Snow Shots (With BC Rail!)

One of the things I have wanted to do since going to school in the Midwest is get snow shots. Sadly, this Winter has been royally awful for snow shots, simply because it has snowed very little. However, I have still managed to railfan with snow on the ground twice. The first time, I drove all the way to Logan, IA to catch the CN L573 in the snow. I have wanted to catch CN in the snow since I was a child, and I finally got a picture and video of it:

Here is an additional photo of a UP Z-Train I took that day, and also a UP manifest train:

Yesterday, Lincoln got a whopping two inches of snow. However, with how awful this Winter has been, beggars really can't be choosers. I had to take advantage of it and get a picture or two. I caught four trains, but I only took still pictures of one. I took videos for all four, so be on the lookout for those, I will likely upload everything from yesterday and today soon.

Today, I went out railfanning again. I went to 1st Street in Lincoln first, which is the spot with the skyline view. Sadly, I did not catch any WBs coming off the Creston Sub. I did catch a SB feed train from the Creston Sub onto the St. Joseph Sub:

After the feed train, I decided to head up to the UP Columbus Sub in North Bend, NE, as there was more snow up there. On the way to there, I saw headlights on the UP Lincoln Sub, which just gets the Lincoln-Valley local, so naturally I had to U-Turn and catch it. I caught it at the Rock Creek crossing near Agnew:

After getting to North Bend, it was 15 minutes before I saw a train. This was the first train I saw, and look at that C44-9W trailing!

Well, I thought the Dash 9 was the most significant thing. Then the mid-train DPUs passed, and there was a BCOL barn C40-8M trailing! After getting pressured by my friends to chase it, I chased it to Valley. While waiting for it at Valley on the Omaha Sub, a manifest with two SD70Ms passed:

Well an hour and a half afterwards, it FINALLY passed!

After catching it at Valley, I unsuccessfully attempted to chase it to Elkhorn, After I gave up at Elkhorn, I decided to head back towards Lincoln. On the drive back to Lincoln on US 6, I saw a flashing yellow on the BNSF Omaha Sub. As the Omaha Sub isn't necessarily the busiest line in the world, of course I had to pull over. I pulled over at the 252nd Street crossing and the train ended up being the return trip of the M-LINLIN, featuring an H2 SD70MAC:

I chased it to Greenwood and only got video of it.

After heading back home, there was a parade of stopped coal emties. One of them had a CitiRail unit leading! I pulled over and snapped a couple of shots of it.

 I will upload all of my videos soon, so be sure to watch out on my YouTube channel for those!

~Matt

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