The Frecciarossa 1000 train by Ansaldo and Bombardier hs reached 400 km/h on the Milano-Rome leg but is limited to 300 km/h by state regulations. The train has almost kicked Alitalia out of business in this traveled route.
Tullio

That's good to hear.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

More great pics, Bernie.

The downtown tall buildings are well grounded for lightning strikes.

I will be riding trains 303 and 306 to St. Louis and back on Wednesday. My friend is doing a one-day charter with Caritas, so maybe I can hang out with him during the layover. It won't go by the camera, though, except maybe to turn the train after it gets back, but that will be well after dark, probably after midnight.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Now whilst this might not win any "green" awards, it is nice to see low emissions and recycling together.

This is UPY 892



Whilst it might not look much to the untrained "railfan" it is as the sign on the side proclaims.

"A Low Emission diesel Genset Switcher." That is instead of one large diesel engine and generator it has 3 smaller ones that are switched in and out as needed by computer control. But that is not all, it is manufactured by Railpower as an RP20CD, or perhaps that should be re-manufactured, as it started life as UP 3249 an SD40-2

Here is a link to a pic(I won't post here as it is copyright) of UP 3249 looking as bit jaded back in 2006. UP 3249

Nice to know that railroads are doing their bit!!

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Something local to Me, an SP escapee from the Paint Shop in Barstow CA, faded bloody nose and all. Photo taken by Steve Yates, permission to post I've got, I asked.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Now whilst this might not win any "green" awards, it is nice to see low emissions and recycling together.

This is UPY 892



Whilst it might not look much to the untrained "railfan" it is as the sign on the side proclaims.

"A Low Emission diesel Genset Switcher." That is instead of one large diesel engine and generator it has 3 smaller ones that are switched in and out as needed by computer control. But that is not all, it is manufactured by Railpower as an RP20CD, or perhaps that should be re-manufactured, as it started life as UP 3249 an SD40-2

Here is a link to a pic(I won't post here as it is copyright) of UP 3249 looking as bit jaded back in 2006. UP 3249

Nice to know that railroads are doing their bit!!

Railfans get a bit excited over those because they're so rare, although many ignore them because they're ugly and/or because they lament the loss of the old unit it's made from.

Railroaders don't much like them because they don't work very well. Amtrak has a pair in Chicago that probably don't have 50 hours of operation between them in the couple of years they've been there.

Railroads tend to buy them only when local or state governments give them a financial incentive (either direct money or tax credit) to help reduce pollution in a dirty metropolitan area such as Los Angeles or Houston.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Something local to Me, an SP escapee from the Paint Shop in Barstow CA, faded bloody nose and all. Photo taken by Steve Yates, permission to post I've got, I asked.

Surprised to see that in CA. At its age, I'd expect it to belch enough visible exhaust smoke for the public to report it to the state, which will issue UP a fine.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Something local to Me, an SP escapee from the Paint Shop in Barstow CA, faded bloody nose and all. Photo taken by Steve Yates, permission to post I've got, I asked.

Surprised to see that in CA. At its age, I'd expect it to belch enough visible exhaust smoke for the public to report it to the state, which will issue UP a fine.

Yeah, but I think UP needed the extra HP, so the UP may have worked on the prime mover, I have read there is a locomotive shortage.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

There was a foreign Race Horse in town today, this pic is also by Steve Yates.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

A super rare B40-8 in Blue and Yellow was in town also, by Steve Yates.

Plus 3 Geeps in the yard, also by Steve Yates.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Good stuff there, Vic.

My trip to St. Louis tomorrow is off. Caritas is still going, but my friend is sick and got someone to replace him, so I'm not riding either.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Good stuff there, Vic.

My trip to St. Louis tomorrow is off. Caritas is still going, but my friend is sick and got someone to replace him, so I'm not riding either.

Thanks David, when Steve Yates posts more, I'll see about putting a few more here.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Here is an odd one I had never heard of before.

ICE 6214 an SD40-2

ICE Stands for Iowa Chicago and Eastern

Apparently formed in 2002 and swallowed up by Canadian Pacific in 2008.



Interesting history - "Built by GMD as CP 5682 (12/1974). Sold to National Railway Equipment (1/2005), became NREX 5682. Acquired by Iowa, Chicago & Eastern (2006), became ICE 6214"

So it was originally a Canadian Pacific loco to start.

