P.S. What concerns me the most is that 2544 is going to be on my Percy train this Saturday. I really hope they fixed it properly (i.e., changed out the wheelset), not just slapped a bandage on it. If it happens again, it won't be as easy as cutting it off and going -- Percy will be behind it, so it will have to be switched out. I don't want to be the one to tell hundreds of screaming kids and their pissed off parents they can't ride when they're scheduled to, maybe at all.

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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.

This is a "Grey American Amtrak trains" warning.

If you do not wish to view any of the above please browse to another page immediately


Thank you.

..............................................................................

As most of you know I am a bit of an Amtrak fanatic since finding a web can site that allowed me to watch the comings and goings of about 10 Amtrak trains a day.

I have happily been doing so since December 2014.

When in July this year the webcam site suffered a bad power failure while the owner was on a cruise, it meant no web cams for over a week.

This led me to look around and discovered a second site, this allowed me to see a further 8 Amtrak trains a day. I have posted pictures here from both sites.

There had been a rumour on the second site that they were about to have two more cams that would add even more Amtraks.

Well this week they arrived.

Just about here




Here is a town called Ashland in Virginia about 2 hours (by train) south of Washington and on what might be termed the "bottom of the North East Corridor". No Acelas or overhead wires here.

Courtesy of Virtual Railfan.com

This is looking north.



And this is south




Another American town built around the railroad, however this one still has a working Amtrak station that has 12 stopping services a day and as many through trains. The station is the building in the centre of the north view.

The trains of course are too long for the station and stop, well here.



Yes the train block the crossing, mostly it is only for a few minutes.

This was the 67 yesterday, Boston to Newport News

Most of the Florida services pass here even the Auto Train



So now I can see both, this is the 53 heading to Florida, it passes the other cam in the dark.

When the trains pass the south cam on the nearest track it's about as close as you can get without being there.



Specially if the light is right.



I have to admit to liking these cameras, it adds about 18-20 trains to my list, however it is impossible to see them all and still have a life!!

PS. The streetlight in the north cam view will be not be problem as this is a temporary spot for the cams, they will be moving to the next door building and going up a bit higher.

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Ok I have something, anyone remember UP 4014?



Here's a link that just showed up on FB.

Right now, No. 4014’s tender car is designed to carry coal. The steam team plans to convert it to carry oil.

“The logistics of coal are very impractical for a big boy,” Dickens said. “It can be a fire hazard.”

When a locomotive burns coal, the coal eventually burns down to ash and cinders. Those cinders travel up and out the smoke stack – eventually raining down on all the surroundings.

“Imagine the voracious appetite of a Big Boy burning 28 tons of coal in a matter of hours,” Dickens said. “That’s a lot of ash and cinder. With an oil burner, the locomotive doesn’t produce this kind of debris.”

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

I look forward to seeing UP 4104 in steam again.

Here is a quick one whith some blue in it!!

Just gone through Folkston


The CSX Officers Car Special or OCS for short.

I assume the train CSX uses to impress potential customers!!

Powered by two F40PH's

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The CSX Officers Car Special or OCS for short.

I assume the train CSX uses to impress potential customers!!

Powered by two F40PH's

Exactly.

Yes, ex-Amtrak.

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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.

Well, looking at the Spaulding Tower webcam, I see 2544 is back on the train with Percy already attached (but wearing his mask). Tune in sometime between 10 and 5 CDT Saturday to see me in and around him.

There has been a flurry of new bulletins this week. One says the ABS system is out of service between East Switch and West Johnson due to disconnected bond wires from rail replacement; Manual Block Rules are in effect for the Bend and Karstens blocks. Another bulletin says the Mainline is out of service from about 200 feet east of Signal 201/202 to Kishwaukee Grove due to rail replacement. Fortunately, that's as far east as Percy goes anyway, so it's not a problem for this weekend. On the other hand, the Mainline is now in service from Jefferson St. to the east switch of Schmidt Siding; the equipment stored there has been moved to the siding and Yard 13.

