Reality Check Friday

Railfanning in Vegas is... different. Around town there are some great spots around town. South of town there is one of the coolest spots, Sloan. The old tunnel has been abandoned in favor of the new cut through the side of the hill here. Because of the grade, the trains are easy to pace.

South of Sloan is Erie. This passing siding provides a long trailing or approach shot. Here is looking South at the departing Ringling Brothers Red Circus Train (I saw an elephant).

Looking North at Sloan is a great banked corner with desert landscape all around. I was standing on the shoulder of Las Vegas Blvd. when I took both the Erie shots.

This is Aware country. His tags are everywhere from here to L.A.. I've seen some great shots and am looking forward to more.

Arden Yard: Home of the Vegas SD40Ns. These SD40-2 rebuilds are everywhere and pull all the locals in town. Maybe someday they'll try some more creative paint schemes.

This last shot is how I often see Vegas. This shot summed it up well. It's open, airy and a little on the dirty side. One of the Locals was heading North on Monday. The crew gave a friendly shot with the airhorn, that helped.

 

Vegas is more than the casinos and the lights. It has many faces, and there is one that will match whatever mood you are in, you just have to know where to look.

Railfanning Around Vegas

I explored a little around Vegas today with my lovely wife. I found a few interesting items. I am thinking about building a couple of FreemoN modules to use with the N Land Pacific Freemo group and I think I may have found my muse.
I started the day at the Olin Chlor Alkali plant. This place is huge. It has a couple of swithcers and I was lucky enough to photograph one today. Savage (SVGX) GP9 #8607. This looks like an ex-CP unit. I would love to know its heritage.

North of Vegas is a great spot called Apex. The UP interchanges with the Nevada Industrial Switch there. So far the short line has eluded me, but I did catch a trio of SD40Ns, led by UP 1837 sitting idle between jobs.

One of the industries at Apex in a Portland loadout, right next to the main line. This may end up being a winter modeling project for me (Freemo style of course). Don't worry, my main focus will still be the Skally Line.

One of the cool things is that the UP service road bridges are all made from flatcars in this stretch. Here you can see the one right at the switch to the portland loadout.

All in all it was a nice day. I also got to see a B25 Mitchell, some B-1Bs, A10 Warthogs and a C5A Galaxy getting loaded over at Nellis Air Force Base. There is more to Vegas than the Casinos...

Out and about

I had some photos I got while I was out and about. Over Easter weekend I ran to Duluth for some time with the family. On the way home I stopped in Hinckley. The Skally units had just left town to the south and the ILSX leasers were both sitting on the interchange track. I don't know if these are on the line anymore or not.

I got back to the office later that week and was fortunate enough to be in Vegas as UP Big Boy 4014 was pulled through town. I stopped to see it early in the morning before the crowds arrived. 1.2 millions pounds of awesome:

A Little Oversized Work

Recently I was asked to build an HO scale SD70M for a UP engineer. I will say this scale is very different to work in than my usual N Scale. The project was a challenge, but I think it turned out well.

This was the engine that the engineer had certified in, I started with an Athearn unit, redid the roof details, added cab shades and mirrors, renumbered the engine and weathered it to look like the prototype.

It was fun, but I won't be switching scales any time soon.

Pigs Eye Code Blue

I had an half an hour to spend around Pigs Eye Monday, and it was possibly the finest half-hour I've ever had railfanning. It started with a chase down the hill. There were 2 NS SD70ACes on the point of an EB Manifest:

I looked south to the yard and I could see a WB CSX fertilizer train getting ready to roll out with a triple header of CSX power.

As those two clear I see a BNSF manifest and an Earthworm holding to head East. As I admire them a BNSF Ore MT rolled up. That covered my Dash-9 fix as well as ES44DCs and SD70MACs.

The UP made there standard appearance, putting together a manifest to send down to Shakopee.

I headed over to the shops and looky-looky! More of the new CP GP30C ECOs!

