Life and Times of a urban railfan

"Friends are the siblings God never gave us" ~Mencius~             This is one of those cases where you wonder who had more fun, you or the other person. Every year our local shortline puts on a dinner special for the clients who use the railroads service. This time we caught wind of the dinner special a few days early and decided to give chase. That day would prove not only fun to us but also the whole train of clients and their families.  I got off work as usual and decided to head over to Dave's house to ride with him as my van was in no shape to be chasing trains. Once we got everything in the car we proceeded behind the shopping plaza near the yard to set up to try and catch the consist as it left the yard. While waiting for the train to get under way we got to see a few CSX trains including the Q016. Q-016 entertains us as we wait for the dinner train. With the Q016 out of sight we began to hear the dinner train p...

"As a child I used to think nap time was a punishment  now as an adult I think it is a mini vacation" ~Unknown       I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, that is where the story begins. I was sitting eating dinner with the family when my buddy Dave messaged me, and we discussed going out to Bellevue Ohio on Saturday. Well over the course of a few days those plans solidified and we decided to go. I arrived at his house at 4am and we proceeded to make the almost 2 hour drive out there. Upon arriving we were greeted with some pre-dawn trains going into and out of the yard. As the sun rose we managed to find a Wheeling train with Norfolk Southern power over on one of the connecting tracks. Not wanting to miss the opportunity of catching a sunrise with a train (one of my favorite things) I managed to get this picture right here. Fenced in power While the angle wasn't my favorite due to the industrial fencing paralleling the locomotiv...

Once on my Birthday my Old man gave me a bat .  The first day I played with it, it flew away  ~Rodney Dangerfield         This past summer during my time off I was able to bag a railroad that I always had wanted to but never had the time or the means to. That Railroad would be the R.J.Corman railroad. Now as close as the R.J.Corman comes to me is a town called Clinton Ohio at a small interlocking and interchange yard called Warwick. Sadly enough for most of us railfans they are a nocturnal move and very rarely do they ever move during the daylight, but for a rare moment in time I was able to catch them during the daytime.        It began with me getting off from the train shop almost an hour early and I decide to make my way over to my buddy Dave's house where the plan was to chill out and watch the parade of Gevos on the New Castle sub from his yard. We caught wind of the Q015 having BNSF power and ...

"Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light" ~Helen Keller.              I am back friends, I took a much needed sabbatical from not only my blog, but railfanning for the most part. I have been busy pursuing my amateur radio license and trying to fix the van to make it road worthy before winter. In early August I was granted my ticket (technician license)  to operate my radio that I had been busy fixing while I worked on my studies. After obtaining my license me and my buddy Dave decided to go to Alliance Ohio and watch trains. It was a warm September evening and thunderstorms had just finished rolling through the area. As the sky was clearing off we visited a local train shop and once we were done we headed trackside. That is when we heard a Westbound coming into Alliance and I got the bright idea to go and see if I could get a picture off the Martin Luther King bridge. Now this was no easy task due to the...

I told my psychiatrist everybody hates me.  He said I was being ridiculous- everybody hasn't met me yet . ~Rodney Dangerfield~               This past couple of weeks has been rough, how rough you ask? Well so rough that railroad rock feels like Charmin toilet paper. However at least I was rewarded with some great foreign power running on the sub.  BNSF ON Q138 Wednesday morning provided me with the pair of BNSF pumpkins on Q138  as I was headed into work. Later that day I would miss UP and other great power due to the fact of someone tricking me into meeting their daughter for lunch. The reason I say tricked is the way they described this girl as the most beautiful one and it might change my mind on what I desire, well the girl was a nice girl but far from the description heck, the nicest thing I could think to say was I liked her hair. Honestly the girl was a younger resemblance of Mi-Mi off the Drew C...

" The richness of life lies in the memories we have forgotten"  ~Cesare Pavese~                       Most of my experiences with trains has been positive throughout my life, however this particular night wasn't per say a bad experience for me but a interesting one to say the least.  It was on Sunday February 26th 1989 a night that certainly would remain in my memory for years to come. It began with a evening at Quaker square, I don't remember the details other than we ate at the restaurant and I wasn't supposed to go but I was pardoned at the last minute I don't remember by whom but I remember the joy of getting to go. As my mom drove us home I remember it was getting dark out and we were on our way home. About the same time the crew of the D812 local left Warwick  after setting off 11 cars and picking up 5 (4 cars and a second caboose) with 4 locomotives, ...

                                  I know it has almost been two months since my last post and I truly apologize to my followers who read this blog, to tell the truth I just haven't been myself lately. I had lost my passion due to a number of reasons, mainly people. I began with my boss telling me I had to much time on my hands and increasing my workload in order to wear me out after work and it worked for a while. but from time to time it would work out in my favor to catch something rolling through in the early morning or the early afternoon right after work but with my van acting up, the weather, and my work/Life schedule it just kept me from getting out trackside like I wanted. In my last post I talked about making room for more railfanning and I have, but somethings just haven't worked out in my favor yet. But what began t...