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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.

Bernie, Ashland looks like a perfect model railway project. Thanks for the shots.

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Bernie, Ashland looks like a perfect model railway project. Thanks for the shots.

Yes it is isn't it.

However things do not always go to plan as far as passengers are concerned.

Here is a group waiting for the train (indicated by the white arrow)



However it is not the train they are expecting



Worse the train they are expecting is arriving but on the other track



Now much has been made of the length of freight trains in the US so I expect the passengers were a bit worried as to how to catch the train.

Well luckily it waited the whole 3 and a half minutes it took the freight to pass.

However the passengers had not worked out that they needed to be on the other side, so once the freight had passed, they all had to walk to the front of the train where to cross the track to board on the correct side.




That was perhaps a bit comical, this however was definitely a safety concern.



Passengers are crossing the track to board the next train.

However they seem to have left it a bit late!!



This lead the engineer/driver to agitatedly sound the horn and Ashland is a "quiet zone" no horns allowed.

He actually had to come to a stop short of the station to let the stragglers across.




I know Ashland is an "unattended"station but both of those incidents would likely involve the RAIB over here due to the potential for injury.

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Looks like bad planning on the part of the RR. We have some similar stations here in eastern Canada, but VIA has electronic notice boards that tell you in advance what track your train will be on, in very simple terms ("11:45 to Toronto on the other side"). Busier stations, like here in London, have the notices plus a well lit tunnel under the tracks.

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...thanks for that bit of information Bill - in just over a month's time I will be heading out into the wilds of Canada by train....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

...thanks for that bit of information Bill - in just over a month's time I will be heading out into the wilds of Canada by train....

From my point of view, if you can get there by train, it's not the wilds. Getting to the wilds involves several days by canoe and/or snowmobile. Although some railroads herabouts let you combine modes of travel.

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Another wildfire near the Cajon Pass



The train on the camera is stopped and one right near the fire has been abandoned.

This was about 20 mins later

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Bill - to someone born and brought up in the UK anywhere more than 100km (60 miles) is "in the wilds".....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Bill - to someone born and brought up in the UK anywhere more than 100km (60 miles) is "in the wilds".....

Well, depends on where you are in Canada. Here in SW Ontario 100 km will take you through several little towns, and maybe one medium sized one. On the prairies 100 km is one or two farms over. In the Territories 100 km is a small bit of the trip to anywhere.

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A few hundred miles north of Bernie's pictures, it has been a wetter than usual summer in Alberta, and the flowers have lasted longer than usual. Photo taken on 6 August.

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Another wildfire near the Cajon Pass

The train on the camera is stopped and one right near the fire has been abandoned.

This one?

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So let me tell ya 'bout Thomas.

Saturday: I'm conductor of Percy (didja see me on the webcam?). I arrive to find the Santa Fe combine is back, but the Rock Island cars have been replaced with a Missabe coach, a Bessemer combine at the other end, and a couple of Lackawanna coaches. I commence with inspecting the journals (every one of which is friction). I soon find that some of the Lacks are really dry. (About this time, it starts to rain.) Furthermore, when I ask someone (I'm on the other side of the train) to get me the oil can from the depot, it's also dry. I have to get on the radio to ask where to get more oil. Someone from Electric Car refills the can for me. While he's doing that, I continue inspecting, leaving the covers open on the dry ones. Electric guy comes back and I show him how dry these journals are; he advises me to fill them more than normal to make sure oil gets soaked into the pads. I do so, and then 1630 is ready to couple on. There are still a few journals left to check; the helpful trainman from a couple weeks ago does them (turns out he has actual railroad experience).

1630 says the air is pumped up and we can do the initial brake test. I start walking from the head end back on one side while a steam guy does the other side. All does not go well. The details have slipped my mind already, but one of the Lacks had a sticking triple valve. Releasing and setting it again took care of it, with advice from Electric guy. The rain stops.

