Drove to Ft. Benton to see grandkids for a few hours through a light spring blizzard Monday, Then homeward bound by the same route yesterday. The Central Montana Railroad runs from Geraldine, MT to Mocassin where they interchange with BNSF. Here's a few pics, This is Shep, And his story, These painting hang at the Pioneer hotel in Ft. Benton, The restored depot in Geraldine, And this lonely GN coach just east of Denton,
Taken a few days ago on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, a light engine move south of Spartanburg, SC at Fairforest.
Interesting that the move has no car(s). While back, a TB member posted that CSX's rules state an empty power move was limited to 35 mph. Whereas, if it was pulling just one car, it could run at track speed. 20+ years ago, 12 CSX engines went by my house pulling one box car at track speed, 50 mph.
Maybe they have an N scale car on a piece of track, we can't see, on rear loco's coupler. Then they would technically be "pulling" a car. Doug
Proving that anyone can have a pool in their yard... They'll need tugboats to do the switching in there... Interesting bit of history. And an inspiration for a new kind of weathering - flood damage.
This makes the second time I've seen a light engine move south from Hayne Yard in Spartanburg, SC. There's a huge BMW automotive plant in that direction and I'm guessing the power is headed there, but I'm not sure. Amusingly, there's a large wye adjacent to the plant with station names BAVARIAN, MOTOR and WORKS on each leg. Plant production exceeds 1500 vehicles a day, exporting nearly 70% of them. NS runs daily trains to the Port of Charleston for BMW.
Interesting sidebar about that factory. When it first opened, its first production was the BMW Z3 sports car. The first Z3's came off the line in March and were shipped immediately to Germany for announcement and release for sale in April. They were not allowed to be released for sale in the US until July of that year. Of course this was logical because they were "German" cars which had to be released first in Germany as if they had been made there. BTW, that plant and its rail yard are enormous. I passed many times on AMTRAK's Crescent as it was being built and during its early production. I'm sure it's more impressive now, twenty-five years later.
Some years ago I visited the BMW plant as chaperone with my daughter's school class and we all had a great time. All three chaperones were "gearhead" guys like me. At one point during the tour, our Host mentioned to the class that a manual transmission option had recently been deleted from a number of their vehicles and added, "How many of you drive a manual transmission anyway?" All three chaperones enthusiastically raised our hands. Our Host had no reply and we moved on .....
Manuals are the rule in Europe--automatic transmissions are the exception, although the luxury cars like BMW 5-series usually have slushboxes.
I was on the southside of US 90 on the Port of Gulfport Banana terminal. NOAA will have offices in the new building that's going up there so I was on an update tour. We were headed out of the facility when he blew to cross 90 and come work the piers. Had we not already been in line to clear security I would have filmed him properly.
Thanks, it must be a replacement for one of the regulars needing maintenance up in Jackson. Can't see its number, but it looks like Canadian heritage. P.S. thanks for identifying the owner of the new building. I was curious.