Friday, September 14, 2012

Pigs Eye

I live a short hop from the Pigs Eye Yard in St. Paul Minnesota. The yard is named for the landfill the railroad built on top of. [Useless Fact Alert!] When the CP built their new office here they had to run pile 160 feet down through garbage to hold the structure up. It is always a hot spot and there are plenty of great things to see. Last Saturday was no exception.
CP 6243 was one of two freshly painted SD60s on the property today.
There was a lineup of MP15ACs, notice all three are in different paint schemes. There are also still SOO white and some bandit MP15s working the yard here as well.
 UP 3236 was pulling the UP-TCWR transfer uphill toward downtown. The TCWR power was chasing behind running light.
 TCWR 40155 is one of the best patch jobs I've seen in a while, I just had to share...
On the left is the CP-UP transfer in UP's Hoffman Yard which runs right next to Pigs Eye Yard. The TCWR GP30C #4302 is getting ready to head back to Hopkins.
 A BNSF manifest (with a UP engine) approaches Pigs Eye on the BNSF mainline, pulling some wind turbine nacelles. These loads are cool in that they are bolted to the cars at their base, notice there are no straps or cables over the top.
 DME 6050 was one of the ICE/DME SD40-3s at Pigs Eye, this one just happened to be passing through.
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5 comments:

  1. KristinSeptember 14, 2012 at 4:41 AM

    I'm used to seeing those wind turbine parts heading out Hwy 53, and not infrequently, down Hwy 7 in the mornings on the back of a lowboy. So seeing them on a railcar is a bit odd. Headed for the Dakotas?

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  2. Canadian Train GeekSeptember 16, 2012 at 12:41 PM

    Great shots! I didn't visit the Pig's Eye on my last trip to Minneapolis... I'll have to take it in next time.

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  3. Karl A.September 21, 2012 at 4:29 AM

    Thanks Steve! Krstin, I don't know where those turbine nacells were headed, it could be to the big farms in California. They have been running short on semis to haul all the parts out there.

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  4. pogopodSeptember 25, 2012 at 6:25 PM

    Hi Karl. Enjoy your blog. The Pig's Eys name goes back to way before the garbage dump. The first resident of what is now known as St. Paul was a character named Pierre Parant. His nickname was "pig's eye" and the town of St. Paul was first named Pig's Eye. Here is a link to that story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Parrant
    Keep up the great modeling. Hope to meet you some day.

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  5. Karl A.September 30, 2012 at 5:50 PM

    pogopod, thanks for the link, that's a pretty interesting tale!

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