And the pair of out of town guests that have eluded me all year! The Indiana Railroad SD9043MACs!

As I was getting ready to leave, I caught a CP transfer at the bluff with some great looking DME power on the point!

Shortly there-after the TCWR rolled through.

Not too shabby, eh? And people wonder why Minnesotans would put up with Sub-Zero temps half the year. The railfanning makes it worth it!

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.

Southern MN / Iowa

If you ever have a chance (or are forced) to drive from Mankato, MN to Omaha, NE bring a camera. The roads are lined with some of my favorite things: trains and grain elevators.
Just south of Worthington, MN I caught Minnesota Southern (ex-ILSX) MSWY GP7 1379 and GP9 1365 waiting to get clearance onto the UP mainline. Just a little further north and you can see two more ex-ILSX units at Huron Bio-Energy.
Along Hwy. 60 you'll see plenty of elevators, quire a few are owned by New Vision, this one is just a little north of Mountain Lake, MN.
One of the highest capacity elevators on the line is the shuttle loader in Alton, Iowa. The steel building with the white roof is covered grain storage.

Busy Busy Busy

Hopefully I will get some pictures taken of the Skally line this weekend. I have almost completed my ILSX SD40-2 #3109. It will get some dullcoat tonight and as soon as the cab glass arrives it will make its first revenue run on the SCXY. I've had so many projects going on that I haven't finished a thing. More layout sections, building some nice lumber loads (you'll see those soon too) and expanding the fleet in general while keeping up on creating all the photo car cards. More on those later. Here are some random pics until next time...

MNNR B23-7 #48 working the Hugo local on the old Skally Line. I caught them as they were crossing the CP line at Bald Eagle Jct. in White Bear Lake. This location will eventually make it's way onto my Skally Line. It wasn't the usual crew today. The normal crew leaves most of the cars at M&D Jct. and only brings what they need to the end of the line in Hugo. These guys brought everything with today.
MNNR SF30B #42 pulling the once a month Bayport Local. This run handles the Anderson Window plant in Bayport. Here they are on UP trackage through St. Pauls Phalen Park neighborhood.
Here CP GP40 #4617 is leading the shortest train I have ever seen roll out of Pigs Eye Yard. I've seen BNSF light power moves longer than this.
A trio of UP power trailing an empty coal train across the Mississippi in downtown St. Paul. The train just came from the Allen P. King Coal plant in Bayport, MN. The rear 2 engines will probably get dropped int South St. Paul as the rest of the train heads back to the Powder River Basin.

Shakopee, MN

Did a little railfanning down in Savage and Shakopee, MN last week and the sun came out for a bit! That area has alot of great industries and a small UP yard (Valley Park) that would translate easily into a layout.

UP GP38-2 308 running light to service some of the local businesses. The lights are off because he is running away from me in this shot.

Rahr Malting would be fun to model, lots of cars in-cars out traffic, the UP main runs through the middle of the complex, every building type I know of from brick to precast. And massive elevators. This place is awesome!

Harvest States EMD SW1 sitting idle at the CHS Elevator in Savage

The SD's are still out there

Here are some random shots I got back in October around the metro. Enjoy.

BNSF SD39 1913 working Northtown.
BNSF SD40-2 7884 Pulling a ballast train to a bridge project on the St.Paul Sub.
UP SD40-2 3225 waiting for it's next job at Hoffman Yard.

SD40-2 8018 taking a freight out of Northtown.

River Sioux Iowa

There was an unusual stop in Iowa, the town of River Sioux. My buddy and I had been running parallel to the UP Main line so we decided to get off the freeway and set up for a shot at the local grain elevator. This was the sign at the top of the ramp... a little spooky...


My friend comments on how odd the town is, no cars, no people, so we hurry and get out pictures and go...

So we headed back to the freeway. The ramp back onto the freeway was closed. You have never seen two people drive as fast out of a town the other way as we went that day...