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Monday, October 24, 2016

Railfanning on 10/23/2016

Yesterday, I took a road trip to the UP Columbus Sub, about an hour away from where I reside in Lincoln. I went there mainly to hunt down 1996, as it was set to pass by in the afternoon, peak time for taking pictures of it as it was a WB. I got to a spot just West of North Bend at about 12:30 and spent most of my day there. It was dead for a bit, then I caught two Westbounds, a coal train and a grain train, both of which I took videos of but no still pictures. After another brief dead period, a light engine movement rushed by me with 3 SD70Ms:




After a brief pause, a WB autorack train that normally passes at about this time of day flew by:


About 15 minutes later a WB manifest passed by...

... With a patched SP DPU! And right when this train ended, an EB came:


Followed by yet another WB manifest:


After that manifest, there was an unusually long lull that lasted about 50 minutes. After a while, I figured that the IG4TA (which 1996 was on) had to be next, and she came with two CSX units trailing too! It is very hard to catch a train on this line without any armor yellow.





After 1996 passed, I took a quick break to use the restroom and get some food. When I came back, I saw EB headlights. I did not bother taking any still pictures of it, because the sun was getting lower and would have resulted in a ton of backlight. It turned out to be a wonderful QNPPR with a UP SD70ACe leader, CSX SD40-3, NS SD60E, and NS SD70ACU.

After a brief dead period of about 30 minutes, I decided I would leave after the next train. The next train did not disappoint, as it was a Herzog ballast train:


After this, I packed up and headed to North Bend to see if I could get any backlit grain elevator shots. I got one of the OMAX coal train there, but that didn't turn out so well.

~Matt