Meanwhile, the other trainmen are bugging me over trivial matters. I ignore the trivia and tell them that they will all report to the helpful one and he will report to me when we are ready to go.

There is a little Honda generator in the back of Percy's (and Thomas's) cab to run the face animator and sound, the fog machine, and the battery charger for the headlight. It's loud. Very loud. It's hard to hear the radio and 1630's whistle over it. There is also an option for all that to run on external power, but we don't have it. (There is another generator at the other end of the train that runs the sound system in the coaches.) Percy's whistle runs on air (there is a tank that charges from the train brake line, but does not directly affect it; well, there is also a blower to push the fog up the stack, and I was told if this runs at full blast it can cause a drain on the train line; I didn't need to use it at all). The facial movements also run on air. The generator has an "eco mode" so it throttles down to loud when there's no load and up to deafening when there is. The fog machine needs to heat the oil, so the more fog I use the more the generator runs at deafening. I try to keep it to a minimum, just the occasional puff when in the station.

In the morning, I brought in an electric fan, thinking I could plug it into the generator. I could have, but I didn't want it to run faster and the clouds and breeze told me I didn't need it. At lunchtime, I carried it all the way back down to where I'd parked and brought back my folding chair instead. This was highly necessary. Unfortunately, the sun came out in the afternoon and I could have used the fan after all. This week, I will take both, and I will find a way to drive close to the train so I only have to carry them a short distance, even if I still have to park far away.

The sound/face control box has four buttons: non-verbal default, story, exiting station, and entering station. The story button always causes Percy to tell about "Percy's Chocolate Crunch." I think the other two have a couple of variations each. (Thomas has more variations, some of them in Spanish.) When he speaks, the mouth is synced to the words.

The dominant feature in the cab is a big hand brake wheel, right in the center. It's a standard freight car brake, but it's huge in relation to the interior of the cab. There are two emergency brake valves on the front wall, and one pressure gauge. The valve on the right vents air right out its bottom, yet another threat to ear drum health. The one on the left has added piping so it vents through the floor. However, the gauge is on the right. We knew from last year that these valves (actually the pipes leading to them) are not big enough to give the necessary finesse to control the brakes like we do from a regular tailhose, but I found it rather easy to do a decent running brake test each time we headed back west. I just opened the valve until the gauge dropped about 10 lbs., then waited a couple of seconds for the engineer to notice the drop on his gauge. I would also feel the brakes starting to take hold.

Our schedule was to run at :15 and :45 every hour from 10:15 to 5:15, except 2:15 (lunch break). The engineer of 1630, on my highball, ran east for nine minutes and stopped. I'd tell him to head back west, then do the runner. This gave just a bit more time than was necessary for unloading and reloading, but that allows for difficulties. The first trip started about five minutes late (with the brake problems), but we made it up in the loading process in the first two trips.

Fortunately, none of the car bearings gave any trouble. I heard that when they moved the Santa Fe combine the morning after its hotbox, it screeched something terrible. I didn't notice that at the time, but I may not have been close enough.

End of the day, I made sure all the windows were closed, and locked those doors I could. Then I signed out and went to dinner with a few other guys.

Sunday: I was the west (actually south) wye switchtender. I did this twice last year. It's the easiest job in the whole show (doesn't even require me to be in uniform). It was supposed to have been made unnecessary this year, but Signal Dept. didn't get the switch powered in time. Nevertheless, when I do it again this Sunday, I fully expect to be the last Thomas switchtender. Signal and Track did get the Steam Service Lead switch converted to a spring switch, so there was less for the dispatcher to do. He would just put an orange cone on the Car Line, then issue Thomas an order to depart at the next scheduled time (:00 and :30) to Jefferson St. and return to Spaulding and call. Upon hearing this, I would go throw the wye switch. Then I would stand back, watch Thomas go by, throw the switch back, and go sit on my butt or just walk away until the next time. When Thomas's helper (IT 1605) whistled for Olson Road, the dispatcher would again place the cone and give the helper authority past Spaulding back to Thomasland. If I was sitting there, I would give the train a roll-by (as I did for the four streetcars each time they passed). Other than that, I read a book (Baa Baa Black Sheep, basis of the old TV show "Black Sheep Squadron"). I got through about 40 pages. Eventually, my still-achy left leg got tired of all that sitting and demanded that I walk around for a while.

