The Real Terminator
west coating coils
One thing I've been wanting to catch for years finally presented itself to me on Saturday. INLX 802, an old GE 65-Ton Centercab switcher has been on the property of ArcelorMittal's West Coating plant for about 2 1/2 years now, and has been on my list as West Coating is one of the only publicly viewable steel plants in the entire region. So, simply driving by to get dinner after a somewhat lackluster day yielded a pickup truck driving into the plant with a terribly generic sticker that read "Switching Crew". With high hopes, I rushed back to the scene 20 minutes later to find that they had already began moving coil cars around the plant's yard. Thankfully, there was quite a bit of switching to do so plenty of opportunities to get some shots of something moving that no one has ever posted photos of running before.
"So that puts us here." INLX 802 and a handful of coils proceed to block Riley Road as the crewmember on the ground throws switches for their next shove, as the sun begins to set.
As an aside for anyone interested, I was expecting these guys to yell at me and call plant security immediately once they laid eyes on me. On the contrary, while the locomotive was sitting in the crossing waiting for their next move, the employee running the train expressed great interest in my love of railroad photography, and even happened to be a train enthusiast himself. Driving away, I gave a final wave to the crew inside the plant, expecting no one to see me. A bunch of blasts of the horn indicated that I was indeed wrong in my assumption again.
Never judge a book by it's cover folks.
west coating coils
One thing I've been wanting to catch for years finally presented itself to me on Saturday. INLX 802, an old GE 65-Ton Centercab switcher has been on the property of ArcelorMittal's West Coating plant for about 2 1/2 years now, and has been on my list as West Coating is one of the only publicly viewable steel plants in the entire region. So, simply driving by to get dinner after a somewhat lackluster day yielded a pickup truck driving into the plant with a terribly generic sticker that read "Switching Crew". With high hopes, I rushed back to the scene 20 minutes later to find that they had already began moving coil cars around the plant's yard. Thankfully, there was quite a bit of switching to do so plenty of opportunities to get some shots of something moving that no one has ever posted photos of running before.
"So that puts us here." INLX 802 and a handful of coils proceed to block Riley Road as the crewmember on the ground throws switches for their next shove, as the sun begins to set.
As an aside for anyone interested, I was expecting these guys to yell at me and call plant security immediately once they laid eyes on me. On the contrary, while the locomotive was sitting in the crossing waiting for their next move, the employee running the train expressed great interest in my love of railroad photography, and even happened to be a train enthusiast himself. Driving away, I gave a final wave to the crew inside the plant, expecting no one to see me. A bunch of blasts of the horn indicated that I was indeed wrong in my assumption again.
Never judge a book by it's cover folks.