I have to admit to not really understanding how US freight railroads work.

The track at Chesterton is owner by Norfolk and Southern and their trains do indeed seem to make up most of the traffic. However as can be see this is a CP train, or is it? Loco number 4 is an NS loco.




So my question is how and why do mixed locos, sometimes 3 or 4 different companies get on one train, and just who drives, I assume that the train in the pic has a "CP" engineer at the controls.

What I mean is if you can drive one ES44AC then you can drive any ES44AC belonging to a rival?



Or not?

I suspect the answer is simple.

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The locos would all have to have MU capability(Multiple Unit) or be upgraded to do this if they didn't have the capability, but being the locos had been owned by CP, what can I say? MU just allows one engineer to control a bunch of locos in a trains consist as if they were one giant loco, how this is done exactly, is beyond My knowledge.

As to the locos winding up in ICE ownership after being sold by the CP and then ICE becoming part of CP and the locos becoming CP locos again, I don't think anyone knew that was going to happen.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Bernie, up here in the North MU lashups are almost always driven from the front engine, and the front engine is almost always from the line operating the whole train. This is done because you want a local engineer driving, and you want all the communications equipment (voice and data) that your line needs at his command. This would make your photos a CP train. There are of course exceptions, but only when the leased/rented equipment has the right gear fitted out, or another line's engineer is familiar with the stretch of track. In Canada train crews generally only operate on a few hundred miles of track, trains that cover longer distances switch crews at regular intervals. The crews I talk to prefer this, since it means they get home at the end of each shift, even though the train may roll on for another few days,

As for the mix of markings in a single consist, it is all economics. Each line wants to own just enough engines, not too many, for their volume of traffic. When "stuff" happens (we use another word for "stuff" in North America) you do what you have to to keep the trains running. If your line can quickly come up with your own spare engine when "stuff" hits the fan, your accountants will tell you you own too many engines, and you need to look into leasing or selling some. If you have been following your accountants advice for some time, then when "stuff" hits your line you have to look elsewhere for motive power.

The last 5 years or so in Canada (and I think in the US) has seen freight volumes rise faster than the factories can turn out new equipment (combination of oil by rail and growth in bulk freight like ores and grains). All the lines are scrambling every day to put together something that runs. This makes for interesting times for the spotters, as some of your photos and Vic's photos show.

Vic is right, the MU interface is pretty standard, permitting one cab crew to run multiple engines (even different models) at the same time. The key is how the cab crew fits into the block control / track control used locally, and that usually depends on the gear in the front cab. From my work with Electromotive here in London, very similar looking locos can have very different equipment in the cabs when they leave the factory, depending on which line they are going to. Updates over the years only make this worse.

The NS regularly runs complete trains over the CP line south of where I live, this is the old "lake level line" that was funded by US railroads in the 1880s to bypass Pennsylvania mountains when connecting Chicago to the US east coast. I assume the NSF locos and crews are equipped and trained to run on what is now a CP track.

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Sorry I didn't make myself clear.

The locos would all have to have MU capability(Multiple Unit) or be upgraded to do this if they didn't have the capability, but being the locos had been owned by CP, what can I say? MU just allows one engineer to control a bunch of locos in a trains consist as if they were one giant loco, how this is done exactly, is beyond My knowledge.

That I understand very well and is not really what I am saying.

You as an NS engineer turn up for your rostered duty, can you only ever be in control of an NS loco?

So the rail companies like NS lease out engines they don't have enough of to companies like CP?

What I meant was do they just use the engines that are available or is there a strict policy as to who can run what where and which engineer can be in charge of which trains?

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And another "oddity" was on the rear of The Lake Shore 49

Saw it passing Chesterton earlier but couldn't read the number, not quite "PV"



It is FRA DOTX 216 High-Speed Research Vehicle

Read about it HERE

Here is another view, seems the "wye" was out of use for most of today, as you can see they used the main for the reverse.

Then came back on the passing track.

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Bernie, the Canadian railways I'm familiar with have strict rules about who is qualified to run what engine. It is very unlikely that a CP engineer would be asked to sit in the cab of somebody else's loco. It is much less likely that a non-CP person would be in a CP cab.

Since my last post I talked to someone who knows the NS business here in Ontario. Those NS trains running on CP rails in Ontario have NS crews, but the crews are Canadians home-based in St. Thomas (just south of here), and they are trained to run on, and only run on, the CP line. There are probably other similar deals in place for particular routes.