After I restored the switch on Thomas's last trip, the dispatcher dismissed me. This time, I got a clean shirt out of my car and changed into it before dinner.

My itinerary for the coming weekend is the same. The weather is supposed to be even worse.

---

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

Amtrak names Wick Moorman as new CEO. He's the retired chairman of Norfolk Southern, who promised his wife he wouldn't take another railroad job. Another article I read said his salary will be $1/year, but with a $500,000 performance bonus.

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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.

Thomas and Percy, take 2.

Saturday: I arrive early enough that I can drive right down to the station platform and unload my grip, fan, and chair and put them in Percy. Then I drive back to where I'm supposed to park. Operation is pretty much the same, including the problem with the triple valve on the Lack car in the morning. Two Steam guys ride with me for the first trip, saying there are too many people in the cab of 1630. After that, Steam woman rides with me for a few. She's just learning, hasn't even learned the rulebook yet, but she likes to operate the face control box. Later on, I'm sitting there between runs and the triple valve in Percy starts hissing and the "banana bar" (part of the hand brake mechanism) starts to move. I call the head end and ask if he set the brakes; no, he hasn't touched it. I call for help again. Electric Car guy shows up first and looks at it, asks for a set and release, then says let's go for a ride. We're a minute past departure time, so I say highball on the radio for the only time all day. Everything appears to operate normally. When we return, a couple of Coach guys are there, so I explain it to them. Electric guy leaves. Coach guy says "that's normal for this thing." Okay. He and the second Coach guy ride with me anyway, then reassure me it's all normal, probably has to do with the auxiliary tank recharging itself. I say, okay, if you say so. I'd rather worry about nothing than not worry about something and wreck the train (I say that several times to several people). Second guy and another guy come for a ride again later.

Sunday: once again, the other two trainmen for Percy don't show, but it's not my problem. I'm switchtender again, for what is supposed to be the last time ever for Thomas. This is all pretty routine, except when Thomas leaves for the 3:30 trip I notice it has left a streak of oil down the center of the track. I'm about to point this out to the dispatcher when he calls for medics over by him. This turns out to just be a small child with a cut lip. Then I tell him about the oil streak. He tells me later that 1605 has an oil leak and the catch pan filled up and ran over. End of the day, General Manager wants Thomas and his whole train moved over to station track 1, Thomas cut off, and the rest of the train moved to 2 and coupled to the Percy train. The Thomas conductor and assistant have already gone off duty, so I volunteer. I find that Thomas is even less comfortable to work in than Percy. Head trainman from Percy comes to assist and we make the move as requested. I do something I very rarely do: step off a moving train. It was moving veerrrry slowly, though. But I still did it properly, trailing foot first, even though I would rather have used the knee on that side to lower myself. We make the joint without too much difficulty and dispatcher watches Percy to tell engineer how far he can shove. The train clears the main at the east end, but nothing would be able to get past 1605 from track 1. GM says to leave 1605 tied on and set the hand brake; engineer does so. Dispatcher drives trainman and me to the office in the Mobile Dispatching Office. Sign out, pee, wash grimy hands, go to dinner.

I walked over to see Superintendent at lunchtime Saturday and he laid a small bombshell on me (of the good kind). However, I don't want to jinx it by saying what it is right now. If it works out, I'll tell you in two weeks.

---

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

Thomas and Percy, take 2.



I walked over to see Superintendent at lunchtime Saturday and he laid a small bombshell on me (of the good kind). However, I don't want to jinx it by saying what it is right now. If it works out, I'll tell you in two weeks.

Good luck!

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