Spent Sunday through Wednesday on one of those "free....with 90 minute timeshare sales pitch" vacations in Minden Nevada. We were of course uninterested, but it did give us a chance to spend some time in Tahoe, but also in Virginia City. We only had time for the short trainride from VC to Gold Hill, but we got a great view of the train to Carson City descending the grade past Gold Hill. The trip was fun. Minden in the Carson Valley is greener than the rest of the state and literally, Tahoe was on the other side of a mountain. 20 minute drive over the hill. We all had fun. Alas, the Trip home on 80 yeilded no trains on Donner, but we were in a hurry.
Here's a... whatchamadoodle.. thingamabob... errmm... IMGP1656A_CNR_Whatsit by Mike VE2TRV posted Jun 24, 2016 at 7:58 PM It's some kind of inspection vehicle used by CN. In the distance you'll see the CP Cadillac I posted a couple of weeks ago.
One of my top favorites of all of the NS Heritage units, the VGN. Reminds me of a big ol' Lionel. I'll never find one perfectly spotted like this again. April 2013, Columbia, SC.
The Los Angeles area Metrolink is using BNSF AC4400s on the cab car ends of most trains due to what they call a design flaw in the Rotem cab cars (which were acquired to replace the Bombardier cab cars).
My hands were literally shaking as the sight of this locomotive came into view. Although I was in a very safe place on the periphery of the yard, I quickly shot a half-dozen views in case NS ran me off. When no one appeared, I took a deep breath and took my time getting good pictures. Then, when I was done, I double checked my camera to be sure all was well. The Heritage Units rarely come though Columbia, SC.
That top one looks like someone took a tank and put it on rails... that turret and short gun mean you don't mess with this piece of rolling stock! The bottom one looks like someone added metal plates on top of the body of my whatsit... I went to Exporail (Canadian Railway Museum) yesterday - it was the last day (and a holiday) that the main bridge going from Montreal to the south shore was unfettered by construction work for the next eight weeks - and I recovered the photos from my camera today (my SD card reader gave up the ghost). I'll have lots of nice new photos of shiny engines in bright sunshine.
That top one is a German armored railcar from the Russian front (primarily at least) with an early Panzer IV turret, 75mm howitzer.
This might be a little bit interesting. Cloaked in our usual summer forest fire smoke, are a pair of BNSF SD40-2 units. Note sequential unit numbers, 6818 and 6819, but different paint schemes. These stayed around for a while, mostly as helpers on Marias Pass. But on occasion, they were grabbed for another task. This view they are taking a work train east up onto the Pass, from Whitefish:
You mean without a bnsf patch? Or a patched superfleet or cubscout? Cause you'll still see those. I saw a couple cubscouts in Richmond Ca. A few months back.
We still see some wandering through here, but not as many as even a year ago. I believe a fair number have been stored with recent downturn in power needs. Last I heard, they had 1600+ units laid up in various conditions.
Yeah, consider that all the superfleet units are dc...although I get the impression that the dash9 fleet has more units active right now than the ac4400 fleet.
I would not be surprised to learn this is true. My guess then would be they are essentially wringing the last dollars out of those, before leases end, etc.