To be more specific about some of the "stuff" can happen here: buying locos is a long term business, contracts are signed today for engines to be delivered over several years. The quantities contracted for are based on expected traffic volumes over a several year period. That is, at best, an educated guess.

By the time the engines are delivered, contracts have shifted, one mine has gone out of business unexpectedly and another has gone to triple shifts, etc. The railway companies get together, sign mid term and long term lease deals, and shiney new engines go to where the business is.

On top of that, there is the day to day "stuff" when one engine goes unserviceable, or a class gets a sudden recall notice. That is when you are likely to see the really old stuff dug up from a back siding somewhere and put back into service.

Leased or rented engines are almost never the lead engine, with a crew in it. As long as they have a standard MU fitment, the crew doesn't need to know much about the engine, or even get into the cab.

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Before I get into replying to the other posts and forget about it, train 6 on Friday should have new electric 647 on it. Also, three Iowa Pacific cars will leave town on Sunday on train 5. They will return in a couple of weeks on train 8, which comes into the north side of the station. If you're very lucky, you might catch the train being wyed some time after it arrives; keep in mind that contrary to what most trains do, it will pull forward into the wye and back out.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Different railroads equip their engines with different sets of electronic add-ons in the cab, but the basics are all pretty much the same. Any engineer should be able to run anything he climbs onto, and if he can't, he asks his supervisor or the help desk. Therefore, almost anything can run on any railroad. Very early in the diesel age, each builder had its own system of controlling multiple units, but the railroads more or less demanded that they standardize on one system, the EMD 27-pin cable. Even then, different roads wired them differently, but as run-through power became more common they standardized that too. Now, I'd be really surprised if any two engines you find out there are not MU compatible. (History is repeating itself, however, in the field of radio control for Distributed Power; there are two or three incompatible systems.)

The major exceptions to that are in the area of older cab signal and signal-compliance systems. Anything that runs on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor has to have its ACSES system. Anything on any of Union Pacific's ex-Chicago & North Western commuter lines out of Chicago (but not the freight-only "New Line" to Milwaukee) has to have their ATS or ATC (one line is different from the other two), and on the west line, this requirement extends well beyond commuter territory, all the way across Illinois and Iowa to Omaha and Fremont, Nebraska. Amtrak has to install the old Santa Fe ATS system on its engines that lead the Southwest Chief for it to be allowed to go 90 in Kansas and New Mexico. Anything that runs on Metra's Rock Island District has to have their cab signal system or it's restricted to 40 MPH.

When radio was first introduced, the sets installed on trains and the hand-helds issued used crystals and only had a few channels, so the lead engine almost always had to be the home road, but now the standard is synthesized radios capable of all 91 AAR channels at the push of a few buttons.

The CP trains going by Chesterton use trackage rights to connect Chicago to CP's own property via Detroit. Just as with Bill's example of NS crews on CP in Canada, they are (AFAIK) CP employees trained to run on NS and probably nowhere else. Crews that can run out and get back to their home base the same day are really lucky; mostly, crew districts are based on how far they should be able to go in a legal working day. The railroad puts them in a motel for the minimum rest period and they run back home the next day. I was surprised to learn that BNSF crews can run any route in northern Illinois: Chicago to Galesburg via either the Santa Fe or the Burlington; Chicago to La Crosse, WI; or Galesburg to La Crosse. Probably, crews based out of Galesburg can do not only those runs but also go to southern Illinois via the Beardstown sub; St. Louis via West Quincy, MO; Kansas City via either the Santa Fe or the Burlington; or across Iowa. However, before they can run any of these lines, they have to qualify on it -- make several trips with another qualified crew to tell them what to do and where: where the up and down grades are, where the speed restrictions are, etc., and what their landmarks are for all of these. (Trying to learn this stuff for the five mile museum railroad gives me new respect for the guys doing it for hundreds of miles on multiple routes.) CN crews based in Chicago (Markham, actually) do the same on any of their routes around the area, and they have twice as many predecessor companies as BNSF. I suppose it's the same for the other Class Ones. Oh, and on top of that, many are also qualified on specific bits of other railroads in the Chicago area, mostly for the purpose of delivering trains to each others' yards (or their own, if the other road is a major shortcut). Examples: BNSF trains coming from Minneapolis and going to Logistics Park Chicago, which is located in Joliet, enter Eola Yard in Aurora, then take CN (ex-EJ&E) to Joliet where they go back to BNSF rails for the last few miles to LPC. BNSF crews can also run on CSX (B&OCT) to one of their yards on the south side of Chicago. UP uses Indiana Harbor Belt to get from their former C&NW lines to their rights on CN to Joliet to reach their Global 4 yard adjacent to LPC. Almost everybody has rights on IHB and Belt Railway of Chicago to reach their yards or others'. Indiana Rail Road owns former Milwaukee Road track in southern Indiana; along with it, it got rights on CSX (including on the CSX/UP joint line) to Chicago to interchange with CP at BRC's Clearing Yard, but their rights go nowhere else on BRC; their power tends to run through on CP to Minneapolis (or farther, I'm not sure), but with CP crews and CP train symbols.

