locations all around the outskirts of Chicago but we don’t get a feel for where we really are in relation to the heart of the city or in relation to the other locations that are visited in this video. It could have all been made very clear by quick references to maps as the locations changed.
Almost half of the viewing time of this video is devoted to the Elgin Joliet & Eastern and then we spend several minutes watching Chicago Rail Link action. Less time is spent with Chicago Central & Pacific and Indiana Rail Road.
Some of the best of this video is saved for last when we visit Chicago Terminal. We get to see some street running as cars are dropped off and picked up at industries on Chicago’s north side. The trains have to wait as cars and trucks are moved out of the way.
Overall this is a pretty good video if the viewer has an interest in railroading in the Chicago area.
I think we have had a great time in the last 30 days. Our trip to the National Transportation Museum was wonderful. It was well attended by the membership and we got to meet long time members Rex and Melanie Easterly on the grounds. They now live in Springfield, Missouri and saw the opportunity to meet with some of their old friends, for me it was great just meeting them for the first time. Those members who were not able to make the trip missed a good time.
The second event our chapter held was, “Archeology Saturday”, last weekend. We met at the former site of the Nebo Train Depot at 9:00 am. I can tell you there was a lot of railroad junk stored around the outside of the depot. We found a little bit of everything which will be on display at our next meeting. The foundation revealed several things, station doorways, a loading ramp and a red brick side walk that was about six inches under the soil. The side walk ran parallel to Hwy. 502 and must have come from down town Nebo, about 300 yards away. We also found remnants of a home track and were told of a siding that once existed on the site.
The artifacts that were found will be cleaned up and placed on display in the Parkway Plaza Mall for everyone to enjoy. We have some pictures that will accompany the display. We plan on having the display available for the membership to view before we place them in the mall. I need to add, two people came along and “Kidnapped” Wally. Well, about 30 minutes later they brought him back and gave us money to keep him. Wally will have a full report on his kidnapping experience at the April meeting.
We need to keep in mind that our “Spring Photo Contest” is Saturday, May 9th. Jim Pearson will have more details for us at the April meeting. Keep in mind for the next meeting “Show & Tell” and raffle items.
Bill Farrell, Chapter President
Cab cars! Cab cars as far as you can (almost) see! After being delayed flying out of Louisville on February 17, I snapped this shot on Tuesday February 18, 2015 at LA’s Union Station after landing at LAX. Five Metrolink cab cars are seen at the end of the platform awaiting their scheduled departure time. -Matt Gentry