Richard's American Train Adventures

D****t! I was going to say that, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Right-O-Way P48 flex in this instance.

It does look like that.

Here's the video of the GP38

Turn the volume up.

Richard

Here's the next video from Elkhart to Deshler

So you have Jawtooth in your video and, I think, he got you in his recording! Possibly when the KCS went west to south on his video of eight days back, today being 7th November.

Fascinating to note the mixture of signal heads in use there, hard work for the engineers with mixed types!
Also lovely seeing the varieties of schemes on the freight cars, some quite old ones coming through

Gents

Here's the latest video on youtube. There's quite a bit of SD40 action on this one.


I was in the US on business last week and spent the weekend over in Ohio, meeting up with Jim
We met up at Deshler on the Friday afternoon, I started out from O'Hare in the morning but congestion on I80 had sat nav take me back along I94 and into Hammond through what looked like an industrial wasteland. I saw a few trains but I'm not sure I would have wanted to stop and get out.
This took me onto I90 for what was then an easy run through to Elkhart.

A quick stop at Martins super market to see if the Elkhart and Western were doing anything, but not that day but they do have a shiny "new" loco.



I then went down to Goshen, to see if the local was switching, it had finished for the day and was waiting to head back to Elkhart.



It was sat there waiting for a other trains to pass, they are on the video.
I also saw a train heading south on the Indianappolis line, something I haven't seen before as trains were always heading north.

I then decided to head to Deshler and just follow sat nav. It took me on the usual route but at Ligonier, it took me south to Fort Wayne, round FW on the freeway and onto US24 which would take you to Toledo. 24 goes past Washburn the start of the Napoleon Defiance and Western, so I had to stop there and see if anything was going one. There was nothing not even a single freight car, so I carried on expecting sat nav to take me back to 24 but it didn't it took me east and south until eventually I met the Norfolk Southern line from Fort Wayne to Bellevue via Leipsic and Fostoria. Outside a place called Continental I found this.



It was clearly waiting to pass something and as it was a stack train it probably wasn't going to be too long a wait.

The track layout here seems a bit unusual as the line seems to cross over each other. You can see it a bit clearer here.




A manifest train was arriving from the other direction as he pulls into this siding. Here's the DPU on the manifest.




I then followed the stack train as it headed east to Leipsic



I lost it at Leipsic as it arrived at the grade crossing just as I did.

I then went into Leipsic to the diamond, you can park right by it.

This oil train then appeared without warning



I just had time to grab this photo.

I then moved a little further north, there is a nice spot where you can park by a crossing, to the north is the Mars Iams pet food factory. To the south is the ethanol plant. I didn't manage to get any photos but a SD40-3 was heading south, it is on the video.
I then went on to Deshler, it's only 8 miles up the road. As usual there was no shortage of trains, but they are all on the video.

So for Saturday we decided to go and explore the Norfolk Southern mainline that follows the lake.
The first stop was Vermillion, it has a railfan park with a seat and shelter, not that we would need it as the weather forecast was for warmish sunny day.



The trains were coming through here at close to 50mph.
We saw 4 trains go past here, and then moved on to where the line crosses the Bellvue to Cleveland line. We did see a train but I was on the phone to Emma at the time, so no photos or video.

This huge train of autoracks came through with a DPU in the middle



Hiding in the sidings round the corner was this rock train.



Here's the NS Bellvue Cleveland line passing under the NS mainline




Here's an coal train heading east.

richard carr said:

View attachment 227379

It was clearly waiting to pass something and as it was a stack train it probably wasn't going to be too long a wait.

Click to expand...

richard carr said:

The track layout here seems a bit unusual as the line seems to cross over each other. You can see it a bit clearer here.

View attachment 227380

Click to expand...

It's actually one main line with two sidings, they have just extended the ends past each other so they can do a slow rolling pass if needed.

In the first shot the train is holding the main and this second one will swing right (our left) and take the siding past the holding one.

A good way to spot mains and sidings is the track work, sidings often run at a lower elevation, usually because the main has been upgraded with a deeper tack bed, it'll also be smoother, something seen easier with a telephoto shot. There will almost certainly be a difference in speed permit as well, possibly 70 on the main and 50 on the sidings.

You've also (frustraitingly ) cut the tops off the closest signal sets in both photos, but you can see the furthest (facing the approaching trains) and note the very top signal over the siding is a dwarf, possibly interlocked calling on for both sidings to do a rolling pass.

If you look into the distance on the first shot you'll see the siding signals as red, amber, red which if I read right means proceed at limited speed, prepare to stop at next signal.

Both of these are hot shot domestic intermodals and the second one will retake the main after passing the standing one I suspect.

Next we moved on to Sandusky

This is the small yard by the Amtrak depot, a nice view of a self guarding switch that hasn't been used for quite a while.



A coal train coming into view. It was going to turn south a few hundred yards further on in to the main yard at Sandusky



We drove back round the corner and caught it (but only just) just before it entered the yard.



After this we moved on following the NS tracks to Oak Harbor.





This is the NS mainline again looking east, running above it on the bridge is the former Wheeling line from Bellevue to Toledo which is now NS.
That looks a bit like the rock train we saw earlier.

Next is a coal train approaching from the west taking the connector between the NS mainline and the former Wheeling line .




After this train had passed we headed to Fremont about 10 miles further south on the former Wheeling line.
We passed the coal train waiting in a siding for north bound train.

Fremont was about 10 minutes further on and we caught the northbound coming over the river bridge. We were going to wait fo rthe coal but about 15 minutes later we heard another horn, another north bound.



The light was now fading fast so we headed off back to Toledo about 25 miles west of us.

There's video of all of this to come later.

Here's the next video on YouTube