So, there are two main reasons why one road's power runs on another: either the "foreign" road has trackage rights, or the two (or more) roads have a run-through agreement, which is usually for unit trains. The reason you see so much NS and BNSF power going by the Chicago camera is oil trains between North Dakota and east coast refineries. Some trains have NS power, some have BNSF. Either way, it's easier to leave it on from origin to destination and back again than to change it when the train crosses a property line.

How then does it get all jumbled? As Bill said, sometimes one is bad ordered and switched out for another, or a whole set will get reassigned to a different pool; several of NS's heritage units have spent months roaming the northwest and southwest US on BNSF because of this, not returning to NS until they were due for their 180 day inspections. Last year, a BNSF engine terminal manager who was a railfan had trains come into his terminal (I want to say in Nebraska or Kansas, but I don't remember) with UP and NS heritage units on them. Each train had a defect with one of the other engines in its set. So what did he do? Naturally, he put the UP and NS heritage units together on the same train and sent it on out further west. Then, as soon as his shift ended, he went home and got his camera so he could take pictures of the train in a few places. So, in the case of the CP train with the NS unit trailing, it probably ran onto CP on an oil or ethanol train, then was pulled off for some reason and reassigned to another CP train, and just got mixed into their pool. They will pay NS for its use on a horsepower-hour basis. Also last year, an empty oil train with an NS heritage unit was reassigned (the whole train) so that when it was loaded it was sent to CSX for delivery to a refinery they serve. While on CSX, it had a minor collision, just enough to bad order it. The rules are that even though CSX could have delivered it straight to NS just a few short miles away, it had to send it several hundred miles back to BNSF at Chicago, which then returned it to NS.

All these little complexities are what make watching North American railroads so much fun.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Oh, forgot to mention, IC&E...

Soo Line, then a distinct subsidiary of CP, bought the Milwaukee Road out of bankruptcy in 1986, I believe. They sold everything that remained in Iowa (the line to Omaha was already abandoned) and from Iowa to Chicago, Kansas City, and La Crescent, MN (with trackage rights to Minneapolis) to I&M Rail Link; this company had the same corporate parent as Montana Rail Link and used the same paint scheme, just adding an I to the front of the reporting mark. They let both the service and the property decline considerably, and after five years sold it to Dakota Minnesota & Eastern, which ran it as their new sister company Iowa Chicago & Eastern. They improved it a little. Meanwhile, DM&E was hatching a plan to build into the Wyoming coal fields, but they couldn't afford it. Eventually, they sold both railroads to CP, which combined them under the DM&E name, which is held as a separate US subsidiary from Soo. BUT, last year, CP sold most of the original DM&E to shortline conglomerate Genessee & Wyoming, which runs it as the Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern. What's left of the DM&E paper railroad is almost entirely former IC&E lines. Meanwhile, Soo had been more fully integrated into CP. Both Soo and DM&E now operate as part of the whole CP system, although they remain separate railroads on paper.

So yes, CP sold off some of its older engines, only to get them back again when it acquired the IC&E. And yes, it's not unheard of for RCPE engines to go east to Canada on CP trains, either still in DM&E blue and yellow or G&W's orange.


(Just to confuse you even more, DM&E was originally Chicago & North Western's "Cowboy Line" across southern Minnesota and South Dakota.)


Separately from all of this, CP also bought the Delaware & Hudson out of bankruptcy. Just this year, it sold part of it in New York and Pennsylvania to NS, with which it will fit nicely.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.