My favorite elevator at Lonetree, ND lost its grain bin a few weeks ago. The wall was buckled for years, but the roof collapsed in November. A 3x3x0 double grain load grinds by this week:
Another hard to catch unit for me was this BlendStar engine. She works a small facility adjacent to BNSF's East Thomas Yard in Birmingham AL. I managed to catch her one time in October 2015. I really like that paint scheme.
Me too. When I was young, my Second Diesel Spotter's Guide helped me to differentiate these. Somewhere throughout the years, I too forgot. I did some research to find that they're both GP-9s. The 2876 is former SP and the 6226 is former C&O.
Word on the street is Niobe Grain is shutting its elevator down at the end of this year (like in a week). So I made a pilgrimage to my favorite branch today to document it still in action.
DSC06331 by Sepp K posted Dec 26, 2020 at 11:25 PM How long has it been since you saw an untagged boxcar? NS 10K at Wyomissing JCT, Monday, 12/21/2020. The snow was all gone by Christmas Eve. I did gain an additional 5 feet of elevation scrambling up a snowplow pile. DSC06370 by Sepp K posted Dec 26, 2020 at 11:25 PM I think this is a load of miscellaneous hazmat liquid. I've never seen so many smilies on one car before. Also NS 10K
Yours are such fine pictures Hemi, capturing final glimpses into a century and a half of local Granger railroading. I'm guessing that farms dependent on elevators like this one will then have to truck their grain longer distances to a railhead? In a perverse way, the railroad might prefer that small elevators close in favor of increased tonnages from the larger ones.
Thank you so much! I appreciate your kind comments. The way class I railroads treat small (carload or less) customers seems to indicate their preference for instant gratification. Load large 100-plus car unit trains at a shuttle loader in less than a day and send it up the hill at 20 MPH. I don't know the economies of onesie-twosie carload service individualized by the needs of the customer, but it's probably the reason granger branches fell abandoned and embargoed so heavily in the 90s and later. The branch sees sufficient traffic at Ceres Ag at Northgate to make the branch sufficiently profitable to maintain operations, but the remaining shippers on the line see low tonnage/frequency. It really is a throwback to the granger branches of old, personalized service, and the way railroads used to be. Grain can be shipped from Pipeline Foods (about 20 road miles away at Bowbells), depending on the crop, but I don't have any insight on those details. BNSF elevators on the Glasgow Sub might include Berthold, Stanley, and perhaps others (served by 8831 Williston Turn). CP has service to elevators in the region too. Flaxton might have an elevator, Bowbells has a large one. Other railroads in NW ND could accept grain carloading: DMVW on the old Soo Wheat Line from Flaxton, ND to Whitetail, MT; and Northern Plains Railroad (NPR) from Kenmare (CP connection) to Lansford and points east for another Soo Wheat Line segment. Other than that, the old school elevators are dropping like flies in ND, and have been supplanted by monstrous shuttle loaders and modern, large volume elevators in most locations. If farmers around Niobe have to truck their grain to another elevator, it's not all that much farther, in the grand scheme of things, but price/bushel also impact where the farmer goes. For kicks and grins, yesterday while out on the Northgate Branch, I stopped in Kenmare to see what we could see, and found a nice dog's breakfast lashup of NPR engines laying over.
A couple in there with some interesting pedigrees. NPR 2297 is obviously a Santa Fe Geep rebuild, but sky blue 4005 drew my attention. That's an ex-CN GP9RM, and if it kept its former road number, one of those that was a GR-class road unit (others were GY yard engines and GS switcher engines). The hollowed-out dynamic brake blister - with air filters in lieu of dynamics - is a dead giveaway. Cool!
I enjoy seeing posts such as this one. I usually go back to the photo described, and spend some time taking in those details outlined. Quite interesting!
Sadly, this is what the RR's bean counter management has brought us. They essentially have cherrypicked the easy big dollar shippers. Cast off some to shortlines or driven others away. The trucking industry is ever so grateful! In an instance such as this one, the farmers either fold up or must invest in equipment for moving their harvests to the nearest railhead to ship. In the end, our retail food (and other commodities) prices sneak ever upward, thanks to those RR managers. Also, when one of those shippers they prefer slows, seasonally or otherwise, their profits suffer, as they have no alternatives. They must prop themselves up to maintain profitability appearances to the stock market. And then employees suffer furloughs or permanent job losses and facilities are shuttered- which harmfully impacts whole communities... All the while those RR executives continue collecting their paychecks, for what actually amounts to their being failures!
I never knew that! So NPR must have precious few engines with DB. Honestly, they have few grades, but they do have to navigate them with loaded grain trains. The trio of GP40-2s also non-DB; what is their lineage?
Saw this unusual but very interesting load yesterday. It will be heading west when the train leaves, somewhere via Laurel, MT, which is it's next stop?
Soo flat loaded with steel plate at Spiral, ND: Any ideas why the dome of this tank car is tarped over? Several cars in a block were so-treated.
